UpCity

Imagine Cup 2009 - Software Design Winner

„Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems.”

Our project, UpCity, is a collaborative platform that proposes a partnership for the development of local communities, by

engaging citizens and authorities to collaborate in solving the issues they are facing. We offer a Web platform used by

citizens, authorities and NGOs to identify and solve issues, as well as propose and promote development projects.

UpCity raises awareness when an issue is indentified, allows the entire community to comment and assess relevancy, and

then improves the flow of information between interested parties until a solution is chosen, applied and finally reassessed

through feedback so that on a grander scale effective solutions receive visibility and become easier to replicate. Information

is presented based on geographic context, on a real-time global map. Based on the interaction within one community (e.g.

positive/negative feedback), a composite index is computed, CityRank, to help promote a constructive competition

between communities.

By offering an intuitive means of collaboration, UpCity encourages citizens to overcome complacency and become

responsibly involved in solving the issues their community is confronted with. Our project helps increase the speed of

information flowing towards authorities and provides a means of tracking local problems. Through local statistics we can

obtain an informal impact analysis of reported problems, which helps authorities prioritize and more efficiently manage

their resources. By modeling all aspects of solving an issue, we provide improve authorities’ efficiency and ensure

transparency.

On a grander scale, UpCity fosters collaboration between different communities, through global tag-based navigation and

the similar solution finder. Another important feature is the timeline, which plots the evolution of a community’s problems

over time, from being identified to (hopefully) being solved and removed from the map.

Benefits

Engages citizens, together with authorities, in solving problems their community faces.

Rich user interaction, with real-time updates on a community map.

A timeline of local problems, to easily assess the efficiency of local authorities.

Promotes success stories globally, but also gives visibility to bad solutions to avoid replication.

Uses the Social Web to improve the lives of entire communities.

‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ University

Faculty of Computer Science

Sytech UpCity

The following are use case examples:

Rezolvarea problemelor locale

Andrew notices that every time it rains, a nearby street gets flooded, but nobody seems to notice the problem. So

he uses UpCity to post the issue, which attracts initial attention and a number of people who live close to him

promote the issue, since they too were faced with it many times before. Given the community validation, the

problem ends up in a report sent automatically to the mayor’s office. Immediately a crew is sent to assess the issue

at the location pinpointed on the map and within days, the sewage system is fixed.

Mobility: UpCity SmartClient

Nick, who works for the mayor’s office, passes through an area of the city in which he sees a problem: a park

administered by the city hall was left unattended and is now unusable. Using a smart mobile device with a GPS

module, he reports the problem on the spot. Back at the office, Nick exports a report to start formal proceedings in

fixing the problem. Citizens in the area see the posted issue and comment about the situation. An informal impact

analysis can be made.

Development projects

Development projects or grants often go through public assessment before being accepted. Using UpCity, this

process is simplified, since citizens will notice the project and know which area it will affect. They can then vote for

or against the idea.

Project Status

Following the success our project has had in Imagine Cup 2009 (Software Design, 1st

place), we have entered a partnership

with the city hall of our city (Iaşi, Romania) and have deployed an internal Alpha of the project. We are actively developing

an open Beta for the following months.