The top four winners of the first Responsive Cities Challenge (RCC) will be announced today, following a workshop between participants and judges this week.
The Responsive Cities Challenge is an open data challenge organised by the Open Government Partnership South Africa (OGP SA), Open Data Institute (ODI) and a number of local partners such as the Innovation Hub and Youth IT organisation, Geekulcha.
According to the Innovation Hub, the aim of the challenge is to encourage developers, designers, researchers and entrepreneurs to use available open data from various municipalities across SA to develop applications, stories and visualisations that can help residents work better with local government and seek solutions to existing social challenges.
In its first edition, the challenge, themed 'Responsive Cities' received more than a 100 entries from each of the four participating cities - Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Kimberley and eThekwini. Now in its final round, there are only four teams left, each representing their city, adds the Hub.
The overall winning team will walk away with a R50 000 cash prize, plus an additional R300 000 which will be used to further develop their project. The three top teams from each city will receive a R10 000, R4 000 and R1 000 cash prize respectively.
Tiyani Nghonyama, COO and CTO of Geekulcha, says it's important to release data as it increases municipal interaction and transparency with residents, which in turn increases service delivery.
"The challenge aims to encourage local municipalities to release certain data to the public. The release of data will provide better insight into what's happening within communities and it can be useful in seeking solutions. There are many forms of data which is released such as: how long patients wait at hospitals and clinic queues before receiving medication, how many informal fires take place each month, the types of crimes which take place in certain areas and the demographics of the perpetrators," he explains.
The winners will be announced this afternoon on the RCC Web site and social media platforms of the Innovation Hub, Geekulcha and Open Data Durban.
Among the innovations that were entered into the challenge were mobile apps, Web based portals and data analytic systems which aim to resolve community challenges in SA's cities.
Don Pitsoe, specialist at the Innovation Hub, says the four cities focused on different social issues depending on the severity of the challenges in each city.
"The city of Ekurhuleni has released data to resolve issues within the healthcare sector, while the city of eThekwini focuses on using open data to communicate with government and also fight crime.
Tshwane would like to see how to reduce copper theft, which is a major challenge in the communities and in Kimberley we want to create more awareness regarding the use of water and create solutions which identify where the highest use of water is," he concludes.
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