Team Thor from Universitas Kanjuhuran Malang won the third CityApp held in conjunction with CityNet’s 33^rd Executive Committee Meeting and International Seminar in Sidoarjo, Indonesia.

Following the first two successful CityApps in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Makassar, Indonesia, this year’s appathon were attended by more than 150 university students across East Java region.

CityApp is an innovative series of events designed to create web and mobile applications to help citizens, businesses and governments better address urban challenges. CityNet and Microsoft continue their partnership to hold the appathon in 2015 together with Sidoarjo Regency and Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo as the hosts.

The winning app was created to help the city in addressing road infrastructure problems. Road Infrastructure Report or ROAR is a Cloud based app that allows citizens to capture photos and send reports of poor road conditions using their smartphone’s GPS (Global Positioning System) to the local authorities. The runner-up, team Santoso Gaming from Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang aimed at addressing similar issue, road infrastructure. They believed damaged road would decrease productivity and the city’s economy. On the third place, Capil Pantau from Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo attempted to improve the administrative proceedings through a web-based mobile application accessible for the public.

The participants of CityApp Sidoarjo competed to develop various modern solutions through mobile based applications to six strategic issues proposed by Sidoarjo Regency:

1. Population/demographic administration: The application is expected to facilitate public access to settlement services and accelerate the process of demography administration documents.
2. Clean water services: The application is expected to make it easier for citizens to find information and simplify bill payments. In addition, the public will find it easier to report any disruptions and enable the PDAM to be more responsive in dealing with service disruptions.
3. Road infrastructure: Accelerate the local government response to repair damaged roads and bridges.
4. Public service complaints: The establishment of a mobile application for the Public Complaints Service Center and follow-up treatment to facilitate public complaints and accelerate the government response to the complaints.
5. Land and building taxes: The application is expected to facilitate taxpayers and increase the access to taxation services, which will increase local revenues from the Land and Building Taxes sector.
6. Licensing services: The application is expected to facilitate the public to access any necessary information related to the licensing services in Sidoarjo.

“Incredible innovation in today’s digital tools have the potential to enable rapidly growing cities like Sidoarjo to grow their economy, stimulate job growth, and create a modern, safe, educated, and healthy community,” said Microsoft Asia Public Sector Vice President Stefan Sjöström.

CityNet Secretary General Vijay Jagannathan said, “CityApp is an ideal way to employ technology that is citizen-centered, responsive and efficient to better address urban challenges in Sidoarjo by tapping into the talent of hundreds of young potential software developers. The apps expand income opportunities from the rich and poor, for youth and older citizens through the Gig economy. We believe CityApp is the best example for other cities to come up with smart city initiatives.”

Find out more about the winning app presentation here.