Jakarta’s Smart City app ready to partner with local tech startups

Ii Kurnia, head of communication for the Jakarta Provincial Government (left) with Alberto Ali, head of tech for Jakarta Smart City.

Jakarta is a megacity with a bad rep for underserving its inhabitants. Regular floods, fires, record-breaking traffic gridlocks, and pollution make life in Indonesia’s capital a daily stress test. But the tide is slowly turning as Jakarta’s government, now under the leadership of governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, is discovering how to make communication technology work in its favor.

Under the label “Smart City,” the government recently launched a program to apply technology solutions for more citizen participation, better citizen services, and more accountability and transparency in the local administration.

The product launched in December, and citizens can now visit the website to find information visualized on a map about traffic conditions, weather, threat alerts, and a variety of other notifications about the state of Jakarta. Using Google Maps’ API, the app pulls data from various sources including third-party and government resources.

The web app already has API integration with traffic-reporting site Waze and Twitter, but its most important partner is local player Qlue. Qlue is a mobile app through which people can create real-time reports that show up on the Smart City website.

Opportunities for entrepreneurs

At Social Media Week Jakarta 2015 (SMW), Ii Kurnia, head of public relations for the Jakarta Provincial Government – along with Alberto Ali, head of tech for Jakarta Smart City – gave a keynote presentation, updating the public about the state of Jakarta’s Smart City program.

Currently the app has 15,000 registered users, according to Ali, but he didn’t comment on how many of those were active. He adds that the website has only received 800,000 page views since its launch in mid-December. As Jakarta boasts a population of of more than 10 million, clearly there’s room for growth.

The government has already allocated Rp 3.5 billion (US$278,000) to the program and is ready to invest another Rp 30 Billion (US$2.4 million) in 2015. According to Ali, some 100 staff at the city council are already working with the app, processing reports, and analyzing crowdsourced data.

This commitment opens up interesting opportunities for startups with technologies and services that could be integrated into Smart City Jakarta. Ali says the city is open for collaboration and ready to talk to local startups.

See: Jakarta government releases an app that lets residents complain about public infrastructure

(Update 2/26/15: This article has been updated to show that Ii Kurnia is in fact the head of communication for the Jakarta Provincial Government. Initially we named him as Cucu Ahmad Kurnia, which was an identity mistake on our part.)