Digital services platform My Smart City says it has seen support for its services grow in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and eThekwini.

The team is planning to connect to all municipal systems to enable the automation of information flow from citizens, notes service delivery software company Acumen Software, which developed the platform.

“As call volumes have increased through our platform and with the day-to-day interactions between our dispatch centre and the various municipal call centres, municipalities have expressed their realisation that we are not a threat to them, but rather a channel through which citizens are able to log issues in a simple and effective manner,” says Acumen Software CEO Joao Zoio.

The City of Cape Town and Johannesburg's City Power have integrated My Smart City platform into their systems. The platform enables citizens to log their service delivery issues on the mobile app or website.

It is free to citizens in the cities it operates in, and aims to change the way citizens, businesses, community groups and public sector service providers communicate and collaborate.

Further, citizens can also rally together through the new My Smart City social feed, which has a news feed and an alerts feed. The alerts feed is used to share information about load-shedding, water outages, power outages, natural disasters and roadworks.

The news feed allows users to view, create, share and engage with posts created by those within their areas.

This could include a ward councillor, a neighbourhood watch group or a concerned neighbour. It is a channel where people can raise concerns and receive real-time feedback not only from concerned neighbours but active community groups as well.

“To give citizens a voice and be the bridge that builds relationships between all stakeholders, My Smart City hopes to assist in the repair of city infrastructure, build citizen morale and ease some of the burden on local municipalities. Bringing citizens and public service providers together through technology creates efficiency and accountability,” Zoio says.