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Each of the four winners will receive R500,000 and an opportunity to pilot their solutions with the city’s departments or entities.

Every week there are reports of service delivery protests across the country. If you go to social media on a daily basis, someone is posting about how their city, town, village or township is falling apart.

South Africans are frustrated with power cuts, crime, potholes, water leaks, illegal businesses, illegal dumping, squatter camps and gender-based violence.

And frustrated community members continuously say it appears that very little is being done by the authorities.

To try to find solutions for social and service delivery issues in Johannesburg the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) started a yearly Smart City Innovation Challenge where they search for digital technology solutions to help citizens stay connected and allow businesses, citizens and public administrations to find ways to respond faster and in a more integrated way to both crisis situations and daily life.

The city recently announced four winners and Eyewitness News spoke to Nelson Sekgota, the Tshimologong Makerspace manager and project manager for the City of Johannesburg Smart City Innovation Challenge, about the Innovation Challenge.

The winners are Arthur Mahlangu from microenterprise digital assistance company QH Consultants, Nivarshnee Ramparsard from anti-theft and infrastructure protection Internet of Things (IoT) company Iconix Engineering, Thulani Khumalo from IoT smart sewerage technology company Technological Plumbing Solutions, and fleet tracking and municipal services monitoring company Graf-in Tech.

Each of the four winners will receive R500,000 and an opportunity to pilot their solutions with the city’s departments or entities.

"We have just selected four winners for this year's City of Johannesburg Smart City Innovation Challenge, and each startup is walking away with a R500,000 grant and a piloting opportunity with the city's department or entity. The pilot hosting departments for this year's Innovation Challenge is the Department of Economic Development, Johannesburg Water and Pikitup. Pilots will run for 6 to 12 months, which is sufficient time for the startups to test their assumptions and technology in a real environment. Wits Tshimologong Precinct, an implementation partner to the city in this initiative, has offered the founders co-working space membership and will be offering them business and technical mentorship to ensure maximum results for the pilot phase," said Sekgota.

The challenge is said to help citizens stay connected and allow businesses, citizens and public administrations to find ways to respond faster and in a more integrated way to both crisis situations and daily life.

"We are on the second instalment of the City of Johannesburg Smart City Innovation Challenge, with four winners for this year's challenge preparing to pilot with three city departments or entities, namely the Department of Economic Development, Johannesburg Water and Pikitup. Last year, we had one startup discontinue its business after winning the challenge and the city is finalising a piloting opportunity for the second winner. Both startups received an R100,000 grant," Sekgota explained.

This was a collaboration with Wits University’s Tshimologong (Setswana for “new beginnings”) Innovation Precinct to find and develop digital technology solutions that respond to urban and community challenges.

"We are constantly looking at ways to make it better and more impactful. We currently focus on startups owned by South African youth, with preference given to previously disadvantaged founders, women and people living with disabilities. Maybe as we continue growing we will include high schools."

According to the City of Johannesburg, the solutions need to accelerate service delivery, improve the liveability and safety of the city and enhance operational efficiencies aimed at maximising the use of technology to empower residents and to find solutions to Joburg’s most pressing issues.

"We strongly believe that previously disadvantaged and young founders are capable of building technology that can help solve some of the pressing challenges faced by the city and its residents. We are encouraged when we receive quality applications from many startups proposing smart city solutions that leverage emerging or Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies like Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, data science, drones and blockchain. We are also encouraged when city departments and entities see value in what the innovators proposed and offer them a piloting opportunity, another indication that we are on the right path."

Lawrence Boya, the Smart City office leader, said this year’s innovation challenge sought to find solutions with a special focus to respond to gender-based violence, economic development and township economies, 4IR readiness for smart citizens, institutional operations and management, predictive analytics to improve asset management, food security as well as energy efficiency.

"After months of trying to get the best solutions from the large volume of applications that we received, initially we had advertised for three winners, however, with the quality of the solutions we received, I am glad to announce that we will have four winners, who will each pocket half a million rand and an opportunity to pilot their solutions with the city departments or entities in the line of business linked to the chosen solution," said Boya.

Eyewitness News asked Sekgota what made the four winners' innovations stand out. He said that they showed that they could accelerate service delivery within the City.

"The four startups we chose clearly showed how they will help accelerate service delivery, improve liveability and safety, and enhance operational efficiencies in the City of Johannesburg. Considering that winning solutions will be piloted within the city, we looked for startups with technology that was innovative, viable and ready for piloting. In addition to presenting to a panel of judges that comprised technology and business experts, the shortlisted startups also presented to city departments and entities, and the four winners were chosen after impressing city officials and securing pilots."

PROFILES OF THE WINNERS

• Arthur Mahlangu from QH Consultants

  QH Consultants solution, BizTweak, helps microenterprises diagnose gaps in their business. This is self-assessment platform that culminates in a business health report which shows the strengths and weaknesses of the businesses, and then recommends content that educates to address the gaps realized.

• Nivarshnee Ramparsard from Iconix Engineering

  Using cutting-edge Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the Smartee team designed and developed an anti-theft and theft deterrent solution for infrastructure and provides the location and timestamps of any tamper of equipment. The system aims to reduce losses experienced by municipalities and South Africa to enable growth, and economic development

• Thulani Khumalo from Technological Plumbing Solutions

  Prev leak is a smart Internet of Things (IoT) polymer composite manhole cover fitted with an ultrasonic proximity sensor, micro controller and Sigfox network module that detect and report blockages of sewage preventing overflow which brings health risks, pollution, and contamination of water sources affecting Municipalities and Businesses.

• Graf-in Tech

  Graf-in Tech developed a Fleet Tracking software with embedded artificial intelligence capabilities for vehicle tracking, monitoring, and data analytics in real-time to enable the city to save costs, improve service delivery efficiencies, achieve fleet operations transparency and accountability, and increase expected life of fleets.

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Autor(en)/Author(s): Palesa Manaleng

Quelle/Source: Eyewitness News, 20.07.2022

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