Team Thor From Universitas Kanjuhuran Malang wins Microsoft CityApp Appathon in Sidoarjo, Indonesia

The team’s Road Report (ROAR) mobile application will facilitate citizens in providing real time feedback on road infrastructure to local authorities

Sidoarjo, Indonesia, 9 October 2015 – Microsoft today announced that team Thor from Universitas Kanjuhuran Malang (UNIKAMA) has been crowned the winner of the latest Microsoft CityApp Appathon, a 2-day application marathon held in Sidoarjo, Indonesia. Team Thor stood out with their project Road Report (ROAR) that helps citizens easily report poor road conditions to authorities for immediate response.

Jointly organized by Microsoft and CITYNET (The Regional Network of Local Authorities for the Management of Human Settlements), hosted by the Sidoarjo Regency and supported by Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo, the CityApp Appathon aims to harness the imagination and innovation of youth and students in the regency to develop technically sustainable solutions for urban development challenges.

Thor team members Taruna Yoga Pratama (22 years old), Fathur Rohim (21 years old), Mohammad Nurul Hakiki (20 years old) and Rico Tetuku Santoso (20 years old) with trainer Muhammad Ahsan developed the ROAR project in hopes that authorities will respond better and faster to improve road infrastructure. The ROAR application allows citizens to tag and send reports of poor road conditions using their smartphone’s GPS (Global Positioning System) to the local authorities. Microsoft Azure is used as a central cloud-based hub, where the application itself is hosted, and where all the information submitted by citizens is captured and stored.

In addition to team Thor from UNIKAMA, two other teams emerged as winners. In 2nd place, team Santoso Gaming from Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) with Angga Santoso (22 years old), Andri Febrianto Ananta (22 years old) and Nasyiatul Ula (23 years) with trainer Muhammad Ahsan also developed a reporting application for poor road conditions. Their application uses a smartphone’s vibration feature and accelerometer as indicators of poor road conditions, which users can report by taking a picture and tagging their location.

In 3rd place, team Capil Pantau from Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo developed an application that allows citizens to track pending services that are being handled by the Sidoarjo local government, such as  identification card renewal and marriage certificate request. Created by Anas Hilim Agnia (22 years old), Bayu Anggara Putra (20 years old) and Alfan Hakim Wijaya (21 years old) with trainer Gerza Renandatta Roozig Dayana, the application aims to build transparency and government accountability.

The CityApp Appathon in Sidoarjo is part of Microsoft CityNext, a global initiative that seeks to transform and modernize operations and infrastructure in cities. One of the key pillars of CityNext includes engaging citizens with the necessary tools, training, and mentoring, and collaborating with local entrepreneurs to accelerate innovation. The Appathon builds on the momentum of similar competitions held in other Asia cities including Changchun in China, Makassar in Indonesia, and Kathmandu in Nepal.

“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 Stefan Sjöström, vice president, Public Sector, Microsoft Asia. “Microsoft’s CityNext initiative takes a citizen-centric approach to help cities in Asia realizing this vision, and we’re very excited to help Sidoarjo’s young citizens move forward with their winning projects and bring them to reality.”

Globally, Microsoft is also committed to computer science education for the young. The company in September announced a new US$75 million in community investments over the next three years to increase access to computer science education for all youth, and especially for those from under-represented backgrounds.

In all, more than 150 youth and students from East Java participated in the Appathon with a focus on cloud and mobile technologies. They were challenged with developing modern solutions for six strategic issues that the regency is facing, namely:

  • Population/Demographic Administration – Improve administrative proceedings through a web-based mobile application.
  • Clean Water Services – Improve billing and payment, and treatment and handling of problems for water services.
  • Road Infrastructure – Develop services to handle complaints and reports of damage roads and bridges.
  • Public Service Complaints – Develop services to handle public service and governance complaints
  • Land and Building Taxes – Develop information services related to Land and Building Taxes, which include taxation data such as the amount of uncollected taxes, a reporting system, changes to the data of subjects and the objects of the taxation, submission of objections and others.
  • Licensing Services – Develop licensing services for administrative purposes such as business operation permissions, marriage, and new citizen registration to improve of regency’s regional competitiveness.

Dr Vijay Jagannathan, secretary general, CityNet Secretariat, 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.”

This year is the first time for CityNet to co-organize CityApp in conjunction with the Executive Committee Meeting that is also hosted by Sidoarjo Regency, where around 100 CityNet members and partners that include city mayors, high level city officials and urban stakeholders convene.

Drs. Ec. Asrofi, MM, assistant regional secretary for governance & public welfare of Sidoarjo regency said, “With a population of more than 2 million, Sidoarjo is poised to be one of the hottest sites of innovation in Indonesia in the coming years. The CityApp Appathon is an important step towards our goal of creating a connected and livable city to improve the quality of life of all residents, and to attract new talents to call Sidoarjo their home.”

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