Jakarta’s plans for predictive government

Jakarta is predicting floods and traffic using complaints data, and plans to do so for dengue as well. Its Smart City Unit has partnered with startup Qlue to build a dashboard, analysing data from online complaints, sensors and traffic apps.

“Our algorithms can predict several things related to our reports such as flood, traffic, and others”, Qlue co-founder and CEO Rama Raditya told GovInsider.

Take floods, for instance. Using trends in complaints from citizens, water level history from sensors and weather data, it can predict the intensity of floods in specific locations next year.

“They can predict what will happen when they compare the weather with the flood conditions from last year”, he said. The city will start to predict dengue hotspots from next year, Rama said.

The dashboard was not originally looking at dengue, but after receiving “thousands of complaints on dengue locations”, the government is now looking into this data.

“Next year our algorithm will allow the government to know before it happens so they can prepare the amount of medication and so on within each district,” he said.

The dashboard is paired with an app. The app started with collecting citizens’ complaints and has been expanding with new features. It now has a virtual reality section to explore tourist sites in the city.

Next week it is launching an augmented reality feature giving directions to nearby ATMs, restaurants, mosques and parks, Rama said. Qlue has become a strategic part of the Jakarta administration, with the Governor himself using it to decide who to fire and promote.

Following its rise in the capital city, it is now being used by 12 other cities across Indonesia: Bandung, Makassar, Bali, Manado, Surabaya, Bogor, Depok, Palembang, Bekasi, Yogyakarta, Riau and Semarang. Last month Qlue received fresh funding of “slightly above $1.5 million” and plans to expand internationally with this, he said.

“The funding itself is actually more of an addition for our scaling to other countries than other cities.” The Qlue team is meeting with city officials in Bangkok and Manila this month, and Kuala Lumpur next month.

“We want this application to be used in similar countries, [which are] like Indonesia, where I know that it can help them, and we can localise it according to cities' needs”, Rama said. Outside of South East Asia, “we want to [go to] India of course”, he added, “may be for our next round” of funding.