Exclusive: Jakarta to set up innovation lab

The Jakarta Government will launch an innovation lab in December to test new ways of delivering services, GovInsider can reveal. The first experiment will be smart parking, according to Setiaji, head of Jakarta’s Smart City Unit.

“We will be testing IoT for parking”, he said. Sensors in parking lots will signal which lots are empty, and citizens will find these through a mobile app. Citizens will help the government develop the solution.

“One of the HackJak winners will make the app for parking,” said Setiaji. HackJak is the city government’s annual hackathon. The lab will open at the end of December in South Jakarta.

The building will also have an information centre for citizens to learn about smart city initiatives, and an event space to host visitors. Jakarta is following a regional trend of setting up government innovation labs. Malaysia has recently set up an IoT lab, while Singapore has the IDA Labs.