These civic-tech startups are helping governments bridge the digital divide

The coronavirus pandemic has reimagined digital ecosystems across sectors. The ripple effect of increased digitisation can be felt in areas previously excluded from reaping the benefits of digitally-enabled services.

With people embracing technology like never before, it’s imperative for governments—both central and state—to provide fair access to a wide range of citizen services.

Fortunately, India's development as a centre for innovation presents an opportunity to find fresh approaches to these societal issues.

Here’s a list of four such civic-tech startups compiled by SocialStory that are helping governments digitise their services.

Staqu 

Founded in 2015 by Atul Rai, Chetan Rexwal, Anurag Saini, and Pankaj Sharma, Staqu is an artificial intelligence-based startup working on security and enterprise big data analytics domains through its proprietary video analytics, big data, and auditing tools. It has revamped and modified its AI-based video analytics platform, Joint AI Research For Video Instances And Streams (JARVIS).

Mainly used for security purposes to identify and detect intrusion and/or violence, JARVIS, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, was used to improve preventive measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. These included identifying people neglecting social distancing norms, not wearing masks, or not adhering to COVID-19 protocols.

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Transerve Technologies

Transerve Technologies is a civic-tech startup that offers geospatial technology-based SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions for urban planning. The Goa-based startup—founded by IIT-Kanpur graduates Amarsh Chaturvedi and Ashwani Rawat—helps map geographic locations and structures in cities. This eases the revenue and tax collection process since the information about all properties is stored centrally in a database, and can be retrieved when required.

Transerve’s technology is being used to overcome problems related to urban setups, such as inventorying urban assets, revenue enhancement, land records modernisation, managing utilities like water and sewerage systems, traffic management, and more.

The startup focuses on municipal body operations such as enhancing tax collection to make ULBs (urban local bodies) sustainable by using machine learning. It also works on pressing issues like faecal sludge management using geoinformation systems for towns and cities that cannot afford expensive sewerage systems.

India Action Project

Shruti Chaturvedi founded India Action Project (IAP) earlier this year to bridge the gap between decision-makers and beneficiaries with the use of data, technology, and communication models.

It has a team of Jan Saathis (comprising locals) focused on creating awareness and addressing the challenges faced by rural India by enabling meaningful conversation channels and leveraging data intelligence.

The startup developed an app and mapped various central and Gujarat state government schemes and policies in the healthcare, housing, and education sectors.

Apart from creating awareness about government schemes and policies, Jan Saathis facilitate application and follow-up for people who cannot travel to panchayat/taluka offices, have inadequate documents, and don’t know how to apply. They map local job opportunities in nearby villages and constituencies and raise awareness. 

Pixelvide

Launched in 2011 by Prathyush Jeereddy, Pixelvide brings efficiencies at scale for various government departments with its unique tech solutions.

Its flagship product—Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS)—offers financial management solutions to help governments manage their expenditure, revenue, budget, commitments, and debt in one place.

Pixelvide’s IFMIS has been helping state governments in enhancing the effectiveness and transparency of public resource management, managing ways and means, regulating built-up arrears, and analysing the state’s finances more effectively.