Jakarta Partners with Google and Twitter to Go Further As "Smart City"

It’s about time to have the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, as the prototype of a smart city, given the fact that more and more Indonesians getting connected to the tech growth. Now, the blueprint has become much more apparent, as the government is attempting to collaborate with two tech giants, Google and Twitter.

Previously, Google has contributed its Waze mobile app to the DKI Jakarta provincial government. Through the app, users may access real-time information of the traffic in Jakarta, so that they won’t get trapped in unnecessary jams. Based on such collaboration, the government has now planned to acquire the Google Enterprise in order to turn Jakarta into the very first smart city in Indonesia.

“With only Rp 3 billion, we’ll have Google Enterprise at our disposal. We’ll keep updating from Google. We purchase the (Google) Map for Rp 3 billion, and it’ll be ours forever. So, there’d be no further expenses while we may monitor all activities,” said the Governor of DKI Jakarta Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok), as being cited from Kompas (2/12).

In term of public services, there’d also be “Qlue”, a local mobile app which enables citizens to report anything related to civil servants. To support such technology, Ahok expects only that the citizens can actively participate, but also that civil servants are capable of operating the advanced tech. The government will also do their part by establishing 4G network, and 3.000 CCTVs in each and every corner of Jakarta.

For disaster precautions, the provincial government partners with Twitter in delivering the “Peta Jakarta”, a project which allows citizens to actively participate in tweeting disaster, particularly flood, in their area, thus enabling others to get real-time information about the disaster. This unique collaboration between Twitter, universities, and disaster management becomes the first in the world.

To access the service, users only need to activate the location service on their devices, attach an image, and tweet to @petajkt. Don’t forget to include the #banjir hashtag along.

According to Pike Research, the infrastructure purchase growth is divided into Smart Government, Smart Building, Smart Transport, and Smart Utilities. In total, the number of investment will keep increasing up to 2020, with the biggest spending would go to the establishment of Smart Building and Smart Utilities. By 2020, $16 billion is expected to be enough to establish Smart Cities all over the world.