NGO pursues hi-tech idea to make Bangalore better

The Urban Vision , an urbanism think tank, has launched the Civic Dialogue

Bengaluru 2010 in pursuit of ideas for a Better Bangalore and to spur the citizens to rise up to revive their city.

Civic Dialogue is a public forum in which participants (students and young professionals) discuss civic issues, policies and decisions of consequence to their lives, communities and society. This programme has been conceived to encourage a vigorous, well-informed discussion on the city stage about the major issues of the city by engaging the citizens in the city.

The Urban Vision partnered a US-based technology firm See Click Fix and introduced an map-based transparent web reporting tool to connect citizens to the government; and make government transparent and accountable as well as enable citizens to organise themselves to the betterment of their community. On the website, citizens are asked to report on any civic issue they feel needs attention. For instance, if there is a pothole outside your house, you can click on the map to set a location.

Civic Dialogue is structured as a monthly competition to Report Civic Problems and strategise to solve them and implement ideas with the NGO Collaborative to build a better Bengaluru. The competition is set to take place online at www.theurbanvision.comd.

Every month the “Most Active Civic Reporter” and the “Best City Strategist (Student & Professional)” will be selected. This competition is open to all citizens of Bangalore. The monthly winners are set to get attractive prizes including holiday vouchers at Paradise Isle beach resort in Karnataka and the brand new Windows 7 Operating System software from Microsoft.

Every quarter the group will organise a meet up to showcase the winners as well as a number of other change drivers who are working towards making Bengaluru a better place to live. The group will also announce the “Civic Leader institution Award” to acknowledge the most active organisation / institution. Some of the organisations and institutions registered for this category include RVCE, BMS, MSRIT, Christ University, St Joseph’s, IIMB, SIBM as well as corporates like Ernst & Young and Motorola among others who will compete to strategise and Report to win the quarterly ‘Civic Leader Institution Award’.

To kick-off the Civic Dialogue Bengaluru 2010, The Urban Vision organised the Change Drivers meeting at Jaaga to showcase some of the partner NGOs and activists who are working towards making the city a better place to live. Among the subjects on which the NGOs made presentations were, managing waste, conserving water for future, cycling, saving ecology and such other subjects

“We will look for leadership from India’s IT capital to address the city’s ever-growing problems and come up with solutions to fix these issues,” said Ritu Krutika, Head, Civic Engagement, The Urban Vision.