ii2030 co-creates solutions to make Rwandan cities smart
The Rwanda Smart Cities Edition of the ii2030 by Endeva is an eleven-month, four-stage process of root-cause problem solving where stakeholders identify key issues of climate change, digital transformation, resource scarcity, rising social inequalities and urbanization and develop result-oriented solutions.
We believe that a collaborative approach can help bring these digital driven solutions to life and scale their impact in Rwandan smart cities. That´s why, we support Endeva and their ii2030 approach in strengthening the local Rwandan innovation ecosystem for smart city solutions.
With an interactive two-day workshop facilitated by Endeva and the Rwandan Ministry for ICT and Innovation, the co-creation stage of this process was commenced. In the last week of May, stakeholders came together at the Digital Transformation Centre Rwanda to create the prototypes of a plastic waste recycling app, a database for road security and a virtual centre for promoting clean air technologies. 30 participants represented a total of 31 organizations.
The co-creation phase included parallel sessions, one from each of the three tracks; Road Safety, Solid Waste Management and Clean Air.
The Road Safety Track developed a Coordinated and Smart Road Safety (CSRS) database providing quick and centralized access to actionable road safety information. It pulls together, and makes available, existing road safety anonymized data (i.e. road crashes statistics, causes, geo-referenced data, etc.) which was previously siloed. The CSRS platform promotes evidence-based and proactive interventions to make roads safer in Rwandan smart cities.
The Solid Waste Management track designed a smart waste and recycling mobile application. It supports the planned PET bottle deposit & return system. The app communicates, educates, rewards and even entertains Kigali’s citizens while informing them on how and where to dispose of their solid waste. The app would first focus on PET waste, proceed to cover other types of plastic and later get extended to other solid waste products such as e-waste.
The Clean Air track’s solution “Clair” showcases innovative business models and technologies that help to reduce the traffic-related pollution. The center will collect examples of innovations around clean air like e-vehicles (EV) and shared bikes, it will process the information for example in short videos or virtual reality showrooms and will disseminated the information about the solutions. It aims to increase and share knowledge with city planners, policy makers and investors.
We are looking forward to supporting ii2030 through the fourth and final stage of the process, where participants will develop concept notes and business plans collaboratively with partners of the project to ensure the implementation of the co-created solutions.
Read more about the four phases of the ii2030 Rwandan Smart Cities Editions in our blog; or check out the ii2030 website