Yes, If you think the above title makes very little sense, very soon it may prove to be true. Did you ever wish that all your online rants on garbage, potholes, pollution of all kinds on popular social media platforms could reach the concerned authorities with a hope to see some positive action being taken against it?
Now is your chance to do something useful as an arm chair activist by being a part of SocialCops initiative, in which you can be a part of Citizen group along with NGO, Council and Corporate groups. This service is slated for a pilot launch in May starting with New Delhi. It is quiet commendable for a team of 3 NTU final year students from Singapore as a start-up aiming to launch such service, while they are currently busy developing the council side platform before going live they already have plans of taking this concept global.
If you are thinking how commercially viable this service could be? well that's being thought out as well to permit local small businesses to advertise on this platform and also offer perks and rewards, for citizens contributing to this initiative they could be rewarded in the form of discounts or promotions. The second option is garnering sponsorship from large brands and retailers who would be willing to participate as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.
This team already has a Facebook page up and running to test actual working of this model and most probably they would be using SMS service as a backbone for their venture to maximize participation from citizens in reporting civic issues around them, all this has being made possible after this start-up won Global ICT Prize and a $10,000 check from Microsoft at Global Social Entrepreneurship competition.
Let's hope this collaborative effort works at ground level for everyone and if such platform helps all of us to make even a small but significant change around us it would be a great success. Share your comments and feedback if you feel such public-private and government effort can help solve most of our civic issues.
Check the videos below to understand this concept in detail.
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