Smart city project Zlepšeme Česko is teaming up with another major Czech smart city project, Lepší místo. Together, their aim is to improve the way of life in the Czech Republic through the use of a civic participation platform in which people can report things, such as illegal landfills, stray animals, and lost people, to local authorities. Lepší místo also brings crowdfunding to this meaningful project.

The Czech Republic has this unique opportunity to become one of the first European countries to actively operate a nationwide platform for civic participation, which is an important pillar of smart governance. The Zlepšeme Česko platform will be significantly improved with the inclusion of the Lepší místo team and Petr Steklý, founder of Lepší místo. 

Zlepšeme Česko has been up and running since 2011 and provides a platform for reporting and managing citizen complaints and suggestions, currently used by 1.5 million inhabitants of cities and towns across the Czech Republic. It brings together the most important tools for civic participation under one platform.

The two projects will merge at the beginning of Autumn. Lepší místo provide crowdfunding for beneficial projects in cities. Local authorities will be able to manage the suggestions and complaints reported through the ‘Mobilní rozhlas’ application. In addition, this system can connect to other mapping applications via open APIs, and these citizen suggestions can be automatically passed on to third-party systems (for example, municipal services or the city police).

The emergence of common standards and the unification of individual platforms are key to the further development of smart municipal infrastructure. According to the founder of ‘Mobilní rozhlas’, Ondřej Švrček, this is an important milestone for the whole community of smart communication and smart governance:

“The merge takes place on the basis of a mutual agreement between the people of the smart city scene. This is a logical step – if we want to maintain the technological lead of the Czech Republic in Europe, it makes no sense to develop similar solutions in parallel – it is not a big enough market. Clear roles, on the other hand, will make it possible to fully focus on individual specializations within smart governance to achieve the best possible results. “

This is confirmed by the creators of Lepší místo. As the brand continues to grow, it will focus fully on linking companies, local authorities and their municipal institutions – especially schools – into interactive and hugely beneficial projects.

“Our aim was always to find meaningful projects with great public support and to link them with corporate partners. We aim to improve not only the way of life in the municipalities and their public spaces but also in schools. We know that this project can save both energy and money. And while we know that the companies want to help, they often lack the mechanics required to get involved in specific projects. And that’s what Lepší místo can provide”, states Petr Steklý.

Author: Holly Webb