The eThekwini Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal will be the first of what is expected to be many public sector entities that will benefit from a new Smart City mobile application.

The Smart City app is designed to integrate a range of services offered by the municipality. It is a responsive service delivery tool designed to enable municipalities to interact with their customers in real-time. This, in turn, not only saves the customers’ from having to queue at service points, but also allows speedy resolution and communication of cases. In this way, it can serve as the ultimate customer participation and customer relations tool for municipalities of all sizes.

This revolutionary app is set to launch at the forthcoming Mobile Government Summit, a national initiative facilitated to advance the use of mobile technology at national, provincial and local government level.

 

Mobile Government Summit 2014

Mobile Government Summit 2014 will take place on 14 August at the Hilton Hotel in Durban and aims to bring together key figures from across all areas of the public sector, most particularly those focused on the development and delivery of e-government solutions.

These high level public sector technology thought leaders will thus be able to discuss the mobile technology programs, projects and developments that are at the heart of next generation municipal services. Also on the agenda will be an examination of the evolving role of mobile technologies in improving and assisting municipalities to fast track critical service delivery to those citizens that need it the most.

 

Integrated Service Management solution

Asked to position the Smart City app in this broader service delivery context, DynaTech CEO Ntokozo Xaba explains that the Smart City app is only one part of the company’s broader Integrated Service Management (ISM) e-government solution.

“Overall, the ISM solution covers mobility, big data, the cloud and the Internet of Things — what Gartner refers to as the Nexus of Forces — using very advanced software for managing service delivery issues. This means that eThekwini will be the first municipality to benefit from this technology, which I believe will transform service delivery in the public sector, providing a truly 21st century approach to this vexing issue.”

It is clear that the move from out-dated, paper-based systems into e-government solutions needs to occur sooner, rather than later. It is equally clear that gathering together public sector thought leaders at the Mobile Government Summit and launching new apps like Smart City are vital steps on the path to enabling municipalities and other government entities to not only keep up with, but get ahead of the current service delivery backlog.