Community watch has now gone 2.0

CitySourced is yet another government initiative towards engaging citizens, developed by “FreedomSpeakers”, a start-up company in LA. CitySourced is an iPhone application, precisely, “a mobile civic engagement tool” where citizens can use to identify civic issues like graffiti, trash etc, and report them to authority.  Most of us are familiar with “311” for reporting non emergency issues to the government authorities. Using CitySourced application, citizens take pictures of the issue using their iPhones, choosing the report type, write their comments and submit their reports to the city hall.

It serves both the citizens and the government, through promoting regulation and discipline, allowing citizens to make their communities a better place, as well as empower local governments can see all the reported issues and track their status.

It is interesting to know that CitySourced is built on Micrsoft Windows Azure platform. In their blog they mentioned that they are “confident that a cloud computing solution based on Microsoft Windows Azure will enable them to deliver better service to a broader audience (more customers) without worrying about infrastructure, software acquisition and service management.”

It is also worth mentioning that Eric Garcetti, the LA City Council president, announced the launch of the Citysourced platform to be piloted in Los Angeles.