JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sep 23 — A pile of garbage spills onto a street. A road is damaged. A public facility needs repair.

📻 Breaking It Down

In Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, a resident can take a photograph, report the problem through the city’s JAKI application, and track what happens next.

The complaint enters a digital system, is directed to the relevant government unit, and can be followed as it moves from pending to assigned, in progress, and, eventually, completed.

Officials can also upload photographic evidence once the work is done.

📌 What You Need to Know

The system captures a central idea behind Jakarta’s smart-city model: technology is useful when it connects citizens to government action and makes responsibility visible.

For Nairobi, where traffic congestion, uncollected garbage, damaged roads and chaotic movement of motorcycles are familiar urban problems, the question is not simply whether the city needs another application.

It is whether technology can help government see problems faster, get them to the right department and show residents what happened afterwards.

That question emerged during a familiarisation visit by Kenyan journalists to Jakarta, where Jakarta Smart City head Ponirin Ariadi outlined how the city combines citizen reports with information from government departments, CCTV cameras and sensors, while increasingly using artificial intelligence.

“We start from that… when we push the citizens to join us in the development of this city,” Ariadi said.

“By listening to the citizen, then we know what they want, what they care [about], what they have problems with.”

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya