Sona Hakobyan
Public Radio of Armenia
The Armenian CityBugs project became one of the winner at the Digital Creativity for Social Good contest held in Austria within the framework of the European Youth Award. Other winners included projects from Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
“CityBugs is a social platform developed to raise socially critical issues, where anyone has a real opportunity to raise and bring attention to daily issues of their communities, to suggest innovative ideas to increase public participation, decision making and participatory problem solving,” Arman Atoyan, co-founder of the X-Tech Company, told reporters today.
The CityBugs.am is a platform, where one can make a suggestion and track how the raised issue is solved. Registered users can easily report different social issues persistent in the communities. By simply using a mobile device or PC, users have the ability not only to report a bug but also give suggestions and participate in online discussions.
The easiest way to report a bug or make a suggestion is to use Facebook profile or simply get registered with the system. After creating a bug they are filtered according categories and pinned on the Google dynamic maps. The respective governmental bodies carry further responsibility to eliminate the bugs.
CityBugs.am currently has 5,000 users; 500 issues have been raised up until now, 50% of which has been solved, others are still in process, Armen Atoyan said.
The Digital Creativity for Social Good contest was held in the Austrian city of Graz from November 19 to 21. About 1,000 projects from 49 European countries were presented at the competition.
