"We all have an imaginary mantle that is waiting for us to put on it and do a good deed, because we can all be heroes of our community", with these words Miloš Milošević, CEO and creative director of the interactive design studio "Fleka", ended his presentation at TEDx in Podgorica event in November thus announcing the project Hero.me. Imaginary cloaks are now ready and Heroja Android app will be available to users soon.
"Sincerely believing that every individual can change the world starting from changing the community in which they live, they came up with the idea of creating a platform for citizens to participate in solving problems in their communities, with a focus on removing bureaucratic obstacles that are often discouraging for many", he said. is Milošević about the motives for creating the platform.
In Fleka, they believe that one of the problems due to which citizens often do not react to things that are (not) happening around them is the procedure they are faced with in the process of reporting them. They believe that citizens would be more responsible if they could skip the bureaucracy and procedures that reporting a problem implies.
"We are convinced that we should turn our relationship with the bureaucracy upside down. We should have a public space where we can report what we see, and the bureaucracy should have an interest in looking and acting. Rarely does anyone want to write letters, even though certain things bother them, but not enough to sit down at the computer, type a letter, call the service and when asked 'which email should I send you to?' got the answer 'we only have a fax machine, only the director has access to e-mail, and he is on vacation'. We believe that reporting something you have noticed that is not right, and putting such information in a centralized system and public domain, can on the one hand trigger the institutions of the system to act faster, and on the other hand inspire other people to get involved, help and contribute to a certain goal ", explains Milošević.
The Heroj.me system is easy to use. Users can define zones that they want to "monitor" for all those things that are reported in that area or see and report problems in their immediate vicinity. Each problem has the possibility to be commented, with each problem more information can be added, and the user can vote for its importance. When the problem reaches a certain importance, that is, when a certain number of users vote for its solution, the problem is forwarded to the competent services.
"The service is of an open type and does not imply that we, as the creators of the platform, censor it, but relies on the community, which can report incorrect or inappropriate content in the event that it appears", they state in Fleka, adding that users of the application should report things that they also see that they are voting for things that are important to them to be resolved as soon as possible.
"That's where their efforts should end," says Milošević.
Competent services will also have the opportunity to open their accounts and manage all reported problems from there, to communicate directly with citizens and to close certain problems as resolved.
The application also allows for anonymous applications, and this is where, according to Milošević, the concept of a hero was born.
"By putting on a virtual cloak, you feel much more comfortable reporting things that bother you without others knowing it's you."
The service is currently in the beta phase, and Fleka announces that, after the Android application, the website and support for the iOS platform will be published.
The platform now supports different categories of applications, and the list will be expanded according to the needs of users. The main categories are emergencies (fire, flood, traffic accident), waste and garbage (garbage and illegal dumping), traffic (damage to infrastructure and signaling, accidents, illegal parking), illegal actions (vandalism, robbery, failure to issue fiscal invoices, forest cutting, accepting bribes...), and state and local services (private use of state vehicles, misconduct of administrative officers and police officers)...
As the platform was created for the global market, the localization of the service in other languages also foresees the adaptation of categorizations according to the needs of society.
The service is currently in the beta phase, and Fleka announces that, after the Android application, the website and support for the iOS platform will be published.
Those interested in information about the start of the service can register on the official website of the project www.heroj.me.
Introduce more favorable SMS for donations
The Heroj.me project is divided into two phases, the first of which has just been completed, which is the reporting of problems.
According to Milošević, the second phase is more demanding. "The second phase envisages the inclusion of good initiatives, volunteerism and possibly donations, which is still the most difficult item, not from a technical aspect, but because of building trust and persuading operators to lower or eliminate tariffs for SMS charging when it comes to donations," he said.
Let the race begin
Heroj.me fully fits into the concept of what is meant by the "Open Ideas" contest organized by the NGO DigitalizujMe and the Office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Montenegro.
It is a competition for the development of software solutions that will help solve social problems in the relationship between citizens and the Government, and among citizens in general. Flekin's Heroj.me is not registered for this competition, but it will definitely compete with similar solutions that were presented at the recent meeting of registered participants of the "Open Ideas" competition and their mentors. At that time, only two teams out of 17 registered teams and six individuals had a public presentation. On the same day, six teams had closed consultations with mentors.
According to earlier information from the organizers, solutions for mapping communal problems, the problem of information and records of the unemployed, the problem of budget transparency, information on tourist offers, the problem of connecting health institutions and pharmacies, the transparency of the work of the Government, state institutions, connecting services for emergency interventions and a faster call for help, connecting donors and volunteers with the vulnerable.
Competitors compete for $5.000, which is the amount of the first prize, or $2.000, which will be awarded to the second-placed solution. The winners will be announced on May 11.
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