Atma Connect—a California-based technology organization focused on connecting and empowering people in the developing world—has won the 2016 Global Amplify Urban Resilience Challenge with their AtmaGo.com urban resilience app. The Amplify Urban Resilience Challenge is a partnership of The Rockefeller Foundation, USAID, the Swedish Development Agency (SIDA), the UK Development Agency (DFID), OpenIDEO, and IDEO.org.
“Atma is thrilled by the opportunity to work with IDEO.org’s Amplify Program and the Global Resilience Partnership to improve the resilience of low-income urban communities,” said Founder and CEO Meena Palaniappan. “We know that thousands of communities around the developing world face great risks from floods and other extreme weather events—and we know that climate change is going to make many of these threats more severe in coming years. But we also know that local communities have ideas and solutions that they can share with each other and the world.”
The AtmaGo web app, which was launched in January of 2015, now has over 20,000 users in three Indonesian cities—Jakarta, Malang and Lamongan. These users are sharing solutions, reporting problems, and posting information with the goal of “warga bantu warga” or neighbors helping neighbors.
“Thank you to IDEO and Amplify for this great opportunity!” said Alfan Rodhi, Atma’s Indonesia Field Director. “People in our cities have ideas on how to respond to floods and build stronger communities—but we need to unite them using technology so we can truly be ‘neighbors helping neighbors’.”
When terrorists attacked Jakarta on January 13, 2016, AtmaGo users shared news and updates. When floodwaters inundated Jakarta in February of 2015, users posted messages on how to protect essential household items before the floods, which neighborhoods to avoid due to floodwaters, and then posted updates as the waters receded. But AtmaGo provides more than just timely disaster information—users can find jobs, post community events, share recommendations and report problems.
“The IDEO-Amplify win couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Sergio Paluch, Chief of Product. “As we embark on creating an Android application, we are excited to be learning from IDEO and working together to improve AtmaGo.”