CitySourced is Hiring!
Jun 11th
With our recent growth, including launching a mobile app for the entire country of Panama, we’re actively looking to hire an Account Manager.
Are you comfortable juggling multiple projects at one time? Do you get satisfaction in helping customers be successful?
JOB LISTING: Account Manager
We’re seeking an experienced & passionate Account Manager (AM) to work directly with our customers across the world! The ideal candidate will be organized, able to handle multiple projects simultaneously, and have a strong compulsion to make customers happy.
CitySourced is an enterprise civic engagement platform. CitySourced empowers municipalities by allowing residents to report back problems in their communities directly using our simple, free smartphone application. Our mobile app covers 17.6+ million residents worldwide, spanning seven countries and four continents.
The position is full-time and located on-site at our headquarters in Los Angeles, CA. The position reports directly to our Director, Sales & Marketing. Minimal travel may be required.
More >
Central Government of Panamá Deploys CitySourced Mobile 311 App to 3.6M Residents
Jun 7th
In partnership with the Central Government of Panamá, CitySourced has launched a new smartphone application which allows residents to identify and report non-emergency civic issues, such as public works, quality of life, and environmental issues. As an innovator in the region, Panama is the only Latin American country to offer a single, centralized point of contact for residents. The mobile app builds on this tradition and will serve over 3.6M residents country-wide.
As the only mobile service request product to offer completely native mobile apps across all major platforms, the residents will have access to the app on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. In addition, the app is completely localized to Spanish, English and the other languages spoken locally.
Until now, residents could complain calling 311 or using the web. Now, we are the only Latin American country centralized to a single point of contact (with 88 institutions incorporated into the system) that’s responsive (97% satisfactory completion rate) and is now accessible via App for the citizen to receive status updates and government news automatically, as well as provide better data like geo-location and media to the government. – Rodolfo Caballero Rivera, National Director of Citizen Service/311 Center
CitySourced Supports National Day of Civic Hacking
Jun 3rd
National Day of Civic Hacking was a national event that took place June 1-2 in cities across the nation. The event brought together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs to create new, interesting applications focused specifically on improving the local community.
Team CitySourced was out in full effect over the two day Hackathon event. In addition, our close technology partner, Esri, was there as well to demonstrate it’s GIS and mapping technology, which is in use in the CitySourced app.
Fresh off his recent win, Eric Garcetti, Mayor-Elect and early CitySourced Supporter was there to open the ceremonies and offer his words of encouragement.
Pearland, TX Launches ‘Connect2Pearland’ Mobile Citizen Service Request App
May 22nd
The City of Pearland, TX, located in the Gulf Coast region, launched a new Smartphone application which allows citizens to identify and report non-emergency civic issues, such as public works, quality of life, and environmental issues. This mobile reporting platform will improve how Pearland delivers services to its neighborhoods. Pearland is the third largest city in the Houston MSA, and from 2000 to 2010, ranked as the fastest growing city in the Houston MSA and the second fastest growing city in Texas
‘Connect2Pearland’ app allows a user to capture a photo, video, or audio of the problem. The user then uploads the media and, along with GPS location information pulled directly from the device, submits a report directly to the appropriate department. Once a report is submitted, feedback is provided to the user based on the action taken by the department handling the report.
This is an exciting step for Pearland. The world is moving to mobile platforms, and our residents expect to be able to connect with us in that way as well. Because of that, we wanted to be among the municipal innovators in mobile applications, and we hope our residents find it to be a useful tool and another reason to love living here. – John Knight, Information Technology Manager
More >
St. Charles, IL Launches “St. Charles Connect” Mobile Citizen Service Request App
Apr 2nd
The city of St. Charles launched a new Smartphone application which allows citizens to identify and report non-emergency civic issues, such as public works, quality of life, and environmental issues. This mobile reporting platform will improve how St. Charles delivers services to its neighborhoods.
“St. Charles Connect” allows a user to capture a photo, video, or audio of the problem. The user then uploads the media and, along with GPS location information pulled directly from the device, submits a report directly to the appropriate department. Once a report is submitted, feedback is provided to the user based on the action taken by the department handling the report.
More >
Launching the Complete Civic Crowdfunding Platform – ZenFunder
Mar 14th
ZenFunder is The Most Effective Way for Residents and Government Officials to Fund Civic Projects
We’re excited to announce the release or our newest product, ZenFunder. We officially kicked off this product at the 2013 LAUNCH Festival in San Francisco. ZenFunder is a revolutionary civic crowdfunding platform that allows citizens and the government to collaboratively fund local community improvement projects. Check out this video to see our launch during the Festival.
Anyone can propose a new project on ZenFunder. Once the project reaches a minimum funding threshold, it is reviewed by city government to ensure the project is in accordance with local requirements.
Once approved, the project is promoted and funding is crowdsourced. The local government and corporate sponsors can also contribute funds.
More >
2013 IBM Beacon Award Finalist
Feb 27th
We’re excited to announce that IBM recently honored us as a Beacon Award Finalist at the invitation-only IBM PartnerWorld Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Beacon Awards are a central and vital element of IBM’s Business Partner recognition program. Recipients of these awards exemplify the ability to deliver business value to clients through innovative solutions, technical excellence and industry expertise.
- Mark Hennessy, General Manager, IBM Global Business Partners & Midmarket
CEO Jason A. Kiesel receiving the 2013 IBM Beacon Finalist Award
Using CitySourced, residents report broken street lights, potholes, graffiti, and other issues directly through the native smartphone apps built on iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone. These reports contain detailed information provided by the user, including location information and a photo. Using software we developed, these reports are automatically added to IBM Maximo, software used to maintain assets. Once that report is updated or resolved in Maximo, CitySourced notifies the app user, creating seamless two-way communication between the resident and their government.
We’re always looking for ways to help local government customers work smarter and more efficiently, particularly with integrating the reports from our mobile reporting app directly into existing systems. Our work with IBM has allowed municipalities to crowdsource reporting by residents while maintaining a central location and standard process for government employees using IBM products.
- Jason A. Kiesel, Founder and CEO of CitySourced
In addition to partnerships with IBM customers Los Angeles Unified School District and the City and County of Honolulu, CitySourced has deployed its mobile reporting solution worldwide, including in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Omaha. International customers include cities in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and Abu Dhabi.
They Say Imitation is the Best Form of Flattery
Oct 9th
I came into the office on Monday this week (like everyone else, I suppose), and my Director of Business Development, Brett Maxfield, sent me a very interesting text shortly there after. Brett is currently at the ICMA (International City/County Management Association) conference in Phoenix, AZ and his text message was, needless to say, awesome. To give you all full context, though, it’s necessary to give some back story. Back in July, we attended the Esri UC 2012 conference and afterwards, we did a blog post on our experiences at the conference. We went all out for our booth this past year and even offered a pretty slick booth prize – a Parrot AR Drone quadricopter. So the text I got from Brett was pure gold. Apparently, our competitor has a booth at the ICMA conference this year as well. And wouldn’t you know, they offered an equally cool booth prize as well. I guess the old saying is true. “Imitation is the best form of flattery.” It’s nice to see our competition imitating us (again). 
A Startup’s Hindsight is Esri/Esri
Sep 25th
A few years ago Esri approached us to redo our app on their technology. This is an extremely tall order for any company, let alone a very early stage startup (which we were back in May, 2010) that had only recently launched their platform. We tore out our all the mapping components on iOS which used the mapping controls native to all the devices. Ironically, this was a god send. One of our key selling points with our government customers is their ability to control the data provided to their end users, and not be subject to the whims of the likes of Apple, Google or Microsoft. Well, this week that investment has paid off. While reports come in that indicating flaws in the Apple’s new iOS6 maps we are unaffected. We are free to choose our source base maps so we aren’t effected by bad or missing data.
Smartphones Keeping LAUSD Schools in Tip Top Shape
Sep 24th
With 8 in 10 school districts in the U.S. inadequately funded for the coming year, districts need to do more with less. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the second largest school district in the US, spanning 14,000 buildings and spread over 710 square miles. They receive more than 300,000 maintenance service requests per year, making up-keeping one of the main areas where too much time, money and energy is spent. Often times, all resources are going into locating and reporting a problem before even fixing it.
Now with IBM’s analytic s technology and the CitySourced mobile app, students along with faculty and staff can act as sensors reporting maintenance problems they see first hand using their mobile devices. Issues such as leaky faucets, smashed windows, graffiti, broken toilets and more are now being reported along with the correct location of the issues.
All reporting issues sent with a simple text or photo goes directly to the school’s maintenance office. Each request also contains GIS information to pinpoint locations so workers know exactly where to route staff, saving time and resources. Within the first 8 months of launching, the school system cut its maintenance request processing expenses by 80%.
For the full article click here.