What is the problem?
Since 2019, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine has set a course for developing digitalization in communities. In the digitalization process, many problems of different levels arise in Ukrainian communities, starting with access to the Internet and lack of computer equipment and ending with developing and implementing local IT solutions. Sometimes, communities lack the capacity to solve these problems on their own.
What is the solution?
The Community 4.0 Digital Sustainability Accelerator program began in March 2023 for representatives of local self-government bodies. Its goal, as Bastian Feigel, the director of the U-LEAD with Europe Program, pointed out, is to provide communities with the opportunity to be competent in the field of data collection and analysis, development of inclusive services for citizens, development of partnerships, and connections with stakeholders in the country and beyond.
The Community 4.0 program is implemented by the international organization SocialBoost in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and with the support of U-LEAD with Europe.
Communities from different regions of Ukraine took part in it. Some teams have already developed their products and are currently testing them. Rubryka tells about two such solutions.
How does it work?
The first solution
#МандруйГайворонщиною — with a chatbot
On the screenshot: This is how the chatbot #МандруйГайворонщиною (#TravelHaivoronshchyna) on the Telegram network looks like.
The solution, which was developed in the Haivoron city community, is the first tourist chatbot for this region #МандруйГайворонщиною. The project team included Bohdan Rymar, the head of the city council's communication and functional support department, Zaryana Khmara, the executive committee's affairs manager, and Inna Dunaevska, a specialist in the information policy sector.
Screenshot from the presentation of the project #МандруйГайворонщиною.
"We decided to create this chatbot because our community has three main problems," says Bohdan Rymar, the project's technical manager, and lists them:
- There is no digital travel tool. Currently, information about tourist places can be found only on two resources: the official page of the Haivoron City Council on Facebook and the Tourism section on the community's official website.
- There is no communication tool. Even if you find the information you need, you won't be able to get certain advice about it.
- Insufficient awareness of current events in the community.
How does a chatbot work?
Informs and advises
On the screenshot: The chatbot informs about all annual community festivals and structures the material by topic.
The chatbot tells not only about the tourist potential of the community but also helps to plan the most exciting and unforgettable trip through it, Rymar convinces. After all, the bot interacts with the user, and it can provide useful advice and suggest where you can have a snack or spend the night.
"In addition, a chatbot is an excellent tool for interaction and communication between local self-government bodies and users," the project's technical manager believes.
On the screenshot: This is what the Notable Monuments section looks like.
Rymar adds that this is the first version of the chatbot and its structure. Its sections are very concise, clear, and easy to use. It contains up-to-date, informative photos and video materials about tourist places. You can even order a tour of the local history museum through the chatbot: leave your phone number, and the tour guide will contact you soon to clarify the details.
Screenshot from the presentation of the project #МандруйГайворонщиною.
Who is this solution for?
The solution is for the 25,000 residents of the community, who can find out more about what is interesting about their region, and for almost three thousand displaced people who discover these picturesque places in the central part of Ukraine. Of course, for tourists who can travel to this relatively safe region.
Screenshot from the presentation of the project #МандруйГайворонщиною.
Compared to other sources, the information in the chatbot is useful, fresh, and accurate — and this is the main advantage of this solution, in addition to mobility and accessibility from any device where the Telegram application is installed.
Chatbot developers have ambitious plans: to increase the region's attractiveness by 50 to 60%.
In addition, thanks to #МандруйГайворонщиною in the community, they strive to improve their communication with the population and tourists to popularize tourism not only among residents but also among foreign tourists and investors, to get an additional tool for informing the people about events in the community.
Does it really work?
What product testing shows
Screenshot from the presentation of the project #МандруйГайворонщиною.
As of September 15, when the community presented its project, 1,204 active chatbot users have already clicked its various sections 6,343 times. The project team will analyze these and subsequent transitions and, in accordance with them, will draw conclusions about what people are really interested in, what information is missing, and what may still need to be improved by city council employees.
In the future, the city council would like to expand the structure of the chatbot and make its English-language version. In general, ₴400 thousand are needed for the entire project.
On the screenshot: Information about one of the monuments of the community in the chatbot.
"The first version of the chatbot was developed on the Smart Sender platform. We depend on it: if it stops working or is blocked for unknown reasons, we will lose our digital product. That is why we would like to attract these funds to have our own digital tool that is convenient and necessary for all residents and tourists," Rymar explains.
The residents of Haivoron, like the developers of other community projects, strive to attract the necessary amount based on the Community 4.0 program results.
The second solution
The Lozuvatka community has developed a Community Leader's Panel
In the name Leader's Panel, the project's authors rethought Volodymyr Zelensky's saying that "we are all presidents."
"Conducting the analogy further, each of us is the head of the community. Our basic approach is that information is open, and it should be public. We want to speed up the delivery of verified, up-to-date information about the community to the interested person," says Ihor Petrenko, head of the digital transformation department of the Lozuvatka village council, a project team member.
Screenshot from the Community Leader's Panel project.
"We were on the same wavelength"
The idea of this community project from the Dnipropetrovsk region arose during the village council employees' work.
Ihor Petrenko, the head of the digital transformation department of the Lozuvatka village community, says that the community learned about the Community 4.0 acceleration program from a newsletter and immediately became interested:
"We have already started developing a website for our use with key information about the community, and here we saw such an invitation from reputable organizers. We decided with the management that it is worth trying: at least it will be an experience. We were already roughly on the same wavelength. We were implementing something of our own, and here is a good reason to learn something new and discover a management approach to the product."
Together with Petrenko, the community leadership is in the team: village head Vitaliy Yatsenko and his first deputy, Zoya Zagorodnih.
The prototype was an ordinary Google spreadsheet
Lozovatka started their project as a Google spreadsheet for internal use. The information managers entered the basic data there, which are necessary for the operation of the village council apparatus itself and which may be needed by the residents and guests of the community.
On the screenshot: The territory of the Lozuvatka community.
The Lozuvatka territorial community was established at the end of 2020, expanding from seven villages to thirty-two and 18,000 inhabitants. Such changes became an incentive for the locals — they had to learn.
"There were many phone calls to the council with questions such as: 'What is our current population today?', 'How many settlements do we have?' and so on. Therefore, it was logical to collect it all in one file, initially a Google spreadsheet, and even more logically — in an accessible web page," says Petrenko.
Screenshot from the Community Leader's Panel project.
In the initial version, the team received a table with administrative buildings, schools, etc., and showed it all on the map. Then it became clear that, in general, all information can be displayed in tables and stored in the cloud storage — so it will not be lost.
When the team felt this was a cool solution for internal use, they realized this information is inherently public: it can be helpful to the entire community. Therefore, they decided to deeply engage in the development of the site.
Four main groups of users
In the process of work in the Community 4.0 program, the site was "outlined" with many pages: there are sections for the employees and management of the community and external stakeholders — residents of the community, guests and tourists, investors and entrepreneurs.
Screenshot from the Community Leader's Panel project.
For example, the head of the medical field is interested in understanding what funding indicators are, and the communal services employees can see, in real-time, what the community population is. The community's residents need to have information about the location of the health center or hospital. Now, these two groups of users can find all this information in one place in the respective sections.
At its peak, the community hosted almost 1,400 internally displaced persons. Considering that the community's population is 18 thousand, about 10% was added. That is, this is a fairly large number of people who also needed to know where they actually came to, says Petrenko about the site's third important target audience.
Screenshot from the Community Leader's Panel project.
The fourth group of users is entrepreneurs and investors. First, a businessman needs to understand what territory his business is entering. Secondly, here, you can analyze the presence of competitors because the open data shows all the enterprises registered on the community's territory, their field of activity, and so on.
Their mentor, Alisa Bankovska, helped the project team to single out this fourth group.
"She tells us how she helps other private companies, and we pass it all through the filters of legislation and then try to apply it to ourselves," says the head of the digital transformation department of the Lozuvatka village community. After all, the local self-government body has both budgetary and bureaucratic limitations.
Thanks to the mentor's lectures and workshops, the team was able to better structure their ideas. "Because to be honest, the authorities definitely don't teach how to make IT products. It's difficult," shares Petrenko with a smile.
What are the main advantages of the project?
Open data from the manager in real-time
A very good similar example is open data portals, for example, Open Data Bot, which is also "overgrown" with cadastres and other cool options, says Petrenko:
"But their disadvantage is that they are not managers of information. All this data is updated with some frequency: once a quarter, once a year, and so on. In our case, this happens online: as soon as the information is updated, the administrator enters it, and it changes on the site. That is verified current information in real-time. This is our main advantage."
Screenshot from the Community Leader's Panel project.
Convenience: entered, found, and exited
The project team aims to bring together all developed digital solutions of the community: online tax payment services, chatbots, and others in the Community Leader's Panel.
Screenshot from the Community Leader's Panel project.
"We want to make such a convenient dashboard for our existing and potential residents, existing and potential entrepreneurs, where they can enter, receive, and see all the most important things," says Petrenko. There will also be contacts and a feedback form with the community authorities.
"Such a useful tool for those who logged in, found what they needed, and logged out. There is no need to rummage through the website," Petrenko shared with Rubryka.
The project team aims for this development to have a greater demand among users than the community's official website.
"It is valuable as a source of information, but, unfortunately, it is not popular among the community's residents. I will tell you honestly: both as an ordinary resident and as an employee of the village council, I see that, apart from law enforcement agencies, this information is not interesting to many—all these decisions, orders, and so on. The result of those decisions is what is important for people," Petrenko shares his observation. "And as for news and announcements, 90% of the population learns this information from various social network newsletters."
Screenshot from the Community Leader's Panel project.
How will this solution evolve?
First of all, this project will be popularized in the community under the slogan "Learn more!". So that the residents had time to be interested in whether and how their community is developing, to see the numbers, compare them, and perhaps, after that, put their questions to the authorities.
The team is developing a communication strategy, within which we plan some kind of advertising, announce it on social media, on websites, and hold an official presentation. This is the first.
Second, after launching within the accelerator, they develop scaling in terms of selling products that may come in different versions. With the help of additional functionality, the team plans to use this product to earn money for the community.
At the same time, Petrenko adds that this story is interesting but long and complicated. To achieve success, the communal institution must change the activity type and hire appropriate specialists.
A lot depends on funds. "It is challenging to pay ₴200,000 for the same software. Two hundred thousand is, conditionally, heating a kindergarten in winter. The choice is obvious for the authorities, although if we are talking about investment in development, it really needs to be implemented. "We found our golden mean. First, while working on the project, our people develop within their working hours. Secondly, in this way, we are closing some problematic areas of our activity," Petrenko is convinced.
He cites the example of housing and communal services workers: they were trained and independently put their garbage containers on the project map. Now, when they sometimes call them and complain that there is a lack of containers and more need to be delivered, the map helps. It shows the address of the nearest containers. For example, they may be 50 meters away from the place they are asking about, but the residents are walking on a different road. Utility companies will also show their engineering networks on the portal. Anyone who wants to build a house will already see the state of communications in a certain area.
So, the Community Leader's Panel is truly a solution for all current and future Lozuvatka residents.
Screenshots are provided by Ihor Petrenko
This article was published as part of the Voice of Communities campaign, which is part of the Program for Ukraine on local empowerment, accountability, and development U-LEAD with Europe, jointly funded by the EU and its member states Germany, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, and Slovenia to support Ukraine on its way to strengthening local self-government. U-LEAD promotes transparent, accountable, and multi-level governance in Ukraine that responds to the needs of citizens and empowers communities.
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