Members from the team at SmartSaigon, an open source flood mapping platform in Vietnam, came to visit PetaBencana.id to exchange ideas on the use and implementation of crowdsourced data for disaster risk management. The team has adapted the same software powering PetaBencana.id, CogniCity Open Source Software, to develop and support a flood mapping platform for Saigon. It was great to see how CogniCity has been able to serve as a framework supporting geographies outside Indonesia, and how the team at SmartSaigon have used the software to build and expand upon existing bodies of work.
The SmartSaigon team also met with the Jakarta Disaster Management Agency, Jakarta Smart City, and Pulse Lab Jakarta, to learn about PetaBencana.id’s collaborations with various stakeholders in Jakarta. While SmartSaigon and PetaBencana serve very distinct contexts, we were able to share lessons learnt from both similar, and dissimilar, experiences. PetaBencana was very excited to learn about the ways that SmartSaigon has developed strategies to support the unique urban practices in Saigon, including the incorporation and integration of chatbots on different social media platforms pertinent to the city. It was great to also learn about the ways in which CogniCity has been modified to attune to the unique perceptions of risk in Saigon.