Everyday life of disabled people in our society is full of challenges in order to function as normal members of the community. One of the main pains for disabled people is the public infrastructure. It is difficult to access specific areas and buildings, because of the lack of well thought out infrastructure.
That’s why, at Mimirium, it was decided to design a solution called Varna Limitless for improving the infrastructure of the 3rd largest city in Bulgaria — Varna. Varna is the Sea Capital of Bulgaria and the population grows to 750.000 people in the active season. Through the last years a lot of improvements were made in the city’s infrastructure, but even in a big city like Varna, we still see every day how disabled people face a lot of challenges while moving through the city.
Our team began thinking about how we can measure these difficulties. We needed quantification in order to identify and analyze the problems. In order to solve the accessibility problem, first we needed to gather data that shows, which are the hot spots and bottlenecks in the city.
’As a result, we decided to create an application, which monitors the movement of different groups of users with different disabilities and compare them with the movement of a control group of users without disabilities.
Then we can identify the problem areas as well as the movement patterns for each group and compare the differences. Once the models are created, personalized polls will be sent to individual users to gather detailed information about the issues people are experiencing at the detected problem areas.
Information is collected by GPS and additional installed beacons at the crucial points in the city.
But who would sacrifice their own privacy and allow to be tracked for the sake of a greater good?
Our experienced team utilizes modern technologies to achieve complete anonymization of all participants. We will achieve this, by storing the gathered data locally in an encrypted model on users’ devices. The transmission to the system will happen only after anonymization and aggregation of the information has taken place — so only processed information will be provided by the users of each group. Everyone will remain anonymous and the privacy is fully protected.
Our system uses innovative cryptographic practices and blockchain technology to fully guarantee the security of personal data.
It will also allow participants involved in the project to receive payments for the data they have generated.
So, would you participate if you knew that:
- you are supporting a good cause — better infrastructure in the city for all people;
- you are totally anonymous by helping;
- you are rewarded with money for helping.
It’s a win-win situation.
4.1. What is the project goal?
The goal is to make something good for the community and to develop better local facilities and services. By utilizing this project we will help to build a more active and involved local community through bringing them in the project as a control focus group that will be used as a measurement of the other groups’ problems in moving through the city. In this regard, we partner with the National Statistics Institute (NSI) of Bulgaria to gather and provide useful statistical data that can be used as a trusted smart statistic source. And last, but not least, we build a knowledge network within the business community that will help all companies to better understand all their customers and their specific needs.
4.2. Expecting results
Through gathering this information, the results will hopefully help us to fully understand the problems that different members of the community experience when moving through the city. This will help in making the necessary adjustments to the infrastructure and to develop innovative solutions that address their needs.
Moreover, all collected information will be published as OpenData so that it can be used by all companies and institutions that want to improve the lives of Varna’s citizens.
We believe that every city should be as accessible as possible to all inhabitants.
