The innovation team at the Jerusalem Municipality in Jerusalem has come up with a crowdsourcing app designed to help entrepreneurs decide where to open up new businesses.
It is called Coming Soon and will rely on the input of the city’s residents and business owners.
The city-wide business app is intending to help inject some vigor into Jerusalem’s economy. The app works by using software and crowdsourcing to determine which types of businesses are lacking in particular neighborhoods, thereby acting as a kind of opportunity spotting tool.
In a statement in the Jerusalem Post, the Jerusalem Municipality, said: “Coming Soon asks Jerusalemites what it is they are missing in their neighborhoods and workplace environments and shares the data with entrepreneurs, who receive a package of referrals to municipal and government- subsidized training and incentives to help the new businesses become sustainable and successful.”
Big Hopes
Overall, the crowdsourcing initiative has three aims:
The mayor Nir Barkat says that he hopes the app will turn around the city’s floundering economy.
The central government’s Economy and Industry Minister Eli Cohen also has high hopes for Coming Soon. He added: “Connecting the needs of residents with local entrepreneurs is undeniably the right way to achieving a stable and successful business.”