GovTech Connect announces the winners of the CIIAR Uruguay open source pilot call for local governments

The CIIAR Uruguay open source pilot call for local governments is part of GovTech Connect, a regional program run by the Red de Innovación Local (RIL) and co-financed by IDB Lab, in collaboration with Code for Development, the IDB’s open source initiative. The program connects local governments and startups from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay to speed up the adoption of technology in public management.

GovTech Connect announced the two pilots selected in the call. Florida Abierta, by Súbito Red Desarrollos, will be piloted in the Intendencia de Florida (departmental government), and the Open Geospatial Platform, by Kan Global, in the Intendencia de Canelones.

The selection process

The call was open to the public in September and was aimed at teams able to pilot open source solutions in a CIIAR Uruguay local government. It received 14 applications, which were reviewed by a jury of five experts.

The winning proposals

The jury chose two pilots:

1. Florida Abierta
Súbito Red Desarrollos, a Uruguayan company founded in 2012, will pilot in Florida a digital repository of the department’s cultural heritage and tourism offer. The solution uses Omeka S, an open source platform maintained by Digital Scholar and used by libraries, museums and archives to publish digital collections. It will allow the company and the Intendencia to explore the Intendencia’s capacity to manage its own content, organize it with open standards and make it available to citizens, researchers and visitors.

2. Open Geospatial Platform
Kan Global will pilot in Canelones a spatial data infrastructure based on GeoNode, an OSGeo Foundation project, integrated with GeoServer, MapStore and PostGIS. The solution will allow the different areas of the Intendencia to test bringing their geographic information layers together, running joint queries and publishing relevant information for public use.

Open source as an opportunity for cities and companies

In both pilots, the code and data remain under the Intendencia’s control. It will be able to audit the tools, adapt them and keep them running regardless of the provider. Technology companies find in this model a service based business opportunity. Since they don’t rely on license fees, their revenue comes from setup, adapting the solution to each government’s needs, integration with existing systems, hosting, technical support and team training. These services build long term relationships with the public sector. In addition, by working with proven solutions, a company can replicate its offer in other cities with lower development costs and shorter setup times.

This approach also lowers the barriers to entering the GovTech market. Startups and SMEs in the region can compete based on their technical knowledge and service capacity, relying on platforms backed by international communities. Each pilot strengthens their experience and portfolio with new public sector clients.

Along the same lines, Code for Development, an IDB initiative, promotes the publication and reuse of open source solutions to address public sector challenges.

GovTech Connect seeks to create spaces for experimentation to show that this model is sustainable for the public sector and profitable for the companies that offer it.

Next steps

The selected teams will start working with each Intendencia in the coming weeks. GovTech Connect will follow up on each pilot and share its results, also contributing to the exchange of lessons on open source adoption with initiatives such as the IDB’s Code for Development.