Different dimensions of urban development

For the past few years, I have been researching the idea of the 'publicly managed city'. The question that interests me is this: how much of the development of the city can be initiated and managed by the citizens themselves, working together through information platforms? The core of this is Technagara, the platform that Mapunity has been developing for different domain applications.

A second focus of my work has been development communication, particularly the organisation of information that promotes public understanding of the issues. Since 1998, I have been a journalist and editor at India Together, and more recently I have begun exploring how local, community media can facilitate development.

I am also interested in the question: what is the potential of technology, especially IT, to tackle social and economic problems? In particular, is it possible to build information problems that draw upon crowd-sourced knowledge and collaboration to create a more informed citizenry, and to strengthen public administration?