Our Startup Booster program helps aspiring entrepreneurs who want to turn their business idea into impact-driven startups in the field of urban tech. With over 20 teams ‘boosted’ since our first edition, we look back at 3 successful runs. How are the alumni teams doing now?

Time to discover how CoTowns' technology helps local governments to engage citizens towards sustainable change while rewarding them for their contribution.

 

CoTown: Technology to better the local economy and urban environment while rewarding citizen engagement.

“CoTown deploys technology so that everyone can participate and be rewarded for their contribution in their own environment or within a company. Reward, independent and local are the key words for our technological solution.”

Grégoire Piette | Founder & CEO | CoTown

Technology to stimulate and reward civic engagement

Local governments have numerous policy objectives to reach. Can this be done with the help of citizens - by stimulating and rewarding them to take on communal tasks that positively impact their social and urban environments?

Diving into voluntary contribution rates, CoTown found that 20% of young people contribute to their sports club, 10% work in their school, and 9% help out in a local youth organization. These figures show that the participation of young people in their environment can be further increased. Grégoire Piette, one of the founders of CoTown, wondered how new technology can influence citizen behavior when it comes to participating and contributing to their urban environment.

Now, CoTown provides services and solutions for cities that want to become more sustainable and social. The startup's goal is to help cities boost civic engagement and local economies through the latest technologies.

A success story: 225+ communal tasks done.

To stimulate sustainable collaborations locally and promote civic engagement, organizations can now make use of the smart platforms developed by CoTown.

The startup began exploring this idea in 2018 and launched the first proof of concept with the City of Heerlen in the South of the Netherlands. 't Heerlen’s Heitje** platform was launched in October 2021 and citizens of Heerlen are rewarded for their help with small neighborhood jobs like renovating a bench or a bin. Now, 228 tasks have been done by citizens. Also, 28 shops have joined the scheme and 7000 euros worth of Heitje 'coins' have been converted.

CoTown is currently looking at a subscription-based license fee for other municipalities depending on the number of inhabitants and additional local organizations' accounts that are added to the platform.

" 't Heerlens Heitje is an initiative of the municipality of Heerlen in collaboration with Heerlen Mijn Stad, CoTown, Brightlands Smart Services Campus, neighborhood organization GMS, CBS and the VNG. It is financially supported by the Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) fund of the European Union. You can find more information on: www.heerlen.nl/heitje. "