THE ground-breaking innovation, CityMenderSA, arrives just days before the G20 Summit, positioning South Africa at the centre of global attention for digital governance and community technology. The founder of the platform, Keyuren Maharaj, is beside himself with the positive response the project has garnered.

He unpacked the user-friendly tool, “CityMenderSA allows residents to point their phone camera at their surroundings and see real-time municipal faults as floating AR markers, precisely anchored to their true physical location. It is the first public, fully operational AR service-delivery system deployed anywhere in the world, accessible for free by all South Africans.

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“This is the first time ordinary residents can physically view service-delivery issues through Augmented Reality. It’s a global breakthrough, built right here in South Africa.”

CityMenderSA was built from scratch with over 300 000 lines of self-taught code. In only four months it has grown throughout SA and has had over 1600 issues logged.

The platform enables residents to report service-delivery issues instantly, track and update issues in real time, access issues in English, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, download PDF audit trails, and it offers a two-way communication with ward committees, organisations, municipalities and residents, views issues on maps, and now includes Augmented Reality.

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Maharaj explained that it is already used across the country, and integrates AI to classify photos, detect duplicates, improve accuracy, and it assists municipalities in prioritising issues. It allows for faster, more accurate responses.

CityMenderSA is free to the public. This, Maharaj said, ensures equal access for wealthy suburbs, informal settlements, and rural towns alike.

He concluded, “South Africa takes a leadership role at the G20 Summit, with world leaders arriving this week, and CityMenderSA stands as a powerful example of South Africa’s ability to innovate at a global level.”

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