Digital Citizenship and The Prometheus Fire

The City Hall was living a final week approaching a web-based voting day from its improvements program, when would occur the 10th anniversary of the city. Tecnopolis was the national example of digital citizenship, the city has been built with a proper planning and had the best processes, agencies and digital services. It was visited by other cities in the country and abroad, in search of excellence. Public opinion used to compare in those days the evolution of the city as the “Prometheus Fire” meaning it gave a fantastic dimension to the lives of citizens.

In this campaign, a new list of programs using public and private funds was done transparently, and after an election of a representative group, remained 5 projects for citizens to choose one that would begin immediately. One was bound to Digital Health; another to Increase Investment in Public Big Data for the citizens; other connected to automatic formation and application of funds for social programs; one bound to investment in e-learning; and finally a last tied to improvements in an intelligent transport application.

But now, the mayor held a meeting with a multilateral group, representatives of social media programs, public programs of digital citizenship, and partner private companies. They had a problem to solve.

By an unforeseen, the action plan to this campaign had left the focus of social media, although such was the goal. This was because an 8-years old child had created a very short video, but this had become viral. Almost a year ago, a commotion occurred in the media, because this child had lost her parents in an accident on highways, and the press showed videos in the sad situation where she found herself, for she had no other family than her parents. Her name was Angela. She asked in this new viral video, which was made a couple of days ago: “Give a hug to your daughter on the anniversary of the city”. This reignited the focus in the press. All followed the story of Angela, who now was expecting an adoption by new parents. But there was a certain bureaucratic obstacle, processes that relied on expert analysis, psychologists, social workers, judges…. An applicant couple was found by the press. They seemed really interested in the good of Angela, by demonstrating in media interviews. This generated discussions of why this process did not walk with greater promptness. However, the condition of the couple was not the traditional, they did not have a typical condition, despite a fully legal circumstance. Tecnopolis was being tested on its real progress in every way.

The debate followed in the mayor’s office:

“Is there any way to link the process with the Digital Health Program?”

“Can we improve this process with increased information in the Public Big Data Project, even in the medium term?”

No answer given seemed like a persuading argument to this period that the  citizen lived. Then a mayor’s adviser for technology took the floor.

“Aren’t we looking for the same bias? Tecnopolis really has given us pride and we always want to innovate, we always try to be better than before.”

“We have now a fully digital currency used in public and private transactions safely. We have crowd fundings to social programs being regulated in a multi-representative form and generated by the web with full transparency. Our economy is an example for the country, with health programs and revolutionary digital education. Digital governance is full of services and has the largest acceptance ever seen. Collaborative programs have impressive membership, and today we can generalize, saying that every citizen is included as a digital contributor. We have universities, companies and public departments participating in innovation processes, which are opened. Finally, we have specific communities of all types, self-regulated and that end up influencing the conduct of all our programs.”

He continued. “What is missing in Tecnopolis? We reinvented the public administration, an example to follow. We redefined our city as the first caregiver of the citizen as were the towns in ancient times, but there, in a time of lesser horizons.”

Now all the citizens are on the digital world, in a connected future.

“However, Angela pulled our leg. We need to hear the minority. Understand a particular case. Prioritize an exception. Act more with heart and less with statistics, even though from time to time. I think we did a great job listening to the masses and at the end of the day, it corresponds to what a city needs to its progress. One point to Tecnopolis and one for all of us here.  These programs are the lifeblood of the future citizen. But here, Angela showed us that we cannot fail to be in direct contact with the population, as we do sometimes. I want now to invite you to personally act and each of us seek what is needed to accelerate this particular process. If we have excellent services in all sectors, it seems that are still lacking details to some special cases.”

Thus, the story of Angela gained even greater focus and a powerful staff personally investigated in all spheres until the child might finally be adopted, on a date that was very close. There were discussions around several controversial issues, but this was the special way of Tecnopolis to evolve.

Those 5 programs had the vote postponed with acceptance by all. On the anniversary of Tecnopolis, the most talked program was to Angela, when countless citizens posted pictures hugging their children and sending a virtual hug to the girl.

Main Image from pixabay.com from “ItNeverEnds”