PlaceSpeak is a location-based

civic engagement Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...

platform designed to consult with people within specific geographic boundaries. It is a product of PlaceSpeak Inc., a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

technology company A technology company (or tech company) is a company that focuses primarily on the manufacturing, support, research and development of—most commonly computing, telecommunication and consumer electronics–based—technology-intensive products and ...

headquartered in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. Its suite of feedback collection tools and features was designed with the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum of Public Participation in mind. PlaceSpeak has been used by public and private sector organizations to consult with the public on community plans, parks and recreation, public transit, public health, budgets, and more. As of late, it has supported the emergence of

Smart Cities A smart city is an urban area that uses digital technology to collect data and operate services. Data is collected from citizens, devices, buildings, or cameras. Applications include traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities ...

across the world with citizen engagement tools for real time development.

History

Urban geographer Colleen Hardwick founded PlaceSpeak in 2010. The idea came to her while looking at a Google Map of Vancouver’s Arbutus Corridor, and she posed a question about how to best consult with residents based on where they live. She thought that a tool was needed to provide a platform for government, decision makers and developers of public policy “to demonstrate honesty…and authenticity in their desire to respond to the will of the people”. Traditional forms of civic engagement, such as public meetings, often have low attendance with very selective participation; PlaceSpeak initially began as a way to supplement and enhance traditional forms of consultation. Hardwick developed the platform as a way to advance public participation. By 2011, the City of Vancouver was testing it as a way of gathering ideas from residents. The PlaceSpeak platform was designed to enable open and transparent engagement by connecting people to local issues. By connecting users'

digital identity A digital identity is data stored on Computer, computer systems relating to an individual, organization, application, or device. For individuals, it involves the collection of personal data that is essential for facilitating automated access to ...

to their physical location, PlaceSpeak keeps them notified of new and relevant public consultations in their communities, creating opportunities for dialogue between

citizens Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality; ...

and

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

. The ability for proponents and participants to engage with each other reflects PlaceSpeak’s two-sided market. Proponents register their organization with PlaceSpeak and set up a topic to consult with the public. Geo-verified users can respond to surveys, polls, discussion forums and participatory maps, providing insight into how residents in a specific area feel about a particular issue.

Technology

PlaceSpeak is a cloud-based public participation platform that generates geo-spatial feedback data, closely related to a form of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). It is an e-consultation toolkit that allows proponents to connect with and geo-authenticate citizen users based on their location. It uses a 3-step digital identification process to authenticate a user’s residential address. PlaceSpeak is based on a web application framework which enables

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

scaling and has a built in archiving structure. It has an

Application Programming Interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...

that enables integration with third party applications, such as

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

and

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

. PlaceSpeak was developed with the support of the

National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; ) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research and development. It is the largest federal research and development organization in Canada. Th ...

(NRC-IRAP).

Neighbourhoods

In 2015, PlaceSpeak launche

a private civic network that allows users to connect with people who live in their neighbourhood. ''Neighbourhoods'' pools together geo-verified users who live in the same area, providing key features like a community noticeboard and an events calendar once logged in. Any communication between registered residents is kept private.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

Official website
Companies based in Vancouver Political software Web applications