The online and mobile app services company Infalia has left its imprint in dozens of cities around the world over the last years through the application ‘’Improve My City’’, enabling citizens to bypass bureaucracy and participate in the creation of a better urban daily life. The ‘’Improve My City’’ application is currently installed in over 30 cities around the world; from Corsica, where Biguglia residents inform the municipality about street potholes, to Namibia, where residents complain about delays in recharging aquifers through the application. At the moment, Infalia is in contact with Bangkok, Thailand, and Lagos, Nigeria, so as to spread and install the application there as well.
So far this application, which is essentially an open-source software (provided free of charge but is subject to maintenance and support fees), has been downloaded by over 4,000 bodies worldwide. Since 2016, the Municipality of Thessaloniki, which also uses the application, has received 60,000 requests from 13,000 users, paving the way for an interactive relationship and a better city.
Infalia started in 2014 as a spin-off company of the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (IPTIL) of the National Center for Research and Technological Development (CERTH) and began to commercialize some of the Institute’s research projects. Today 80% of the company’s sales take place in foreign markets, while its presence is constantly expanding in Greece, where 10 municipalities have already adopted the platform to get to know their citizens better and solve their issues.
Apart from smart city applications, the Thessaloniki based company has also significantly developed the field of data science by providing social media online content analysis services – for example, it performs multimedia content analysis for fake news detection – as well as visualization of big data analysis for policy makers, while it is getting ready to enter the area of cyber-security. It is currently involved in a major European collaborative project, Spider, which focuses on the study of 5G protocol and the possible cyber-attacks the introduction of this new technology will cause. In the framework of this involvement, Infalia is aspiring to create new services in this field, so as to be a pioneer in providing protection against cyber-attacks, but also offering IT experts training on the subject.
