Mohamed Adel, Cairo Community Manager

Mapping Cairo's Urban Initiatives

Mohamed Adel, Cairo Community Manager

The Cairo Urban Initiatives Platform (CUIP) is a newly-launched bilingual Arabic/English online platform produced by the Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research (CLUSTER). It "includes the multiple architecture, art, advocacy, urban development, and interdisciplinary initiatives addressing issues related to the city, the urban environment and public space in Cairo," and uses an interactive map that allows users to list new initiatives in a crowdmapping project.

Crowdmapping in Egypt started in December 2010 with the launch of Harassmap, which maps sexual harassment in Egypt through reports sent via website and text messages, based on the free and open-source Ushahidi platform. This initiative "... help[s] support face-to-face community action to mobilize the public to speak up against sexual harassment." Last year, Harrasmap was awarded Best Use of Technology for Social Good from Deutsche Welle's The Bobs (Best of Online Activism).

Other mapping initiatives were created following Harassmap, and are based on the Ushahidi platform, with purposes ranging from mapping the January 25th protests to Egypt Blackouts to crime and corruption. These initiatives are not only based in Egypt, but in the entire Arab World.

CUIP is a unique experiment as anyone with Internet access can map, edit, or add initiatives (information is published upon review). The platform even incorporates projects without a precise location. CUIP offers an online directory, somewhat similar to the well-known YellowPages, but more open to community. It includes a calendar of events (which for a long time only existed on some blogs and websites) based on further interaction between initiatives, organizations, and individuals that work with public space.

Prior to the launch of the website, Cluster held meetings with individuals and organizations. Their first program brought stakeholders in Cairo together for multiple sessions in order to come up with the probable opportunities and challenges facing urban initiatives, and ended with an invitation to participants to create CUIP's directory.

The second program brought architects and artists in direct engagement with public space to address the involved laws and regulations governing practice in public space and community rights, issues of cultural events in public space, and collaboration between artists and architects in public space.

Beta launch took place on March 30, 2013. The website was designed to be interesting and catchy, with different colors for each type of initiative, including academia/research, real estate developers, art/culture, advocacy, discursive media, architecture/urbanism, governmental institutions, international agencies and public spaces. Users can also sort initiatives by name, focus, activity, or resource. Categories also include crafts, cultural development, film, heritage, literature, music, networking, performing arts, photography, public space, sustainability, technology, and visual arts.

In an early review of the program published on 15 May 2013, Mohamed Elshahed commented: "The color coding system while attractive at first impression doesn't immediately translate into a clear distinction of theme or function".

He adds: "It would be useful to include perhaps another color-coded category for official museums and other state-managed cultural spaces some of which sit empty and could potentially be used for events and programs by independent initiatives. The current map perpetuates the invisibility of this latent potential by only highlighting the active and energetic independent arts and culture scene."

Visiting the platform now, one can see that the color legend appears immediately to notify the user about the color coding system.

CUIP allows initiatives and organizations to manage and maintain their own data and to post events through confirmed user accounts. There is a step-by-step guide for using the platform content management system to upload information.

Supported by the Ford Foundation and the British Council, CUIP is in its early phase but is already considered a unique and robust database, listing initiatives and organizations for anyone who deals with urbanism and public spaces in Cairo, and with an updated events calendar. This project has big potential and deserves to receive more attention and support in order to become more open to the public and to be a pioneering tool for social good.

Photo credit: CUIP