‘The teams behind the apps’ series: meet CityScale
Competing in the EU Datathon 2021, helping you find the best place for you to live
'The teams behind the apps' is a series of videos made by the EU Datathon finalists. Discover the people and their proposals for apps over nine episodes, once a week, in a run-up to the final event. At the competition finals in November the teams will pitch their apps to the jury who will select the winners.
In this second episode, meet CityScale, a Ukraine-based application built to help you find the best place to live. They are competing with two other teams in challenge 2: ‘An economy that works for people’.
CityScale collects data on cities, and the application gauges the quality and cost of living. If you are planning a move, this real estate search service visualises, compares, and finds the best place for you to live. Through interactive maps you can get generalised and detailed information about the cost of housing, the level of crime, the environment, the transport options, the educational and medical institutions in the area, and rates for utilities, for instance. On the other hand, the application can be used by real estate professionals or government officials to reach informed policy decisions. Currently the application operates in Ukraine only.
Alexander Go is the founder and lead developer of CityScale and we talked to him briefly to learn more about CityScale:
- How are you doing with the app? What’s the status?
As an early-stage start-up, we are working in a constant develop, test and improve mode. But CityScale is already a pretty mature cost and quality of life evaluation framework. You just need to feed the right data into it and behold a result. Therefore, we are concentrating on adapting it for new countries, by searching for, collecting and preparing new European data for it. And you know what? We were impressed by the quality of data from the Crown and Her Majesty. In addition, we are working on the next quality of life evaluation model extension. And you will see our achievements at the event finals.
- Why did you decide to take part in the EU Datathon?
Our ultimate goal is to change how people choose a place to live in. In a way, their choice is conscious, fits their life needs and priorities, and takes the minimum possible effort. And the more people around the globe get to know the app, try it, and find the best place to live in, the better. Not to mention that it is also rewarding to stress test your ideas in the heat of a contest.
- What makes your app special?
CityScale is a qualitatively different way of searching for a home. It puts subjective impressions behind objective data. You will definitely see a change. And beyond that, CityScale provides an own open data portal and extended solutions for other projects, authorities and city specialists.
To find out more about CityScale, watch the 1-minute video in which Alexander introduces himself and the app.
Curious to learn more? Discover all teams and apps via the EU Datathon website, and follow updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or via our newsletter.