In March 2020, the municipality of Rotterdam started developing a video call desk, driven by the urgent need to restore eye contact with Rotterdam residents at a time when this was not so easy. At that time, there was an urgent need to be able to provide services to Rotterdam residents who could not come to us, and to whom we could not go. This included registering births for people who were hospitalised, or providing support to entrepreneurs who were at risk of getting into trouble.
Business Need: In March 2020, the municipality of Rotterdam started developing a video call desk, driven by the urgent need to restore eye contact with Rotterdam residents at a time when this was not so easy. At that time, there was an urgent need to be able to provide services to Rotterdam residents who could not come to us, and to whom we could not go. This included registering births for people who were hospitalised, or providing support to entrepreneurs who were at risk of getting into trouble.
Solution: Video calling was the solution, but it had to be made easy, accessible, and secure. In addition, legislation requires additional actions for many service processes: identification, archiving, secure exchange of documents, payment. Basically, everything that happens at a “wooden counter”. This led to the development of the Digital Counter: the “wooden counter” digitzed, rather than a process digitized.
Results: In May 2021, the Municipality of Rotterdam won the GemeenteDelers Award 2021 in the Current Affairs category with the application it developed. Both municipalities and commercial parties have approached the Municipality of Rotterdam to make a Digital Counter available for themselves. The Municipality of Rotterdam embraces the Common Ground principles and shares new functionality and solutions with interested parties wherever possible. The aim is to increase innovation and adoption by making good products and designs available for the public domain and thus for citizens. If you are enthusiastic, express your commitment via the Growth Pact · Common Ground. If we didn't already feel a moral obligation to share the Digital Counter, we certainly do now!