Urban Platform Data Philanthropy in Action: Strava Metro and Waze CCP Platforms were paying attention to this conversation and soon began leveraging their data externally as a source of charity through which they might provide public benefit or at least curry political favor while advancing public relations objectives. Whatever the motive, before cities were demanding data via regulations, urban platforms began to flex their newfound data-derived power and influence by sharing data voluntarily, on their terms. This gave local governments a first taste of the civic potential of platform data, serving as an important precursor to data sharing mandates.
Figure 4.
Waze launched its “Connected Citizens Program (Waze CCP)” to provide “Data for Cities” in October of 2014. It has since rebranded to “Waze for Cities (W4C)”. Screenshot from “Waze for Cities” website.38
Social fitness app, Strava, and crowdsourced navigation app Waze both launched voluntary data sharing programs in 2014., “Strava Metro” and “Waze Connected Citizens Program (CCP)”, respectively, that together illustrate the data philanthropy trend within platform urbanism. Strava first began publishing open data in 2013 as an experiment via its “global heat map” visualization39. City transportation officials soon took notice, expressing interest in using the heatmap’s bike and pedestrian commuting patterns for planning purposes such as justifying new bike lanes along popular routes or evaluating impacts of multimodal street 38
“Driving Directions, Traffic Reports & Carpool Rideshares by Waze,” accessed May 17, 2022, https://www. waze.com/wazeforcities/.
39
Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, “How Strava, The App For Athletes, Became An App For Cities,” Fast Company, November 1, 2017, https://www.fastcompany.com/90149130/strava-the-app-for-athletes-isbecoming-an-app-for-cities.
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School
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