Grace Kagho - UrbanEcho

Developing markets are projected to constitute 99% of the world’s population growth by 2050. Despite this immense potential, business and development opportunities in these regions are under-explored. A central hurdle is the lack of readily available data for planning in pivotal sectors like transportation, energy, and healthcare. Existing data is often expensive, infrequently collected, and scattered across various entities, resulting in wasteful duplication of resources, making it hard to use this data to extract insights for policies that can effectively solve urban challenges in developing regions such as traffic congestion, higher travel costs, and even safety and environmental problems.

UrbanEcho aims to provide a digital replica (digital twin) of cities in developing regions that mirror the city's infrastructure, transport network, housing and urban facilities, and the population with their detailed characteristics and travel behaviour. A digital platform where various transport and city data are collected, organized and used to design models that are easily accessible to urban planners and policymakers in developing regions to develop strategies that would help them make better decisions to improve the transport systems and urban environment in the developing world.