AMACHAN

Over het initiatief / About the initiative

AMACHAN

In welke fase zit jouw initiatief? / In what stage is your initiative?

Uitgewerkt conceptfase

Heb je jouw initiatief al gevalideerd? / Did you validate your initiative?

We have validated our initiative through three main stakeholders: First with the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) in the Netherlands. Secondly with the Province of Overijsel in the area of ​​social communication. Thirdly with the Gemente of Enschede, in the area of ​​social participation. Fourth, with the University of Twente, in the Urban Planning department. Currently, we are working on developing a second round of validation with other stakeholders.

Meer informatie over jouw initiatief / More info about your initiative

Amachan is a digital tool which allows creating a participatory diagnostic of urban issues and collect ideas and aspirations of a specific urban/rural area to improve the conditions of cities in different scales, at a provincial, regional or local levels. The tool can be adjusted to another context worldwide. Currently, we want to focus on how to promote a better social involvement in the phases of planning, design, and maintenance of cities from a bottom-up approach, using technology as a support system.

AMAchan is a platform that offers transparency and flexibility  in data collection for social participation and urban planning. We provide transparency to data collection analysis and flexibility to create different research instruments.

The AMACHAN platform allows you to create a personalized survey with a spatial component. This means that all the information collected is based on a map with information of different sources. E.g. Open Street Maps. The AMCHAN platform allows the use of different questionnaire research components for a more precise data collection. It allows you to collect qualitative and quantitative information among your target audience. 

The name of the tool is an anagram of the words “AMAtohtli” and “CHANtlacatl” from the Nahuatl language, which translate as “Maps of the people of the town”. Nahuatl is a language which belonged to the pre-Hispanic indigenous communities of the Aztec empire in central Mexico.

Wat zijn jouw volgende stappen om het verder te ontwikkelen? / What are your next steps to develop the initiative?

Currently we are being coached by an startup accelerator from the University of Twente called Novel-T. We are trying to improve our prototype into a model business. And looking to have a solid product to be tested in a real world environment in the Netherlands, and why not, maybe around the world!

We are working to have a solid business model with a projection of work for the next three years.

Wat heb je nodig om (nog meer) impact te maken met dit initiatief? / What do you need to make (more) impact with this initiative?

We are aiming to obtain a solid network of clients in the areas of government, universities, construction companies, civil society organizations working with urban problems. Particularly contact with Dutch institutions to promote our product and services.

We are trying to obtain capital seed to start operations for our first year of work with the Amachan platform, currently we invest with our own money the starting phase of our initiative, but an extra help could speed up our innitiative.