Jakarta turns to food app to certify street sellers

City helps safe cooks get listed on private sector app.

Jakarta’s Smart City Unit wants to help citizens find safe street food. But rather than build their own app, they are supporting a startup with the same mission. The government is registering street vendors to track the quality and type of food they are selling. It will accredit those that are safe and list them on the Qraved app, which already has over a million people using it for restaurant reviews. This is part of a trend in Jakarta of working with existing startups, rather than reinventing the wheel. For transport, the smart city team is working with motorbike taxi app Go-Jek and complaints app Qlue. These startups can help the government improve services faster, smart city head Setiaji has said: “We don’t want to make new apps, because ... you need much more time”.