The Poprad project called CVIKER was created on the grounds of the (f)ITcubator with the support of the Slovak Smart City Cluster and the City of Poprad back in 2017. About a year and a half ago, Poprad residents Ján Hrončák and Martin Rapoš took on the challenge and created an application called Cviker. It is a 3D visualization of urban planning that uses augmented reality to visualize buildings. Thanks to this application, people are able to visualize houses, bridges, or various construction changes in real space and in real size. All you need is a smartphone or tablet. Local governments often encounter dissatisfaction from citizens when a new building, playground, or garage is to be built near them. This dissatisfaction most often turns into a petition when all decisions have already been issued (change in zoning plan, zoning proceedings, building permit). If all these processes were preceded by visualization in the form of augmented reality directly at the site where the object is to be built, all parties could view it before all permits were issued. There would be time to communicate controversial issues, for example, regarding appropriate location, building height, overall appearance, shading, etc. From this point of view, the CVIKER AR application becomes a communication tool that increases citizen participation in decision-making.
Young innovators decided to embark on the project at the initiative of the then Deputy Mayor of the City of Poprad, Igor Wzoš. “What we previously saw only in urban plans, we now see in real space. Here I understood the possibilities that virtual reality can bring us. How can we use this tool in spatial planning, how can a city, a resident or a company use it. A new possibility of communication between the city and citizens is emerging here,” says Igor Wzoš, Chairman of the Board of Directors of SSCC.
According to Ján Hrončák, cooperation with the city leadership at the time opened the doors to the world for them. At that time, they also entered a competition announced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for Investments and Informatization, and one of the conditions was that the project must be supported and applicable at the local government level. In 2017, the city of Poprad signed a memorandum of cooperation with the startups, they won the competition and thanks to that they got to America, where they spent 3 months. “The Cviker project is an example of how, thanks to state support, a small local company with a good idea and concept can become an important player in the global market,” says Richard Raši, Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for Investments and Informatization. According to him, small and medium-sized enterprises that offer unique solutions often lack the funds to improve their products and find investors. In these 3 months, the company managed to obtain not only valuable education and contacts, but also implement the first pilots for the largest developers on the East Coast. This digital platform for urban planning also received funding from the Slovak American Foundation. According to Igor Wzoš: “Young innovators transformed the vision into a project and are already implementing it today. This is thanks to good decisions. I am sincerely excited that I was able to stand at the birth of such a unique project, which is receiving awards not only at home but also around the world.”
“The Cviker platform also attracted attention at the international ITAPA conference in Bratislava, where in mid-November 2018 it received a special award from the organizer for innovative assistance to the city of Poprad,” confirms Ján Michlík, founding member of (f)ITcubator.
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