About Resident
Description of the Resident Application
Resident is a groundbreaking social media platform designed to bridge the communication gap between citizens and their governments. In an era where virtually every aspect of life has been transformed by digital tools, it is now time to digitize democracy to make it more accessible, tangible, and actionable.
Our mission is to empower all Canadians and mobilize municipal, provincial, and federal governments across the country, and eventually share this knowledge internationally. Resident is built by citizens for citizens, and it operates on the principles of transparency, accessibility, and accountability. Unlike other social media platforms, Resident does not and will never monetize its users through advertising. Instead, our revenue model is aligned with our core mission, ensuring that we succeed as a company when our users—Resident users—receive the support, attention, and representation they deserve within our democratic system.
Every user on the platform is considered a Resident. Upon creating a profile, users are automatically assigned to their municipal, provincial, and federal government jurisdictions. This ensures that when they post requests, suggestions, or appreciations, their elected officials are automatically notified and involved as necessary.
Elected officials are also users of the Resident app, but they undergo a secure validation process to be assigned the status of Elected Official and designated to their respective geopolitical districts. What sets Resident apart is the variety of posts that users can make:
- Requests: These are the fastest way to obtain services from your government. By tagging your elected official, you ensure that your request gets the attention it deserves.
- Suggestions: Users can submit new ideas or support existing ones posted by fellow citizens, helping to improve governance.
- Appreciations: Users can express gratitude to their elected officials when they perform well.
To streamline the process and ensure efficiency, our algorithms are optimized to involve elected officials only when necessary. For example, if delays are longer than average in neighboring communities, the system automatically routes posts to the appropriate government authorities and departments.
Resident offers unprecedented transparency. Users can view public posts from other residents on the news feed, benchmarking the efficiency of their city and province against others. This information is also accessible to participating governments, enabling them to improve service levels while reducing operating costs.
Privacy is a top priority. Users can choose whether to be identified by their real names or Resident usernames. They can also decide whether to make their home address public or keep it private. Similarly, posts can be made visible to all other residents or kept private, accessible only to elected officials.
With Resident, we are transforming the way citizens engage with their government, making democracy more inclusive, efficient, and effective.