South Africa 3 – LeakNet: Every Drop Counts. Every Citizen Matters.

An AI-enabled platform empowering South African citizens to detect, report, and resolve water leaks.

Team YA-SA-3: Ameera Yacoob, Bhekinkosi Mkhize, Laurent Etokabeka, Ayanda Ngcobo, Bankies Katlego

South Africa Is Running Dry: From Silent Leaks to Collective Action

Imagine a neighbourhood street in Durban, South Africa.

A small, steady leak snakes its way down the pavement.

No alarms. No maintenance crew. No one reports it.

By the time it’s noticed, thousands of litres—and thousands of rands—are already lost.

Across South Africa, scenes like this unfold daily. Nearly half of the nation’s treated water disappears before it ever reaches a tap—a staggering 46% loss (WRC, 2025; DWS, 2023). Much of it leaks quietly from corroded pipes, damaged valves, and ageing infrastructure—draining not only precious water, but also public trust in municipal service delivery.

These are not abstract numbers. An estimated R7 billion is lost every year to non-revenue water (DWS, 2023). These losses show up in dry taps, delayed repairs, and mounting public frustration. They also postpone progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6—clean water and sanitation for all—highlighting how inefficient systems are not only unsustainable but also unjust for the communities they fail (UN, 2024).

But this crisis isn’t just technical. It’s behavioural. Most citizens don’t know how—or why—to report leaks. Reporting channels are slow, fragmented, or non-existent. Trust in institutions is eroding. Apathy grows. The result? A nation leaking not just water, but opportunity. Without civic action, infrastructure alone cannot solve the growing disconnect between people and their water systems.

So, we asked ourselves:

What if citizens became the first line of defence?

What if technology could see what we don’t, and act when we won’t?

And what if communities could turn water loss into water justice?

LeakNet was born from that vision.

From Passive Bystanders to Active Guardians: Why Public Participation is Essential

South Africa’s water crisis is a governance challenge as much as it is a technical one (WRC, 2025; van den Berg & Danilenko, 2017). Fragmented channels, lack of user education, and inefficient feedback loops render leak reporting inaccessible or futile (DWS, 2023). Citizens become spectators—disempowered, unheard, and disengaged. Yet every drop lost due to inaction reflects not just a broken pipe, but a broken civic relationship in urgent need of repair.

To change this, public engagement must shift from reactive complaint to proactive stewardship (UNESCO, 2022). Designing mechanisms that lower the barrier to entry activates latent civic potential. When citizens see their actions driving tangible outcomes, behavioural inertia gives way to collective accountability. What emerges is a stronger social contract: one where water justice is not outsourced, but embedded in everyday citizen action (OECD, 2015).

Our Solution: LeakNet

A citizen-powered leak detection and action platform.

LeakNet is a mobile-first platform that empowers ordinary citizens to become front-line water stewards. It allows users to detect, report, and track water leaks in real time. By decentralising surveillance and enabling civic action, LeakNet creates a scalable, people-driven solution to infrastructure failure—restoring agency to communities while mitigating billions in non-revenue water losses (World Bank, 2022; van den Berg & Danilenko, 2017).

At its core, LeakNet is built on a bold mission: to democratise water governance by closing the feedback loop between citizens and municipalities (OECD, 2015). Through a fusion of artificial intelligence, crowdsourced data, and behavioural insights, LeakNet turns passive observation into collective action—reclaiming lost water, rebuilding civic trust, and reshaping infrastructure accountability from the bottom up (WRC, 2025; UNESCO, 2022).

LeakNet: A Digital Bridge Between People and Pipes

LeakNet is a civic technology platform that reimagines water leak reporting as a catalyst for mass participation. By blending artificial intelligence, geospatial mapping, and behavioural nudges, it empowers everyday South Africans to become infrastructure watchdogs—armed with a smartphone, a sense of responsibility, and the tools to enact real change (UNDP, 2021).

Users report leaks by capturing photos, videos, or voice notes via the mobile app or WhatsApp. Submissions are analysed by a machine learning model trained to identify leak type and severity. Reports are then geotagged, verified, and visualised in real time—closing the loop between citizen vigilance and actionable data with measurable impact (DWS, 2023).

An interactive public map displays leak density, status updates, and spatial trends. The WhatsApp interface broadens access for low-bandwidth users while feeding the same AI backend. LeakNet harmonises both streams into one dataset, building a decentralised, user-powered infrastructure intelligence system—one that municipalities can no longer afford to ignore (WRC, 2025; OECD, 2015).

The municipal dashboard prioritises leaks by urgency, recurrence, and location. Field teams receive filtered tasks, while analysts view macro trends to support predictive planning and budget efficiency. This isn’t crowdsourced noise—it’s signal, refined. Every verified report moves the needle on service delivery, transforming fragmented complaints into centralised, high-fidelity operational insight (UNDP, 2021).

Gamified features reward participation through points, badges, and leaderboards. Weekly challenges incentivise community involvement, while educational modules deepen public understanding of water systems. The result is a self-reinforcing ecosystem—one where data informs policy, action builds trust, and citizen engagement becomes the backbone of national water resilience (UNESCO, 2022; van den Berg & Danilenko, 2017).

Designing for Impact: Core Features that Drive Change

LeakNet’s prototype represents more than a conceptual exercise—it is a blueprint for scalable, citizen-powered infrastructure reform. Each feature has been carefully mapped out to address South Africa’s unique digital realities, drawing from behavioural science, AI innovation, and inclusive design (Ramotsoela et al., 2019; van den Berg & Danilenko, 2017). While still under development, the Figma-based prototype demonstrates how civic engagement, machine learning, and public-sector accountability can intersect to build a better water future. Below, we outline the intended functions and systems envisioned for a full-scale platform rollout (WRC, 2025; UNDP, 2021).

AI Leak Classifier

At the heart of the proposed platform is a supervised machine-learning model trained to differentiate leak types—surface seepage, burst mains, or underground faults—based on photographic and acoustic inputs. It will automatically tag severity levels, enabling municipalities to triage repairs. By structuring data at the point of collection, the system reduces reliance on user expertise and accelerates response workflows (World Bank, 2022; OECD, 2015).

Citizen Reporting App

The mobile app prototype is designed for ease-of-use and accessibility across South Africa’s bandwidth-constrained settings. It allows users to submit geotagged leak reports via images, voice notes, or short videos, with interfaces available in multiple languages. Its low-data design ensures that no one is excluded from participation—regardless of geography or income level (UNESCO, 2022).

WhatsApp Integration Tool

To bridge the digital divide, the proposed design includes a WhatsApp-based submission option. Even basic phones could be used to send text or photo reports, which the AI model would process like any app submission. This approach prioritises inclusion while harnessing the ubiquity of WhatsApp across South African households (van den Berg & Danilenko, 2017).

Mapping Dashboard

Instead of traditional municipal portals, the prototype includes a mapping dashboard designed to turn citizen reports into actionable insights. Local officials would be able to filter leaks by type, severity, and location, while visual heatmaps would help flag high-priority zones. This system could guide predictive maintenance efforts and foster transparency by reflecting the community’s real-time concerns (WRC, 2025).

Gamified Impact & Water Literacy

Beyond functionality, LeakNet aims to foster behavioural change. The prototype includes gamification features—points, badges, leaderboards—alongside educational content on water-saving techniques. Schools, wards, and households would be able to track their collective impact, transforming reporting from a reactive task into a source of civic pride and environmental stewardship (UNDP, 2021; Ramotsoela et al., 2019).

Benefits: Advancing the Global Goals

SDG 6: Clean Water & Sanitation
LeakNet reduces water loss by accelerating leak detection and resolution, ensuring equitable access to safe water.

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure
Transforms infrastructure management with AI, geospatial data, and predictive analytics to build resilient water systems.

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities
Empowers municipalities to optimise water networks, guaranteeing a reliable supply and strengthening urban resilience.

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption & Production
Promotes water stewardship through behavioural nudges, gamified engagement, and citizen-led conservation.

SDG 13: Climate Action
Cuts potable water losses, mitigating climate-induced scarcity as droughts and heatwaves intensify.

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Catalyses cross-sector collaboration, uniting governments, industry, and citizens in a shared mission for water security.

Broader Community Impact

Empowered Citizens
Provides an intuitive platform for reporting leaks, enabling direct participation in infrastructure governance.

Transparent Institutions
Enables real-time tracking and accountability, strengthening trust between citizens and municipalities.

Environmental Stewardship
Reduces water waste, enhances resource efficiency, and supports sustainable management of natural systems.

Data-Driven Decision-Making
Delivers insights to prioritise interventions, forecast maintenance, and inform future infrastructure investments.

Under the Hood: How LeakNet Works

Behind LeakNet’s proposed interface lies a forward-looking technical architecture, purpose-built to meet South Africa’s urgent infrastructure needs through scalable, cloud-based innovation (World Bank, 2022; Ramotsoela et al., 2019). What we are proposing is a system that empowers everyday citizens to feed directly into a digital ecosystem—one designed to turn individual vigilance into institutional intelligence.

The proposed backend will be hosted on Firebase, chosen for its real-time syncing capabilities, lightweight cloud functions, and seamless authentication (Google Developers, 2023). A mobile-first frontend will communicate with the backend via RESTful APIs, enabling quick, secure data exchange even in bandwidth-constrained environments typical of underserved urban and peri-urban communities (ITU, 2021).

At the heart of LeakNet’s innovation is a proposed AI-powered leak classification engine, trained using TensorFlow Lite on a curated, labelled image dataset of water infrastructure failures (Ramotsoela et al., 2019; van den Berg & Danilenko, 2017). Once built, this engine will allow users to upload photos of suspected leaks, which will be auto-classified by type (burst pipe, valve, underground seep) and severity (minor to critical)—enabling fast triage for municipal response (OECD, 2015).

In parallel, a WhatsApp integration will provide a text- and image-based reporting pathway for users without smartphones or stable internet. These messages will route through a backend parser, which pushes structured data into the same classification model, maintaining a unified reporting pipeline regardless of entry point.

On the institutional end, we envision a municipal dashboard powered by live APIs and layered with spatial analytics. Verified reports will populate real-time maps, filterable by urgency, location, and frequency. Over time, this platform could support predictive leak detection, repair team routing, and more intelligent budget allocation—closing the loop from citizen input to civic action (WRC, 2025; UNDP, 2021).

Roadmap: From Prototype to Scalable Civic Infrastructure

LeakNet’s roadmap charts a three-year journey from concept to continent-wide deployment, combining agile development, behavioural adoption, and municipal integration. Each phase builds technical maturity and public trust while expanding our ecosystem of partners and users.

Year 1: Development & Early Engagement

• Platform Build: Design, prototype, and test core modules such as the mobile app, WhatsApp gateway, AI classification engine, and municipal dashboard.
• Pilot Testing: Conduct closed beta in two municipalities, optimising user flow, language accessibility, and low-data performance.
• Awareness Campaigns: Launch nationwide campaigns promoting responsible water use and leak reporting via radio, schools, and social media.
• Behavioural Design: Gamified incentives and feedback loops encourage first-time users and foster reporting habits.

Year 2: Launch, Adoption & Intelligence

• Public Launch: Full platform release across multiple cities with an integrated dashboard and geospatial leak mapping.
• Beta Refinement: Regular updates informed by user analytics, feedback, and performance metrics.
• Ecosystem Growth: Deploy citizen engagement campaigns with NGOs, ward councillors, and schools; scale Water Guardian programmes.
• Municipal Integration: Expand dashboard capabilities to include predictive leak detection, urgency filters, and real-time status reporting.
• Advanced Features: Introduce early data-as-a-service tools and first third-party API integrations.

Year 3: Scale, Diversification & Impact

• National Rollout: Extend LeakNet to all major metros and secondary cities, supporting multilingual reporting and offline submissions.
• AI Optimisation: Enhance classification engine accuracy with larger labelled datasets and predictive maintenance modelling.
• Civic Expansion: Extend platform functionality to monitor additional infrastructure (e.g., potholes, power outages, waste dumping).
• Public-Private Scaling: Integrate sponsored challenges, ESG-aligned campaigns, and zero-rated access with telecom partners.
• Impact Measurement: Publish annual impact reports on litres saved, leaks repaired, and citizen participation trends.

Beyond Grants: A Sustainable Civic-Tech Model

LeakNet is not a one-off app—it’s a systems-level intervention reimagining how infrastructure intelligence is generated, valued, and sustained in the digital era (McKinsey & Company, 2021; OECD, 2020). At its core is a hybrid business model that blends public-sector contracts, private-sector partnerships, and platform-based revenue to ensure both financial sustainability and scalable impact. This is civic tech with a balance sheet.

Public Sector: Subscription-Based Municipal Services

The foundation of LeakNet’s revenue model is tiered municipality subscriptions. These packages grant local governments access to the AI-classified leak dashboard, predictive analytics, and performance reporting (World Bank, 2022). Municipalities pay for what they use—ranging from basic classification and alerts to advanced modules with API integrations, citizen communication tools, and real-time spatial heatmaps. With water losses costing South African municipalities billions annually, LeakNet becomes not a cost, but a savings multiplier (WRC, 2025).

Private Sector: Sponsored Engagement & ESG Alignment

Private-sector participation is baked in via CSR and ESG-aligned sponsorships. Corporations and NGOs fund school-based Water Guardian challenges, gamified incentives, and educational content—simultaneously building brand equity and fulfilling sustainability metrics (Deloitte, 2023). For example, telecom sponsors may provide zero-rated data access, while banks or beverage companies sponsor weekly challenges or local repair campaigns. This co-branded engagement creates measurable, high-visibility impact in under-resourced communities.

Platform Revenue: Data, Ads, and API Access

LeakNet’s architecture allows for platform-native monetisation that does not compromise its mission. Carefully vetted in-app advertisements—from water-efficient appliances to environmental job boards—can be included on non-intrusive screens, such as the leaderboard or “Water Tips” section. Ad revenues are ring-fenced to subsidise participation in high-risk, low-bandwidth areas (UNDP, 2021).

Meanwhile, anonymised and aggregated data products can be sold via a data-as-a-service (DaaS) model to researchers, insurers, and ESG analytics firms, provided strict privacy and ethical standards are met (WEF, 2022). Additionally, open APIs will allow third parties to integrate LeakNet data into broader urban resilience platforms—unlocking new partnerships and licensing opportunities.

Scalability: One Model, Many Frontiers

The model’s most compelling feature is its modularity. The same AI-routing and citizen-reporting logic can be repurposed to address issues such as potholes, electrical faults, illegal dumping, and even public health alerts (GovLab, 2019). By embedding a habit of digital civic reporting, LeakNet becomes a springboard for a broader infrastructure intelligence stack—customisable by sector, scalable by design.

Grant Leverage, Not Grant Dependence

In its early phases, LeakNet will leverage grant funding strategically—not for survival, but to de-risk innovation, pilot new markets, and underwrite equity-focused features like the WhatsApp integration (Nesta, 2018). But the long game is clear: this is a platform that earns its keep through operational relevance, fiscal prudence, and a vision big enough to match South Africa’s infrastructure challenge.

Cost Structure: Ensuring Long-Term Sustainability

To demonstrate operational feasibility and long-term viability, the following cost structure outlines the projected investment required to build, deploy, and sustain LeakNet over its first three years.

Making Leak Reporting Cool: Our Engagement Plan

Schools as Civic Labs

LeakNet’s community engine begins in schools—where civic identity takes root. We partner with educators to launch Water Guardian clubs, training students to track leaks, earn points, and compete across schools and wards. Classroom toolkits align with curricula, making environmental action part of daily learning (UNICEF, 2021). In doing so, we convert schools into hubs of behavioural change and seed early adoption at the grassroots level.

Digital without Exclusion

Our strategy prioritises accessibility through WhatsApp onboarding, ensuring inclusion for users without smartphones or high-speed data. Campaigns will be launched via community radio, mobile loudhailer vans, and ward councillor channels to promote sign-ups (GSMA, 2022). WhatsApp users can submit image, video, or voice-note reports—seamlessly routed through the same AI system. This ensures no voice is excluded, no leak goes unseen, and no effort goes unrewarded.

Social Media with Substance

LeakNet leverages short-form digital storytelling to shift public perception—transforming leak reporting into a badge of honour. TikTok reels, Instagram stories, and Facebook community posts will spotlight top reporters, celebrate impact metrics, and share repair wins (UNDP, 2022). We’ll amplify community champions, run monthly challenges, and highlight litres saved in real-time. This makes climate action tangible, visible, and emotionally resonant—especially among youth and first-time digital activists.

Community Partners as Catalysts

We co-create activation drives with local NGOs, CBOs, and religious organisations—mobilising existing networks to expand reach (OECD, 2021). From door-to-door onboarding to water-saving workshops, these trusted intermediaries facilitate community ownership and deepen trust. LeakNet’s flexible design enables easy translation into local languages, furthering cultural fit. This isn’t a top-down deployment—it’s co-owned by the communities who use it and shaped by the leaders they trust.

Feedback That Builds Loyalty

Each leak submission receives immediate, tailored feedback: litres saved, severity classified, and visual repair status. Leaderboards gamify progress by ward, school, or neighbourhood. Over time, this cultivates an expectation of transparency and a habit of action (Nesta, 2019). When people see their efforts drive impact, they return—not as users, but as stakeholders. With LeakNet, every citizen becomes part of the country’s water-saving infrastructure.

Launch Plan: Rapid Digital Mobilisation

LeakNet enters communities with momentum built. The launch plan puts digital reporting in the hands of fast-moving networks: students, neighbourhood groups, and civic influencers. A rapid onboarding push drives exponential uptake as each new participant expands the graph, creating dense clusters of activity within days across schools and urban spaces.

Rollout centres on activation triggers that prompt use and sustained participation: school competitions, ward challenges, and community milestones. Local results appear from day one, reinforcing habit formation, increasing reporting velocity, and strengthening municipal engagement through status updates, efficient routing, and repairs that validate citizen effort.

🔗 Access the interactive marketing strategy page here: https://bit.ly/leaknetwebsite

Measuring What Matters: LeakNet’s Impact Potential

For Citizens

With South Africa’s population nearing 65 million and smartphone usage rising annually, LeakNet’s mobile-first and WhatsApp-compatible platform aims to engage at least 2 million citizens within three years (Statista, 2024; ICASA, 2023). This target represents just 3% of the national population—well within reach through school programmes, NGO partnerships, and low-data reporting tools. By empowering users to report leaks easily and visibly, we expect over 1 million verified submissions, enabling collective impact at scale.

For Municipalities

Each reported leak will be classified by AI and triaged by urgency, helping municipalities move from reactive to proactive maintenance (World Bank, 2022). Verified reports could reduce municipal response time by 30–50%, based on comparisons with traditional call-centre methods (Kramer et al., 2020). Municipal dashboards provide real-time visibility, enabling smarter resource allocation and predictive repair cycles. LeakNet doesn’t just digitise reports—it accelerates interventions and builds institutional efficiency.

For the Environment

Conservatively, a minor pipe leak wastes between 2,000 and 10,000 litres per day (EPA, 2023). By targeting and resolving just a fraction of the 1 million verified reports, LeakNet could help save billions of litres of treated water annually. This represents a 15–25% reduction in water loss across early-adopting municipalities—a goal aligned with global benchmarks for digital leak detection programmes (IWA, 2021).

Data Access: Connectivity for All

Data cost is a gatekeeper to participation in South Africa, especially in townships and peri-urban wards where leaks are most prevalent. LeakNet addresses this reality through partnership models that lower access barriers at the point of use. Providers such as Yomo can supply subsidised, app-specific data with adaptive bandwidth pricing, reducing reliance on costly bundles. Telecommunications operators enable reach by supporting reverse-billed traffic, zero-rating the reporting workflow, and offering free access during activation drives. Combined with WhatsApp ingestion for basic devices and low-data UX patterns, the service becomes usable by households that routinely ration data or rely on shared connectivity.

Sustained affordability depends on design as much as deals. Core endpoints can be zero-rated with Telkom, Vodacom and MTN, while media is compressed, cached and deferred to keep payloads tiny on entry-level Android devices. Reverse-billing covers submissions; municipalities and sponsors pick up transfer costs through CSR and ESG budgets. Where possible, the app defaults to offline capture with delayed sync, preserving location metadata without forcing live sessions. Multilingual micro-flows, short forms and progressive image upload minimise session time. Together these measures convert connectivity from a barrier into infrastructure, letting citizens report leaks consistently without sacrificing scarce prepaid data every month.

Case Study: EnviroChamps (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

EnviroChamps began as a community-based citizen-science programme led by Duzi‑uMngeni Conservation Trust (DUCT), training local youth to monitor rivers, sewage leaks, illegal dumping and related hazards in the uMngeni-Msunduzi catchments (IWMI & CGIAR, 2024). Their model pairs neighbourhood trust with structured reporting and has been scaled with partners such as the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and GroundTruth, who are actively digitising and expanding the approach (GroundTruth, 2024). The programme demonstrates that trained community monitors can surface environmental faults faster and at scale, well beyond ad-hoc complaints.

Why This Proves LeakNet Is Feasible

EnviroChamps illustrates that South African communities already report water- and sanitation-related failures effectively when given simple tools, local legitimacy and feedback loops (The Witness, 2025). Evaluations document thousands of issues flagged across municipalities, with growing networks of “enviro-champs” becoming trusted first-responders (IWMI & CGIAR, 2024). Digitisation efforts now add structure, routing and analytics—precisely the workflow LeakNet operationalises through a unified AI-assisted pipeline for classification, geotagging and municipal triage. In short, the behaviours exist; LeakNet provides the platform layer.

Adjacent Proof Point: Messaging-Based Reporting Works Here

Beyond EnviroChamps, South African municipalities have successfully piloted low-friction WhatsApp-style reporting for leaks and bursts to speed repairs (City of Cape Town, 2022). LeakNet builds on this adoption by harmonising app and WhatsApp inputs, applying TensorFlow Lite classification and feeding dashboards and field-team queues, with status feedback to citizens and gamified incentives. The precedent for citizen messaging and municipal response is established; LeakNet turns it into a cohesive, data-driven system.

From Idea to Interface: The LeakNet Prototype

What if spotting a leaking pipe could be as natural as sharing a photo on social media? That’s the radical simplicity at the core of LeakNet’s evolving prototype—an app designed not just to report leaks, but to reimagine how citizens and infrastructure interact in real time (Lehner and D’Alessandro, 2021). Developed in Figma, this early-stage build showcases the foundational architecture of a platform built for scale, trust, and behaviour change (Nielsen Norman Group, 2023).

Onboarding & Registration

The user journey begins with a welcoming interface that balances simplicity with substance. First-time users are guided through a step-by-step registration process that captures basic details, permissions, and location access. Users can personalise their profile with avatars and select a preferred language, reinforcing the app’s focus on inclusivity. By design, onboarding takes under a minute—ensuring rapid adoption, even in low-bandwidth settings (GSMA, 2023).

Home Dashboard & User Flow

Once registered, users land on a clean and dynamic home dashboard. This is the command centre for every Water Guardian, offering quick access to impact stats, recent reports, and challenges. From here, users can launch the reporting tool, explore community leaderboards, or browse water-saving tips. The layout is intentionally lightweight, making it functional even on older devices or poor network connections (World Bank, 2022).

Leak Reporting Flow

Submitting a leak is as simple as uploading a photo, recording an audio clip, or taking a short video. The prototype features a guided capture tool that walks users through each step, prompting them to describe the leak and confirm their location. Submissions are processed by a TensorFlow Lite model currently under training, which classifies the leak type—such as burst pipe, dripping tap, or underground seepage—and assigns a severity score (Google, 2023). Immediate feedback, like estimated litres saved, closes the loop between action and impact (Kandlikar et al., 2020).

Mapping Dashboard

All verified reports flow into a public-facing mapping dashboard visible in the app. Here, citizens can view reported leaks across neighbourhoods, filter by type or urgency, and track ongoing repairs. The map updates in real time, helping communities visualise infrastructure issues and advocate more effectively for local action. While this dashboard is embedded within the citizen app, it represents a distinct layer of the platform from the separate, restricted-access municipal dashboard, which is designed for deeper analytics and planning (Esri, 2022; OpenGov, 2022).

Gamification & Education

The prototype integrates behavioural nudges that reward users for sustained engagement. Points are awarded per verified report, and progress is visualised through animated badges and local rankings. Leaderboards highlight the top reporters by school, ward, or city, encouraging friendly competition. Complementing this is an evolving education module that delivers tips, infographics, and video explainers—turning every interaction into an opportunity to learn and lead (OECD, 2019; McGonigal, 2011).

👉🏽 Experience the LeakNet prototype here: https://bit.ly/leaknetprototype

Operational Intelligence Hub

The Operational Intelligence Hub serves as LeakNet’s decision engine. It converts thousands of geotagged citizen reports into structured insights that guide real-time municipal action. Map-based visualisation, automated severity scores, and live task routing allow officials to move from scattered complaints to coordinated response, strengthening delivery where it matters most. By unifying data from mobile and WhatsApp channels, the hub provides a transparent view of infrastructure performance, ensuring leaks are not only reported but also resolved with measurable accountability and technical precision.

Call to Action: Water Is Everyone’s Business

LeakNet was born in response to South Africa’s alarming municipal water losses—but the crisis it tackles is neither new nor uniquely ours. Cities across the globe, from Jakarta to Johannesburg, lose billions of litres daily due to undetected leaks (World Bank, 2016; PIPA, 2023). What we’re proposing is not just an app—it’s a digital bridge between people and pipes, between grassroots vigilance and systemic reform. Powered by AI, geolocation, and citizen input, LeakNet decentralises detection, accelerates response, and cultivates civic trust in broken systems (OECD, 2019; Global Water Intelligence, 2021). And because it’s modular, scalable, and open to integration, LeakNet is primed to serve any country where water flows—and leaks.

We now invite partners to scale this vision: governments seeking climate resilience, NGOs chasing water justice, tech leaders focused on infrastructure equity. Our model doesn’t rely on future breakthroughs. It’s here, ready to be activated—backed by open standards, multilingual design, and pathways for public-private collaboration (UNESCO, 2022). The platform’s potential extends far beyond water: potholes, sanitation, power outages—the architecture is adaptable. But water is where we start, because it’s where the need is most urgent. LeakNet is a prototype of possibility—a system to reclaim not just lost water, but lost trust. If you’re ready to act, the pipeline is open. Join us.

Interested in Collaborating?

To explore partnership opportunities, provide feedback, or engage further on the LeakNet initiative, please reach out to Ameera Yacoob at [email protected]. We welcome meaningful dialogue with stakeholders invested in sustainable water futures, digital innovation, and community-led solutions.

Help Shape the Future of LeakNet

LeakNet is more than just an app—it’s a citizen-powered platform still in development, and we want your input to guide its next phase.

Whether you’ve reported a leak before, struggled to reach your municipality, or have ideas on how water-saving apps could work better—your feedback matters.

Take our 2-minute survey to help us build a smarter, more inclusive solution for leak detection in South Africa.

👉🏽 https://forms.gle/r4A694GToqECXgrQ8

About the Team

Sources & Further Reading

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