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The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the City of Tshwane metropolitan municipality have partnered to develop an integrated intelligence dashboard, to transform raw, scattered data into actionable, real-time insights that improve decision-making, increase transparency, and enabling a capable state.

Monitoring its suite of municipal functions, corporate fleet and business units that generate extensive data. the dashboard capabilities can capture live data across several of the city’s specialised departments and trading services.

The proof of concept was initiated in 2025, and the technology’s feasibility has recently been tested at the metropolitan municipality, where the CSIR has amassed all the City of Tshwane’s weekly reporting and extracted data, enabling the organisation’s software developers to visually display and draw on generated insights within a dashboard that’s been custom-created from scratch. The technology facilitates a first-hand account of the number of service requests, response times, and weekly scheduled operational plans – key ingredients for decision-making processes and critical resource deployment interventions.

Its appeal lies in the ability to retain the metro’s business units’ information data in a unified ‘source of truth’, allowing the municipal to make actionable decisions and gain operational insights into occurrences across the city. All the system’s digital architectures, such as the applications and the databases, are hosted on the CSIR’s secured network as a safety measure to mitigate cyber risks.

“Dashboards are not a new invention, but the integrated intelligence dashboard has been modernised and is a bit more than a unified data source,” says CSIR geospatial modelling engineer Tristan Davis, lead developer of the dashboard. “Over the past few weeks, the City of Tshwane has taken a strategic decision to ensure that its reporting measures are shaped and informed by its dashboard.”

Having the data sources available can generate an appetite for the integrated intelligence dashboard as it offers the alleviation of multiple meetings, leading to an uptick in productivity time. The self-navigation assists users to obtain the preferred results that match the operational context, whilst gaining independent insights.

“Currently, the technology is only available to the City of Tshwane; however, the CSIR is open to working with metros and government departments in South Africa,” says Davis. “Additional reporting and security features are being investigated”. Our engagement with the City of Tshwane’s administrative leadership is ongoing, also encouraging more robust authentication systems for further improved security.”

“The partnership between the CSIR and the City of Tshwane also demonstrates the important role that collaboration between government, academia, research institutions and broader civil society can play in strengthening public service delivery. Building a capable, responsive and data-driven state cannot be achieved by government alone. It requires partnerships that combine technical expertise, innovation and public-sector experience in service of residents. By working together, institutions are able to develop practical solutions that improve transparency, accountability and operational efficiency, while ensuring that technology and research are directed towards addressing real community needs and improving the daily lives of residents across Tshwane.”  Said Jerry L. Seko Director: Enterprise Data Management

Issued by the City of Tshwane and CSIR