We could call this text the Daoura Manifesto or the Manifesto for Cities. It doesn’t cease being a manifesto, since, in the end, we are directly manifesting our reason for existing and being the way we are. Meanwhile, we decided to get straight to the point and in the same title, express the central topic of this text: Why do we exist?
Cities are becoming increasingly populated. Of course, people perceived the value of living in a more organized society, with more access to basic services, with a more favorable environment for a full human life. But, more than that, cities concentrate diverse minds, which gather in communities to share knowledge, skills and achievements. Those elements are boosters to the evolution of people, and feedback into the environment itself, which becomes increasingly better as we, human beings, create new and better ways to live in society.
That fact, meanwhile, also exposes our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Public services, for example, were created and are currently managed based on a city dimension that will change considerably in ten years from now. For that reason, we must be capable of reinventing our cities to consider the great number of people who will arrive on them. And we have a very powerful ally in that context: information and communication technology.
The technological advances produced by human beings are already capable of great achievements. We have witnessed disruptions in traditional markets more intensely in the last ten or fifteen years. Scientific innovation is, at least, reaching the most diverse aspects of human life more quickly, and it’s opening a new array of opportunities to rethink – and effectively create – a new way of living.
It’s time, therefore, to explore those facts and see them as opportunities to change our realities. But we will only do that in an integrated and effective way if we bring together the powerful minds of a city to think and to create new solutions for our most diverse urban challenges.
That’s why Daoura exists. We want to change the reality of the urban world (and the world itself!) through application of cutting-edge technology to make public services of all dimensions better and more efficient. We visualize a world more equal and accessible for everyone as we bring those innovations to everyone living in cities.
And we have no intention of doing that by ourselves. We firmly believe in the power that the urban ecosystem and its talented human beings have of understanding the city’s problems in depth and to build the great cities of the future, which are no longer so distant. Governments, companies, universities and civil society organizations are fundamental agents in this journey towards built cities keeping the citizen as the main focus of everything! After all, it’s for him (and for us, in the end) that all that exists and was constructed. There’s no way to think about the city, without first thinking about those who live in it. There’s no reason for that.
We will do that by precisely following our seven principles:
1 – We work for the cities and their citizens
We were born with the mission of developing smart technologies to improve the efficiency and quality of services and public management. We do so by always keeping the citizens as the focus of all of our achievements, because it's for them that a city is built every day.
2 – We debate to act and to move forward
There are no technological and social advances without diversity of opinions and productive conflicts. We question the status quo on a solid basis, we lay out our positions without fear of opposing the “majority”, and we are transparent on our daily communications. Our divergent debates always have the objective of making us think of convergent actions that make us move forward and reach increasingly higher levels of excellence.
3 – We do what is right
We have no doubt that our actions, however disruptive, must be in full and complete conformity with the values of the society in which we are inserted. Doing the right thing is doing what we want, can and should, respecting our essence as a company, our vision for the future and our organizational and social values.
4 – We think on a global scale
We are proud of being a Brazilian company that makes a positive impact in the country in which we were born and raised. But we have the ambition of doing what we do for more and more people, independently of where they were born and raised. For this reason, our action is global and frontiers between countries, for us, are mere formalities. A highly connected world like ours is an increasingly welcoming, more accessible and borderless world. So, our technologies and knowledge have to go wherever they are needed, wherever this is.
5 – We innovate with the help of science
Scientific investigations are crucial for our society’s advancement. They show us the barriers of our knowledge and what we need to discover. Our curiosity about the new and the most advanced is so great that the innovation we produce must be connected science’s state of art. And it’s something reciprocal: As we absorb knowledge of science, we share with it the results of our activities.
6 – We build a strong and perennial future today
Our present is guided by the strong and enduring future that we want to create. By strength we understand that what we do is supported by robust and ethical foundations that do not waver. By perenniality, we understand that every day we are building a company that will live without an expiration date. It’s not the size of our bank account that will define our success, but rather how relevant and active we are in the transformation of the cities around the world.
7 – We are inspired, and we inspire
We are inspired by our coworkers, our leaders, our collaborators, our clients and our providers for everything they are. Each one of us possess the freedom to be what we are and think what we think, regardless of what it may be. That diversity of thoughts and opinions is extremely rich so that we, as a consequence, may inspire society with all that we make and create, generating a virtuous cycle in our relationships.
And this is how we base our existence and how we exist!