CanteenBlock 4
Post it
PLATE I
Post it in two taps
Pick what it is from a short list and it’s up. No form, and no account needed just to look around.
What’s open, busy or flooded, right now. Cite is a live map of your campus and neighbourhood, written by the people standing there. Everything on it expires on its own, so the map is never out of date.
UTech · UWI Mona · Kingston
Know before you walk over.
Free on iPhone and Android. Post what you see in two taps, publicly or only to your group.
Registered with the Companies Office of JamaicaPayments by DimeVerified by the UTech Students’ UnionEvery business claim checked by a person
01How it works
Someone sees it. Everyone nearby knows. Then it’s gone.
The person at the counter, the flooded corner or the dead lift puts it on the map in a tap. The people around them see it before they walk over, and it leaves once it can’t be true.
Busyjust now
Canteen is busy
PLATE II
Know before you make the walk
Anyone looking at that stretch of the map sees it, on the open map or only inside your group.
CanteenLong queue
PLATE III
Nothing stale left behind
Every report is born with a lifespan. Nobody has to come back and delete it, so what’s left is what’s true.
Point at a plate, or tap it, and it acts its step out.
02The map
Five things, added by whoever was standing there.
Other maps know where the buildings are. They don’t know the third floor is dead quiet after six, or that the queue’s been out the door since noon.
No. 1
Know the way in, not just the buildingPins
Places that stay put: bathrooms, food, pharmacies, study spaces, charging. Each one carries the building, the floor and how to actually get in. Bathroom · Block 1 · 2nd floor · Up the north stairs, first door on the left.
No. 2
See what’s true this afternoonReports
The lift, the queue, the empty ATM. Each report is born with an expiry, so tomorrow it’s gone. Lift out of service · Block 2 · 18 min ago · Confirmed
No. 3
Hear about the flood before you’re in itArea alerts
A report covers a point; an alert covers ground. Flooding, an outage, a closed road, drawn over the stretch it affects. Flooding · Old Hope Road · 500 m, this neighbourhood
No. 4
See who’s going, find it on the dayEvents
Anything at a place and a time. RSVP, see who’s coming, and it’s under Upcoming when the day comes. Sep 28 · Live · Study session for finals · Studio 1 · 24 going
No. 5
Know it’s a clean oneReviews
A rating and a sentence, so “there’s a bathroom here” becomes “there’s a clean one here.” @tash ★★★★★ Patties fresh at noon, gone by one.
Students
Which study spots are quiet after six, where the sockets are, and which door is the unlocked one.
Locals
The outage, the water lock-off and the road nobody is getting through, on the streets you use.
Private groups
A flat, a class, a crew: its own pins and reports over the same streets, seen by nobody outside it.
03The app
The app, screen by screen.
The eight screens on the App Store, from the live map to the door of the party.
04Status
Where it is, and what it’s like right now.
A pin says the place exists. A status says what it’s like this minute: the queue, the cash in the ATM, the lift.
- Busy means one thing everywhere. Every status is picked from a list, never typed, so two counters compare at a glance.
- One tap on the way past. Which is the only reason anybody ever sets one.
- It expires too. A queue that’s gone doesn’t sit there all week saying it hasn’t.
How busy it is
QuietModerateBusyPacked
The canteen
OpenCrowdedSlow serviceOut of stock
The ATM
Out of cashLong queueCard onlyWorking again
Getting in
Elevator outRamp blockedDoor issue
Campus mode · UTech, every building traced
05Campus
Your timetable says 47A1. The map knows where that is.
At UTech, type the room code and Cite walks you there. It even says the letter is the floor, the half of the code nobody explains.
Building 47, 1st floor (ground), room 1 · works offline
- Only your grounds. Campus mode scopes the map to UTech or UWI Mona, traced from their real outlines.
- Works with no signal. Walking routes are worked out on the phone, so they still work on the third floor.
Mona numbers its rooms differently, so the decoder stays quiet there rather than guess.
06Expiry
Nobody comes back to delete things.
That’s how every community map rots. On Cite a report is filed with a lifespan, matched to how long it could still be true, and then it leaves on its own.
- Replies extend it. Silence doesn’t.
- Pins get asked instead. They’re permanent, so each carries one question: is this still accurate? Two taps.
Is this still accurate?
Bathroom · Block 1
How long a report lives
| Food status | 6 hours | |
| General | 12 hours | |
| Hazard | 24 hours | |
| Safety | 48 hours | |
| Accessibility | 3 days | |
| Campus update | 7 days |
Viewing as
Canteen, Block 4Long queue
07Groups
Public, or just your people.
Some things belong on the open map. Some belong to five people and nobody else.
- One switch, at the top of the map. Not in settings, so you always know which map you’re adding to.
- A private layer over the same streets. Its own pins and reports, seen by its members and no one else.
08For business
Run one of these places? Say what’s true at your counter.
People are already posting your queue, your stock and your card machine. Claim your place and you’re the one setting it, with your hours, menu and events on the pin.
- It clears itself. One tap sets it for as long as you choose, so the map never says you’re open at midnight.
On the map
Your placeOpen
8h
Or say it in the map’s own words
09Made in Kingston
Made by students at UTech.
Cite was founded by Kimani McLeish, a student at the University of Technology, Jamaica, and is built with co-founders Kuane Forrest (UTech) and Jhonathan Nelson (Florida International University), mapping the campus they walk every day and the city around it.
About the founders
Free on iPhone and Android.
Worth something the first time you open it: the map is already carrying what people put on it today. No account needed to look around.