IIIT Hyd launches livability index platform to map urban quality of life

The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) has unveiled a groundbreaking platform that combines spatially mapped news with a livability index, designed to track governance and assess the quality of urban life across India. Hyderabad serves as the first live testbed for this innovative system, which is expected to transform both administrative decision-making and citizen choices about where to live.

The IIITH said that the livability index platform that combines spatially mapped news with civic data, offering citizens and administrators a powerful tool to assess urban quality of life. The system, tested in Hyderabad, translates multilingual news into visual maps and integrates indicators like air quality, water quality, healthcare, and green cover to generate personalized livability scores.

From News Aggregation to Civic Mapping

The project began as a request from the Telangana government to develop a spatial mapping engine that could collect news from multiple newspapers—including “Eenadu”, “Mana Telangana’s”, “The Times of India”, and “ The Hans India—translate reports across languages, and plot them geographically. Using “BHASHINI models”, part of India’s national language AI initiative, the system translates Telugu news into English and Hindi, ensuring accessibility across linguistic communities.

Each report is then mapped to its location and categorized by sentiment with color coding with “green for positive” , “red for negative”, and “yellow for neutral”. Additionally, reports are tagged to relevant departments such as Police, Revenue, Health, and Urban Development, enabling officials to identify problem areas and assign follow-ups.

Building the Livability Index

As the platform matured, researchers asked whether the same data could help ordinary citizens decide where to live. This led to the creation of a “livability index”, layered on top of the news map. For any location, the system now integrates indicators such as “Air Quality Index, water quality, proximity to hospitals, schools, supermarkets, and green cover metrics”.

Crucially, the platform allows for “personalized weighting of priorities”. For example, retirees may value peace and air quality more than proximity to schools, while young professionals may prioritize accessibility to workplaces and amenities. This customization creates a “personalized livability score”, making the tool relevant to diverse demographics.

Origins and Vision

The livability module began as an internship project by Vishal Joy at IIIT-H’s Product Labs.

Driven by the lack of objective metrics to compare cities or neighborhoods, Joy sought to provide direction for urban development by pinpointing areas lacking essential features.

His work has now evolved into a city-scale decision-support platform.

Governance Meets Everyday Life

The team emphasizes that news and housing are deeply connected. Frequent reports of protests or civic issues in a neighborhood can serve as signals about long-term livability. By merging governance data with everyday urban indicators, the platform aims to answer a critical question with evidence rather than guesswork: “Is this a good place to live?”