The world is full of cities. Richard Saul Wurman said we're going to have megacities,
big ones. 20 million, more. All over the world, dotted and we're going to have to
make them smarter. We're going to have to make them more liveable. We're going to
have to deal with all the issues that cities have about creating places that
are happy and smart and efficient. So, we are equally honored this morning, or this
afternoon, to have Her Excellency, Dr. Aisha, present about what they're doing
in the city of Dubai, and this is a bold effort to create the future using also
GIS. So without further ado, I'm going to ask that Dr. Aisha come, Her
Excellency, who runs the Smart Dubai Program. She doesn't exactly run Dubai,
but maybe you might say, okay. Thank you, thank you, Jack. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome
Dr. Aisha.
Actually this is one of the hardest tasks I've ever been taken in my life.
Presenting in front of 16,000 plus, and after a magical show like the Disney
show. So ladies and gentlemen, allow me to share with you our story in making Dubai
the happiest city on earth, by implementing smart tools such as GIS
data and platforms. I just want to challenge you that these technology
isn't only transforming our cities, it's transforming, also, our lives. It's making us
much closer to our families, our friends and our people, making us more happier.
For Smart Dubai, technology is only a means to an end. Our end goal is people's
happiness, and we are creating happiness for our people by using technologies as
tools. Enabled by new technologies, we are making our city experiences much
efficient, seamless, safe and impactful for everyone in Dubai. And we are
fortunate to be guided by His Highness, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
the Prime Minister of United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Dubai, who has
challenged the road of the government and championed our collab, our collective
ambition towards making citizens happier. Yes, in UAE and in Dubai, the role of the
government is to serve happiness. And we are inspired by his wisdom, and we are
pursuing our Smart City vision to make Dubai the happiest city on earth. And we
didn't begin our story just recently. This story started two decades ago. Over many
years we have witnessed the transformation efforts of our colleagues
across the Dubai government, who have dedicated themselves to applying
advanced technology to improve experiences in the city. And it's not
only by the by public sector entities but also by
the private sector entities, such as Emirates Airlines, by building
world-class repetitions through technology. And so when the Smart Dubai
initiative was announced in 2014, we knew that we would be able to benefit from
the experience and commitment of our partners, both in government and private
sector. Our challenge, therefore, has not been to build a smart city
transformation from scratch just like Zootopia, but rather to unify the
existing efforts that are already underway in our public and private
sectors, and many of the city managers can understand me, that the issue was to
remove all these silos between entities, whether be government or private. And to
do this, we have focused our approach and delivering the best ICT infrastructure
and regulatory environment, keeping data at the heart of our city transformation.
As the data and insights of Smart Dubai, the Dubai Data Establishment has
been just as dedicated to create impact for the city through data. Dubai Data is
the most ambitious data initiative we've seen globally and is fueling our
smart city transformation, keeping privacy and security at the heart of
that initiative. The impact of Dubai data spans the whole city, combining the
impact of data across every sector in Dubai. And we found out that by 2021,
opening private and public sector data will result in a gross value added
impact of 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in every year. That's more almost extra 1000
US dollar added per person in Dubai every year. That study not only revealed
how the city will benefit from open and shared data, it has also helped us in
identifying and prioritizing which data sets have
the potential to create added value to the city. Whether it is from geospatial
data sets like location-based services for transportation maps and way-finding,
but also even sectors like art. And as they say, "everything happens somewhere,"
and this is never more true than when running a city. This is why we have
signed a citywide ELA with Esri to provide the full suite of ArcGIS
platform capabilities, not only for the government, but also for the private
sector through the Dubai Pulse as the city cloud platform. And while we have
already began to feel the benefits of data in Dubai, this spring we published
the city's first open data sets on Dubai Pulse, the public's portal to the digital
heart of Dubai. These open data sets prepared with the support of over 100
data champions from two dozen government entities are opening the
city's most valuable data for the first time to entrepreneurs, data scientists,
statisticians, and other innovators. Armed with the insights from this data, we are
ready as a city to lead the transformation changes that will define
the future of Dubai. So let me introduce my colleagues, Kaveh Vessali, advisor to
the Dubai Data Establishment, and Hanan Hawair from the Dubai Design District,
and Hossam Sayed from Esri, who will now walk you through, not one, but
several examples of how data visualization, supported by Esri through
the Dubai Pulse platform, is already reshaping how we live, plan, and manage our
smart city.
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Aisha. Well, we would like to show you four examples of
how we're using distributed GIS to enhance safety, mobility and efficiency
and connect with our citizens as we work to make Dubai the smartest and happiest
city on Earth. There's always a lot going on in Dubai, where the population has
tripled in the past 25 years. The Dubai Pulse platform allows us and the public
to manage that growth by taking the pulse of the city in real time. It's the
digital backbone of Dubai, with the ArcGIS platform serving as its
spatial core. Dubai Pulse allows everybody to learn more about places,
events and projects in real time. Anyone can take the pulse of all the mega
projects currently under construction, already completed or in design. The Dubai
Design District, or D3, is a new real estate development near downtown Dubai.
It's home to many creative organizations involved in fashion, art and culture. We
can see details of the project such as its status, its budget and its estimated
completion time. This app also provides a communication channel between the
government and developers and the general public. We enable smart
governance by taking the pulse of our connected citizens. In real time, we can
see what people are saying or what they're tweeting or what they're posting
on Facebook about the D3 project. Now happiness is a critical component of
assessing our residents' needs, and feedback like this helps us measure that.
But, we also need to consider other types of data. Another pulse app helps us
create smart mobility by using big data analytics to support evidence-based
decision-making at the city level. Analyzing anonymized mobile phone data
helps us understand home and work commute patterns and identify
opportunities to improve our citizens' lives. Dubai is a linear city hugging
almost 70 kilometres of the Gulf Coast, and a significant number of commuters
travel the entire length of the Emirate daily. From Dara in the north, all the way
down to Jabal Ali, the fast-growing industrial and logistics hub in South
Dubai. This long commute can take over an hour and leads to more traffic and road
safety issues which, of course, detract from our citizens' quality of life. So
using data from Dubai police, we've identified a high number of accidents
occurring in Dara, where many commuters live, and along Sheikh Zayed Road, where
many workers drive between Dara and Jabal Ali. Now, addressing road safety is
clearly one of the key initiatives in our Smart Dubai strategy, but another key
initiative in the Smart Dubai strategy is providing a smart environment. And for
that, Hossam will show us how we're helping residents cut energy costs by
generating their own electricity. Hossam? Thank you. Thank You, Kaveh. The city
leadership has set a target of producing 75 percent of energy from renewable
sources by the year 2050, and DEWA, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, has
launched the Shams Dubai Calculator app. This app estimates the potential of
electricity generation for residents and business owners. Once the user login,
the app locates their property and calculates the orientation and number of
solar panels that can be installed. It also calculates the electricity
production and carbon footprint per year. And the more and more people
use this app, DEWA is confident that Dubai can reach its energy goals by the year
2050. And one thing I learned from living in Dubai for a long time is that smart
environment really requires smart infrastructure, and to show you an
example of what I mean, please welcome Hanan, who will talk to
us about the Dubai Design District. Hanan? Thank you, thank you Hossam. Our country
is less than 50 years old, and we're very fortunate to have a modern economy,
infrastructure and ideas. One of those ideas is creating smart buildings and
smart infrastructure. D3 is a test bit to many of Dubai's Smart City
initiatives, including the implementation of an IOT-enabled command and control
center, where we monitor, analyze and manage the building within the district.
The district's operation dashboard is actually connected in real-time to
multiple systems creating a strong decision support application.
Ensuring our facilities run well is one of the key aspects of our business.
Work orders come from our facility management system, and our facilities
team can run the district more efficiently by visualizing all open and
in progress repair and maintenance requests, and responding quickly to them.
That keeps our tenants happy by ensuring that we meet the service level they pay
for. Our control center is also connected to our property management system, where
we manage customer information. We can drill down up to a building
view, and see how much space is leased out per floor. The ability to understand
where we have unoccupied space also allows us, or helps us, to match the right
space to potential tenants. Energy conservation is also one of the biggest
goals of Smart Dubai. IOT sensors from each tenant space is connected to the
application through the building management system.
This lets us see the total energy usage per building, per floor and up to
the unit level. Analyzing the energy usage trends also helps our
tenants reduce their business operating expenses and makes D3 a more attractive
place to do business. This new command and control center really contributes to
the success of D3 and Smart Dubai. With innovation that is driven by the
integration of IOT and GIS, we have many new, exciting development plans as we
build out the District in the future. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you Kaveh, Hanan and Hossam. It's truly inspiring to see how
such technologies and the progress in these implementation in our city has
already made towards our vision. And the next five years will be a period of
profound transformation for Dubai. In just 3 years, we will stand to gain 1.5
billion U.S. dollars in value saved from Blockchain. Yes, we are implementing
Blockchain as our transactions platform in the city. And we will be hosting Expo
2020 for six months. And, we will have launched the first mission to Mars from
the Arab world. And the year after that, we will be celebrating the United Arab
Emirates 50th National Day, and the last paper transaction by the Dubai
government, and the realization of 2.9 billion U.S. dollar added to the economy
from Dubai data. But in many ways, this will only be the beginning. In the coming
decades, we will witness 25% of our buildings being 3D printed. We have
already a full fledge building printed by 3D. And by 2030, one quarter of all
trips on Dubai's roads will use autonomous vehicles, and we just launched our drone
taxi in Dubai. And in 2050, we will export our last drop of oil.
And we are ready for all these activities, very busy activities in my
city. In 2071, and I hope the smart technologies will take me to be alive for
that moment, where we will celebrate the centennial of the United Arab Emirates,
and mark our emergence as one of the best cities globally. And this is all in
the lead-up to 2117. Yes, we started all the plans and the projects and it is up and
running for 2117, when we will establish the first colony from the United Arab
Emirates on Mars.
And for every milestone in this remarkable future, Smart Dubai is today
laying down the foundation, and while we are doing this to make our people more
happier, because we are making Dubai the happiest city on Earth. Thank you.
Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Jack, for this opportunity. JACK: This is a woman
with vision, wouldn't you agree? DR. AISHA: Okay. Thank you. JACK: And while she well
she wouldn't say it so formally, she said it to me personally that one of the
basic reasons why Dubai believes in doing this work, pushing the envelope, is
to also be an example for the rest of us. This just grabbed my heart right away. It
wasn't enough just to be the best or drive it, but to share it. That's why she
came here. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you. DR. AISHA: Thank you. I just
want to say one thing, Jack. Yes, one of our objectives is to share our knowledge
for everyone. That's why we are working very closely with many international
organizations, such as the United Nations, but also ISO, standard
organization, and we are building with them smart city maturity model to export
our experience so that other cities can learn and can implement their digital
transformation agenda. So, please for all these city mayors and city managers,
please join us in this effort to develop this maturity model to more much
implemented platform. JACK: Thank you for that invitation and collaboration. Thank you.
Your Highness, thank you very much. Amazing. Thank you guys.
Cities are complex, wouldn't you agree? Human settlements are complex. The
attempt to be able to design cities, any city planner knows, they can only begin
to approach the kind of complexity that cities have. They're a whole ecology in
and of themselves.