GEC NEWS WIREAt the recently held IDC IT Forum, Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority’s SVP for People Happiness, Innovation and Supply Management. Ghanim Al Falasi, talked about the 6 pillars that goes into the building of the smart city and talked about how education plays a key role in building the next generation of smart city leaders.
Collaboration and Innovation goes into the spine of Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority’s Smart city initiative. In an exclusive conversation with Enterprise Channels MEA, Ghanim Al Falasi, SVP People Happiness, Innovation and Supply Management elaborated on how DSOA is heading 2 major projects for smart city; Silicon Park and Smart city district. “By 2018, we will have a real life model city. We are working in this city to transform ‘things’ into ‘smart things’.
EDUCATION— SPINE OF THE SMART CITY
Ghanim states that DSOA has taken all the efforts in making sure that the citizens know about the ‘smart city’ that they are living in rather than merely implementing solutions. “We need to have the right materials for educating the citizens. We believe that education and awareness is the basis of all development. So we started with the ‘abc’ of a smart city. We started with a thorough endorsement of the smart city model by the supreme leaderships of the nation and then our management also realized the vision and translated it into a committee and from that committee we came up with an advisory board. This philosophy led us to building the smart city academics. So now we have a diploma for smart city and we also have a Master’s degree for it. It is a fundamental that we have to build in order to realize the vision of a smart city. So we have One vision and One definition,”
THE 6 PILLARS OF THE SMART CITY
While some cities went for Green technologies, sustainable energy and other elements of smart city DSOA is looking it from a holistic point of view, touching upon everything and they have erected 6 pillars of a smart city.
“Smart people living in a smart city where they use smart mobility in developing a smart economy governed by a smart government”. These are the pillars of a smart city as defined by Ghanim. Accroding to him, it doesn’t always have to be technology; It is all about how you make best use of the cities’ greatest assets— its citizens.
Technology and various automated and online services have saved a lot of citizens’ time, so now we have to see how this time can be utilized in a positive way and what good the citizens can do for the country and vice versa.”
As an example, DSOA installed the first Smart Street Solution in the Middle East region at the high-tech park. The Smart Street Solution incorporates a number of advanced features geared towards creating a friendly and secure environment for the community. The integrated nature of the solution means it is ‘future ready’ – or ready to add additional services and capabilities in a cost effective and timely manner. In addition, the centrally controlled Smart Street Solution allows greater energy efficiency and management.
BEING SMART, BEING HAPPY
According to Ghanim. Happiness is all about having a balanced life or living life in a very integrate way. “So we work to create that equilibrium in the lives of individuals, the community wherein we are striving to build relationships, especially in a place like Dubai which is a melting pot of various nationalities and communities.
WORDS: ANUSHREE DIXIT
