Organized by Datamatix and held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Dubai, the 21st GCC sGovernment and sServices Conference progressed towards its 3rd consecutive day under the auspices of prominent regional and global government and business organizations.
Day 3 focused on the monitoring of the electric energy market, analysis of customers' opinions, sentiment analysis and regulation of news feed. The day began with the presentation on ‘Smart Energy for Smart Cities’ by Prof. Witold Abramowicz, Chairman of Department of Information Systems Poznan University of Economics (PUE), Poland and Founder of SmartBrain. Prof. Abramowicz presented a detailed observation on the incorporation of smart energies, energy production and consumption, smart metering for efficient energy management and building local energy communities.
While addressing the conference, he said that if the cities want to get self-independent in terms of energy production then it is necessary for them to create smart grids to regulate the demand and supply of energy. He elaborated that the governments and energy solution providers should evolve progressive technologies to monitor the energy production data and generate satisfaction amongst the customers for the services they are provided by with.
He stressed on building local energy communities which in the future can support the governments and city’s infrastructure in adapting itself to the changing demographics and depleting energy resources. Explaining his presentation through various slides, he asserted that installation of smart metering system, energy data operation through internet, analyzing customer opinions and furnishing the prosumers with comprehensive information can certainly be amongst the series of solutions which on being implemented can create a smart energy management framework for the governments.
The next session was followed by a spoken annotation on ‘Application Integration with Cities’ and Services by Dr. Usman Zafar, CEO DUC Consulting International & Board Advisor cloudBuy UK. He said that for integrating the cities and services, the global governments should be prepared to embrace latest ICT modules and optimize the technological frameworks to develop the unified application platforms which can be resourceful in interlinking the cities and services with the citizens.
He said in this age of internet when information is accessed through highly refined applications, the Gulf governments in this line should also take progressive measures to develop feasible applications that could be conducive in furnishing subject related knowledge to the citizens and bring about radical transformation in the way, the data is amassed by the users. He further stated that for overcoming the present and future challenges, it is indeed important for the organizations to replace the older legacy systems with the new once and forge robust environment to help ideology of smart governance flourish in different segments of public and private sectors.
With the end of this session by Dr. Usman Zafar, Mr. Joe Clabby, President, Clabby Analytics USA, and Datamatix International Advisor stepped up on the stage and commenced expressing his well-researched insights on ‘Smart Government and Smart City Cloud Computing’. Mr Clabby said that if the governments want to elevate the standards of smart governance and achieve the global competitive parameters then it should evolve pro-active cloud applications that could make online data easily accessible to the people through mobile phones, tablets and desktops. Along with evolving highly advanced cloud computing architecture, he also highlighted the need to build up the cloud risk management and disaster recovery strategies to prevent the loss of information and maintain the data privacy protection procedures for fortifying online security.
While speaking on the same technological platform, he further elaborated that in order to match the global competitiveness criterion, it is significant for the governments to compose the data security protection road map and develop the data protection center for shielding data from getting it breached by the malicious elements.
The coffee break and networking session was followed by a ‘Best Practices Session on Smart Government and Smart Cities’ by Mr. Mehis Sihvart, Head of Centre of Registries and Information Systems, Government Agency – Estonia. Mr Sihvart in support of his subject line, highlighted infinite number of factors that can be instrumental in creating infrastructure in the cities and aid the government systems in delivering best services to the people.
Continuing his speech, he said that in the current scenario, the world is changing at such a fast pace that it gets crucial for the cities to entrench cutting edge smart set up in the infrastructure and inherit the smooth mobility of services across different regions. In support of his case studies, he presented many facts and elaborated that right from transforming the logistical framework to bringing advancements in the decision making procedures, the concept of smart governance should be imbued at every level of organizational affair.
After this, the conference was followed by a presentation on ‘Smart City Transition from Concepts to Reality’ by Prof. Mischa Dohler, Head of Centre for Telecom Research, Chair Prof. King's College London. Prof. Dohler threw light on the varied facets of smart city eco systems and also professed brilliant explanation on the role of internet and technology in connecting the citizens. Through a slide presentation, he said every city has different culture, demographics, issues and policies and keeping all these factors in consideration, the civic management bodies can prepare a synchronized plan to make cities work and act smartly.
He further elaborated that technology can further play a constructive role in accruing citizen engagement towards the development of smart cities. He said that the smart cities model can only prove to be successful when the citizens of that region are aware about the maintenance of civic character and rules guiding basic disciplinary attributes. He said that standardization of smart cities framework to match the global competitiveness parameters is another solution by which anticipated strategy to transform the cities can easily be materialized.
Mr. Mohammed Qadadeh, Vice President - Head of Government Services, MasterCard - Middle East and North Africa, subsequently, after the presentation of Prof. Mischa Dohler moved on the stage and presented the spoken explanatory note on ‘Smart Government and Smart Cities eServices Globalization and KPI Competitiveness’. He further said that to infuse innovation in the government structures and deliver the impeccable services to the citizens, a quality oriented approach in the application of methodologies will always remain the first rated procedure for substantializing a make shift towards smarter governance.
He stated that to induce revolution in the facilitation of services, the embracement of compatible mobile technologies and modernization of application operations can also be enumerated amongst the key constructive steps and alternative solutions for the rapid development of smart cities and incorporating greater engagement of citizens from grass root to top grades of hierarchy.
The day concluded with the case study of Mr. Abdulaziz Alasmy, Head of the Development Department, Al Riyadh Newspaper on ‘GCC Government Social Media Globalization and Competitiveness Development’. Highlighting the role of social media in the era of smart governance, Mr Alasmy said that by integrating the government services with the social media, the global leaders can easily connect to the citizens and spread the word about their new plans and strategies regarding growth of their regions exclusively.
He further explained that if the Gulf region aspires to match the global competitive standards and criteria and wants to swiftly develop the higher echelons of smart government and smart city structures then keeping a complete track of the citizen needs can assuredly be one of the finest strategies for the government organizations for strengthening their credibility, reliability and trust.
Speaking on the same subject line, he said that through the development of measurement framework for monitoring the “Return on Investments” and fabrication of “Key Performance Indicators” can be amongst the perfect approaches for analyzing the complexities involved in achieving the future targets and exploring the possibilities for evolving cutting edge road map for obtaining outstanding results.
The conference is sponsored by: DEWA(Dubai Electricity and Water Authority),Imex Systems Inc.,Naseej, King Fahad Medical City, STC, University of Hail, Saudi German Hospitals, Brother, Sejel, Canadian University Dubai, Air Arabia, Skycom, Exceed, Almarai, Arabian Farms Development, Carlsbad, Glen'da, DUC Consulting, Al Riyadh Newspaper.
Conclusively, the third day of the conference, elaborately threw light on various topics like Smart Energy for Smart Cities, Best Practices: Smart Government and Smart Cities, Smart Government and Smart City Cloud Computing, Smart Government and Smart Cities eServices Globalization and KPI Competitiveness, Social Media Globalization and Competitiveness Development.