Held at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Dubai and organized by Datamatix, the 21st GCC sGovernment and sServices Conference continued on its 4th day emphasizing on ‘Government Big Data Management and Analytics - Open Data & Smart Services’.
The day began with a global best practices session by Mr Joe Clabby, President, Clabby Analytics USA, and Datamatix International Advisor. Mr. Clabby presented a case study on ‘Global Open Source Challenges and Opportunities for Government Organizations’ and deliberately elaborated his views on the role open sources in developing the smart governance and smart cities. Highlighting the various facets of Data sharing in the age of smart cities and smart government, he said that all the technologies which are directed towards supporting the services should be developed on open source platforms.
He further said that for securing the online data, special data protection shields and systems should be developed that could enable uninterrupted information sharing across all the government organizations and departments. He asked the global governments to frame data sharing strategies that could play a constructive role in demystifying big data to transform the potential opportunities into flourishing businesses. On the conclusive note, he asserted that in the prevailing scenario, the organizations should evolve big data management and analytics methodologies that can bring about a change in the technological patterns and position the cities as the pioneers in implementing the smart government standards.
The next session was followed by a discussion on ‘Best Initiatives in Cloud Computing’ by Dr. Majed Alhaisoni, PhD, Dean, IT and e Learning, University of Hail, Saudi Arabia. While explaining this topic, he used various facts and data to clarify the technical terminologies and informed the participants that what cloud computing is all about and the purpose of its utilization in IT space. He stated that cloud computing is used to deliver different types of hosted services over internet. He said that by using cloud computing as the source for accomplishing online tasks, the user would not require to create or build separate servers to carry out technical operations.
With the help of presentation slides, he further stated that cloud storage can be instrumental in decreasing the costs and increasing the project deliverance efficiency. Right from delivering the infrastructural services, platform services to software services, tasks of huge workload frequencies are executed on single cloud servers and as the result of these cost effective measures, the organizations get successful in saving their huge capital generally used for running the online operations. He further said that this type of technology is widely used for providing online services to the citizens and governments spanning large chunk of important data on internet.
After this session, well known scholar Prof. Gi-Heon Kwon, Dean/President, GePeGi(Global e-Policy & e-Government Institute), from Korea addressed the audiences and expressed his intellectual insights on ‘Best Practices in Korean Smart Government and Smart Cities’. Prof. Kwon in support of this session, propounded different theories about the implementation of smart government strategies and also presented futuristic models of development for the Gulf region having heterogeneous demographics. He professed many initiatives that have been successfully implemented in his region and consequently, yielded positive results too. In his speech, he told audiences that use of compatible online sources, highly effulgent transport systems, and installation of smart sensors in the cities and stringent surveillance through cameras are some of the initiatives that have been taken by the Korean government for upgrading the infrastructure and in response to the execution of these pro-active plans, the local government of the region got the global recognition from international bodies. He said that in order to make the cities smarter, it is crucial for the civic management bodies to prepare a pragmatic town planning model and evolve well researched procedures to get in conformity with the global standards.
The coffee break and networking session was followed by a presentation on ‘Smart Government and Continuous Process Improvement’ by Dr. Haniyeh Yousofpour, Founder and President of PROAC Consulting, Asst. Professor Organizational Behavior and HR Management, Canadian University of Dubai. Dr Yousofpour in her speech talked about the guidelines to drive process improvement initiatives and adoption of best practices to bring transformation in the project management strategies. She cited various instances through slide presentation to explain the comprehensive plan for permeating process excellence in UAE. She further said that if the organizations want to accelerate their growth and get excellent results from the employees then it should evolve SMART culture in its corporate frameworks. In connection to the above statement, she stated that human resource managers, CEOs and employees should be trained and acquainted with the trend setting management strategies to insinuate efficiency in their performance metrics.
The conference progressed ahead with the detailed and well researched presentation by Mr. Saif Al Hattawi, CEO, Solid Reason, UAE. Elaborating on the subject line, ‘Transformation of the Government Sector in the Era of Smart Government and Smart Cities’, he said that the organizations which aim to carry out transformation in the management and decision making procedures should initially bring change in the project implementation strategies, up-grade the delivery channels and processes and evolve shrewd approach for inspiring transformation in the leadership. He further accentuated on the need to inherit the proven methodologies for transformation management and upgrade the technologies for re-engineering the government structures and instill the ingredient of competitiveness to augment the organizations at the top-notch ladder of success.
The day concluded with the case study presentation of Mr. Cedrick Frolick, Chairman Oversight Committee South Africa Parliament on ‘Best Practices-South Africa Smart Government and Smart Cities’. In his presentation, he said that in this electronic age, when culture, technology and societies are changing at a rapid pace, it becomes imperative for the cities to make compatible civic management plans that on being implemented can acclimatize easily with the swiftly transforming urban statistics.
In reference to the best practices ensued in South Africa, he asserted that the government has implemented the course of action plans for up-grading its cities and framed detailed plans for the them to cope up with the future challenges. He said in the current era, every city should move with the contemporary trends of smart governance and put its best endeavors to match itself with the global competitiveness standards. In context to the annotations made by him, he said that world governments should make the best use of modern technologies and utilize their resources rationally to take the ideology of smart governance and smart services to the next level of standardization.
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.
The fourth day of the conference, elaborately discussed varied topics like Global Open Source Challenges and Opportunities for Government Organizations, Best Initiatives in Cloud Computing, Best Practices in Korean Smart Government and Smart Cities, Smart Government and Continuous Process Improvement, Transformation of the Government Sector in the Era of Smart Government and Smart Cities and Best Practices-South Africa Smart Government and Smart Cities.
For more information on the event, please contact;
Datamatix Group
Tel: +971 4 332 6688
Fax: +971 4 332 8223
E-Mail: info@datamatixgroup.com
URL: www.datamatixgroup.com