How Technology Has Changed the Lifestyle of Residents of Dubai. Most humans live and work in cities, which are complex and dense structures. Globally, urbanization has accelerated over the past few decades, putting pressure on infrastructure and social and economic structures.
Cities like Dubai are compact and constrained in nature, which hinders mobility, physical expansion, resources and provisioning, economic activities planning and interconnection, and urban planning, among others. Urbanization poses challenges to the Middle East also. Some of these include:
Fast Growing Technology
During the second half of the 20th century, the area had the highest population growth rate in the world. Many challenges are associated with this, including providing adequate housing, healthcare, education, literacy, jobs, infrastructure, and access to fresh water.
However, these challenges also presented us with substantial opportunities. Over the last two decades, Dubai has transformed into a global city and regional business and tourism hub. Internationally, we are recognized as an economic and investment center. As a result of diversifying our economy, we have succeeded in tourism, real estate, retail, travel, logistics, and finance sectors. Skilled talent from around the world is also attracted to Dubai.
A strong and productive government sector has contributed to this economic growth, which has embraced regulatory reforms and technology and is transforming our city into a world-class digital city.
Lifestyle With Tech Transformation
Almost two decades after the announcement of Dubai’s first ICT strategy in 1999, Dubai launched Dubai Internet City, Dubai e-government, Dubai Smart Government, and Smart Dubai in 2014. We have witnessed the acceptance and adoption of ICT in all aspects of life in our city over the past 20 years due to numerous digital transformation initiatives.
Dubai, one of the seven Emirates in the UAE, has one of the highest rates of ICT adoption in the region. Both the public and government are involved in this. Our quality of life and business environment are unmatched.
Happiness goal of life
Dubai’s ruler, His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, described technology as an enabler rather than a primary goal. His Highness’ vision of making Dubai the happiest city on earth is accomplished through the Smart Dubai initiative.
Our city can have a huge impact on driving happiness. Several implementations, including data analytics, blockchains, drones, autonomous vehicles, massive Internet of Things (IoT) systems, hyperloop projects, innovative 3D printing, robotics applications, and artificial intelligence, were all developed and tested as part of our Smart Dubai initiative.
Towards 2024
We aim to be a smart city that harnesses digital innovation in all its endeavors. The Smart Dubai 2024 strategy has recently been launched to achieve this goal. Our smart city transformation aims to take it to a new level, where digital transformation has a significant and positive impact on the city.
Governments, businesses, and individuals exchange products, services, ideas, and experiences daily. For example the rise of hiring personal drivers for corporate transportation and many more examples. Thus, we are both producers and consumers. In these exchanges, we strive to ensure happy city experiences.
Our goal is to make residents and visitors happy in their daily lives. Our vision of becoming the happiest city on earth clearly states this. This is why we formulated our Happiness Agenda. In addition, we have identified two more impact areas for our city.
Smart happiness
The economic cost of achieving happiness was the question we asked ourselves. Our strategy even allowed us to make financial savings while delivering happiness to our citizens. We can create efficiencies through digital innovation instead of incurring additional costs. As a result, we can achieve happiness and generate tens of billions of UAE dirhams in financial benefits for the public and private sectors.
Thirdly, we considered our city’s environment, infrastructure, and resources. How will our digital transformation efforts affect our city environment? Can we sustain and enhance our city’s resources and infrastructure to sustain and support our transformation positively, or will we negatively impact the environment?
We have mapped out a course involving clean, sustainable resources and enhanced infrastructures that will positively affect our environment.
Unique opportunity
Our overall strategy is to improve our residents’ and visitors’ lives, our financial resources, and the environment. In harnessing technology for this city’s transformation, we believe we will achieve a positive triple-bottom line for the city. As a smart city, Dubai will be unique because of our course of action. As part of our Smart Dubai 2021 strategy, we have identified six main areas of action.
Our goal is to create:
- Creating a smart, resilient, and liveable digital city.
- A lean, connected government.
- Disruptive technologies power a globally competitive economy.
- Social services are easily accessible in an interconnected society.
- Autonomous and shared mobility solutions provide smooth transportation.
- Cutting-edge ICT innovations for a clean environment.
Smart and resilient
The world is becoming increasingly interconnected. By 2021, we aim to make fast internet connectivity available to everyone, including businesses. Our city services will be more easily accessible to them as a result.
Cyberspace should also be viewed as a trusted and secure environment for citizens to conduct transactions and access city services. To protect sensitive and private information, we will take various measures. In the beginning, the internet-connected people; now, it can connect to almost anything.
Making connections
We intend to connect all our city resources and infrastructure. People are now using services like safe drivers for transportation. By doing so, our city will be able to provide more reliable and better services and will be able to save money as well.
Water and electricity consumption can be monitored on the spot by city residents. They will be able to make choices to reduce consumption. In this way, we will empower our city residents and make them conscious consumers. Urban planning and allocating land, a scarce resource in cities, are significant. As a fast-growing city, Dubai needs careful planning to ensure adequate resources and infrastructure.
To help plan the future of our city and its expansion in a better and well-coordinated manner, we aim to provide various city authorities with much-needed and timely information.
Climate change
Cities around the world face challenges due to climate change, natural disasters, and man-made hazards. Dubai wants to be ready for such events. Again, this requires collaboration between city authorities, residents, and communities.
We will be able to better respond to such incidents and recover from them if we take a resilient approach as a city. Hence, Dubai will be a well-connected, well-planned, secure, and resilient city, offering residents and visitors an unmatched urban experience.
Global competitiveness
The economic growth of Dubai has been unprecedented in the region. Our strategy entails harnessing digital transformation to further boost our city’s economy and sustain its global competitiveness.
Our private sector can enhance its processes, products, and services by leveraging digital innovation trends. Dubai already emphasizes innovation in all economic and social sectors.
Through seamless and convenient digital services, we will make the lives of our city’s entrepreneurs easier. Incubators, accelerators, and easier access to services will further enhance Dubai’s position as a global innovation hub. The melting pot of talent and skill in Dubai will enable us to achieve our aspirations.
Summing Up
The city challenges in Dubai can be effectively addressed with the right leadership, planning, and execution. Cities in our region are uniquely positioned to embrace technological innovation and the potential it offers.
Ensure that city stakeholders are engaged and involved with a collaborative approach to ensure success. Cities in our region have enormous potential benefits and positive impacts both for the public and private sectors.