Cities are at the forefront of change. The latest advancements in mobile application, urban mobility infrastructure and innovative usage of IT are crucial factors integral to development of a smart city.
"Center of Doha" by Horiuchi73. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Doha
At the 5thAnnual Arab Future Cities Summit Qatar, Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya, CEO of Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) will take center stage to share insight on the innovative initiatives driving smart cities growth, amongst other topics. With more than 20 years of International experience in the areas of wireless/telecomm research and development, innovations, business development, and services delivery, Dr Abu-Dayya is a veteran in the field of wireless communications.
In an interview, Dr Abu-Dayya shares his thoughts on how IT is enabling smart cities development.
What are the digital forces that play a key role in driving smart city adoption in Doha?
The collection of data and translating that data into info and services and actions is at the core of driving the development and realization of smart cities. A holistic view that covers the whole process from data collection all the way to deliver customised and localised services and applications will be needed to ensure success in this area.
According to you, to foster and further the transformation of cities, is the development of smart solutions a necessity?
Smart Cities are really about utilising IT to improve the quality of life of residents through delivery of relevant services and applications and to enhance productivity and efficiency which have a clear business impact.
Among the many innovations developed by QMIC, which do you think have been the creative solutions developed for the benefit metropolitan services in the city?
From its inception in 2009, QMIC has been about Enabling Smart Living, which is at the core of what smart cities is all about. As such QMIC has developed and deployed intelligent data-centric platforms and services that tackle mobility issues especially in relation to intelligent transport, smart logistics and road safety through its Masarak and Salamtek platforms. In addition QMIC has been active in the area of distributed environment monitoring to increase environmental awareness through its Hawa’ak platform.
Qatar has made huge strides in IT over the last decade. What is the future of innovation?
There are many key emerging technology trends that will define the future of innovations in Qatar and the region and beyond. At the heart of this will be the transition from the traditional Internet to the Internet of Things (IoT). Sensing, data collection and management, and machine learning and analytics will be key enablers to facilitate this transition.
Hear Dr. Adnan Abu-Dayya speak at length during his keynote session at the 5th Annual Arab Future Cities Summit 2016. The summit is scheduled to take place on April 11th-12th, 2016 at The Ritz-Carlton, Doha. More information on the Arab Future Cities Summit Qatar is available now at http://www.arabfuturecities.com/.
Follow the Summit on social media with the hashtag #AFCS2016.