Page 120 - Connecting cities and communities with the Sustainable Development Goals

United for Smart Sustainable Cities
Connecting cities and communities with the Sustainable Development Goals

Additionally, to encourage the full exploitation of the value of open data, efforts are also taken to
address concerns about quality, reliability and the lack thereof ongoing support through Dubai Data
standards. The combined impact of insights unlocked by open and shared data, and the
development of skill-sets to orchestrate and analyse data, will propel Dubai from a knowledge
economy to an innovation economy, as individuals and entities take the leap from generating data
to applying data for the benefit of all through the Smart Dubai Platform.
ƒ Measurement of impact:
From the inception of the Smart Dubai initiative, there was a strong drive to estimate and start
measuring impact. Efforts are currently underway to estimate the social and economic impact of
the SDP and opening and sharing of data, to develop logical models to determine the levers to
achieve intended impacts, set a baseline and put appropriate measures in the future to rigorously
measure and track the economic and social impacts of both initiatives. Robust methods and tracking
mechanisms are being put in place to determine just how much value Dubai has generated from
both initiatives.
The sustainable growth and a steady momentum of the SDP and Dubai Data initiatives will be
maintained in the next five years with plans to implement new services, and to release new data
sets on the SDP and through active engagement with stakeholders. Both initiatives are sustainable
in the long run since the innovation potential multiplies as more services and data become available.
Both the public and private sectors will reap substantial benefits in planning, designing and
developing new products, services and processes.
ƒ Transferability:

This unique experience of how Dubai is driving its smart and sustainable city initiatives, through
establishing a citywide platform, data teams, unifying standards, collaborating with data providers,
incentivising participation and tracking the impact, can be transferred to other cities. The particulars
of some of those may vary based on each city context (e.g. specific policies and related direction
setting statements, implementation specifics, etc.). However, the overall framework, processes and
the issues identified in the SDP and Dubai Data initiative in terms of law, policies and standards, and
skills building aspects are very much applicable to other cities which intend to undertake similar
initiatives.
The SDP as a concept and the PPP agreement as a framework are both transferable to other cities.
Particular aspects of Dubai have determined the actual scope of services in the SDP; however, a
good majority of these services would be applicable to other cities since they entail commonly
needed aspects of IoT, data management, digital transformation needs, etc.
The smart financing aspect of SDP is also easily expandable and transferable to other cities. The
smart financing model through PPP identified various issues around the partnership model and
incorporated a flexible framework addressing innovation in terms of platform and services
expansion in the future with well-defined contributions from partners, as well as undertaking risks
transparently. Hence, the particular context of Dubai played a relatively minor role, rendering
transferability viable to other cities.
ƒ Scalability:

SDP and Dubai Data initiatives have both been defined and designed upfront to be scalable for future
expansion both from a scope and also from a financing perspective. Technical flexibility has been
incorporated into the design to accommodate future expansion and innovation at the city level.
Similarly, various clauses have been incorporated by partners to scale up financing aspects of the
platform in the face of increased demand from city entities and participants to address future
sustainability. SDP has been designed to incorporate the projected massive growth in terms of city
data from various providers. Similarly, the legal framework in terms of law, policies and standards
also accommodate future concerns and growth of citywide data.

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