Page 17 - Case study: Smart Dubai Happiness Meter in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

equipment, server equipment, etc.). This in turn has also resulted in reduced CO2 emissions due
to consolidated ICT equipment. Hence, it is designed as an environment conscious solution and
provides benefits in green computing.

3. Conclusions

Smart Dubai’s vision of “becoming the happiest city on earth” is at the core of its digital
transformation. Inherently, this is a vision stated as a goal for the people of Dubai. Hence, measuring
people’s happiness plays a key role for Smart Dubai to gauge its status with respect to its vision. In
this context, Smart Dubai has employed several measurement tools including the Happiness Meter
(among others, such as surveys).

Happiness, well-being and quality of life are relatively novel goals for policy making in the digital age.
Happiness Meter acts as a bridging tool to integrate people’s impressions of actual city experiences
with the overall transformation efforts of Smart Dubai. It is a modest yet formidable tool which
unifies happiness measurement for city services on the spot.

Smart Dubai strongly believes that the Happiness Meter as a concept and also as an implemented
tool is transferable to other cities. Other cities can take into account their own particular contexts
and constraints as well as their stakeholders’ specific requirements and expectations; however, the
highly horizontal and agile nature of Happiness Meter would render it highly applicable in most
cases.

The strong positive social, economic and environmental impacts reinforce its compelling case for
cities to consider as an easy to use engagement tool for its citizens. Its strong uptake in Dubai with
more than 22 million votes in a few years for a city of population over 3 million is a testimony to its
potential for widespread engagement. Cities can capture its impacts and benefits through a simple
implementation coupled with a wide rollout at the city level as discussed in this case.

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