Internet Of Everything To Drive Dubai’s Smart Economy

Fly over Dubai, and you’ll see stunning landmarks, a beautiful coastline, and free zones catered to specific industries such as finance, healthcare, and the media, attracting thousands of knowledge workers from around the world.

Dubai is already a global trade hub, with Dubai International Airport one of the world’s busiest international airports, and Jebel Ali Port one of the world’s top 10 container ports. The under-construction Dubai World Central will be the world’s first fully-formed aerotropolis.

Hosting economic districts and major ports is a 20th century model – but what makes Dubai stand out is the Dubai Smart City initiative, which aims to make Dubai one of the world’s best-connected, smartest, and happiest cities by 2017.

Dubai Smart City covers three tracks – Smart Economy, Smart Life, and Smart Tourism. The Higher Committee for Smart Dubai defines the Smart Economy as smart companies and port services, smart stock exchanges, and industries that support the knowledge-based economy.

Driving Dubai Smart City is the Internet of Everything (IoE), which is the networked connection of people, processes, data and things. Worldwide, we predict there will be 50 billion connected objects by 2020, and 500 billion connected objects by 2030.

The IoE is transforming industries, countries, and communities, providing a global economic opportunity of $19 trillion in the public and private sectors. The long term global IoE impact can be compared to the impact of the European Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

Public sector IoE benefits include enhancing employee productivity; reducing cost through better utilisation of labour, capital expenses, and operating costs; and increasing revenue with better matching of supply and demand.

In the private sector, the IoE can create revenue from new business models that reduce time to market and process inefficiencies, improve customer experiences, and enhance the supply chain and employee productivity.

Dubai: Dhs17.9 billion Value at Stake

Dubai is the ideal site for a Smart City – having already bypassed the Industrial Revolution, Dubai is largely a greenfield site, with low unemployment, high household density, and strong educational system, buoyed by visionary government leaders.

In Dubai’s Smart Economy, affordable and video collaboration tools can enable organisations to host virtual conferences with clients and customers around the world – from any mobile device and from any location – and can support a more mobile workforce.

Sensors embedded in millions of objects across Dubai will generate data over wi-fi that can be used by mobile apps and organizations to enhance daily lives and businesses, from tracking utilities to reducing supply chain inefficiencies.

We calculated Dubai’s total public and private sector value at stake is Dhs17.9 billion ($4.87 billion) to 2019, including a public sector opportunity of Dhs4.3 billion ($1.2 billion).

Public sector productivity is the highest-valued theme at Dhs1.89 billion ($515 million), including telework (Dhs246 million), mobile collaboration (Dhs950 million), and Bring Your Own Device (Dhs350 million).

Around the world, public-private partnerships are developing new and innovative businesses that grow and become significant employers. Barcelona, Spain, another leading Smart City, has already created 47,000 new jobs thanks to these efforts.

For Dubai to maximise value creation, the Higher Committee of Dubai Smart City needs to look at cross-agency coordination and an implementation roadmap.

Dubai has the vision, capita, and leadership to deliver on its Smart City goals.