UAE Smart Dubai celebrates 5 years of Blockchain achievements

Smart Dubai in its celebration of its fifth anniversary of its establishment has listed its achievements especially those related to Blockchain and its paperless strategy.

According to the press release, Smart Dubai made great strides towards digitizing the Dubai Government, launching a set of innovative initiatives to embrace emerging technologies, and use them to develop advanced services that improve people’s lives and establish Dubai as a world-leading smart city.

Younus Al Nasser, Assistant Director General of Smart Dubai, CEO of the Dubai Data Establishment, said: "Smart Dubai is the government entity that was established to spearhead the emirate’s digital transformation. And today, we celebrate five years of unparalleled successes and accomplishments, guided by the forward-thinking vision and close supervision of our wise leadership, who have long championed digitisation as the way forward and the path towards future leadership. We have always believed, as our leadership does, that technology is there to be used for our benefit, to enhance government procedures, boost private-sector performance, and promote happiness in the community."

Al Nasser added. "Today, we reap the fruit of years of hard work, dedication, and innovation from the Smart Dubai team, in partnership with various government entities. These collective efforts to drive Dubai’s smart transformation have helped establish the emirate as a global icon for embracing modern technologies and harnessing their potential to build an integrated and sustainable smart city."

For his part, Wesam Lootah, CEO of the Smart Dubai Government Establishment, said: "Perhaps the truest test for the utility of Dubai’s digital transformation came about this year with the global COVID-19 pandemic, which brought unprecedented challenges for cities around the world, slowing down economic activity across every sector – including government. Dubai’s advanced digital infrastructure allowed the emirate to provide efficient and innovative services, ensuring business continuity and uninterrupted government processes, at a time when cities around the world saw businesses shutting down and faced difficulties in providing services to their communities."

"Smart Dubai is committed to continue moving forward with its plans, in partnership with its strategic partners, and to consistently provide the community with best-in-class services," Lootah continued. "Our ultimate objective is to drive Dubai’s transformation into a full-fledged smart city and a world leader in adopting advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, the Internet of Things, and Data Science, among many others."

The Dubai Paperless Strategy, which utilizes blockchain is among the most notable of these initiatives; it was launched to digitise internal and external government transactions, rendering them completely paper-free. The Strategy was rolled out in collaboration with Smart Dubai’s government partners over several phases, covering a total of 42 Dubai Government entities. The Strategy has so far led to savings of more than AED 725 million, 7.7 million hours of labor, and 20,350 trees that would have otherwise been used to produce paper.

Furthermore, Smart Dubai registered great progress with its Dubai Blockchain Strategy, where it has unveiled a series of Blockchain-powered initiatives and services in several sectors. As part of the Strategy, Smart Dubai launched the Dubai Blockchain Policy – the first comprehensive blockchain implementation policy for a city – in addition to hosting the Global Blockchain Challenge for three consecutive years from 2017 to 2019, and the Future Blockchain Summit in 2018 and 2019, with the 2020 edition to be hosted in 2 weeks.

Furthermore, Smart Dubai launched UAE PASS as a joint initiative with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, TRA, and the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority, ADDA. UAE PASS is the first secure national digital identity platform allowing citizens and residents to access more than 5,000 online services offered by over 100 government, semi-governmental, and private entities in the UAE, as well as to digitally sign and authenticate documents and transactions, or request official documents.

The Government Resources Planning Systems, GRPS, is another initiative Smart Dubai has launched, offering an integrated system of centralized technical solutions implemented by more than 65 government agencies in the emirate. The GPRS consist of 30+ systems benefitting over 56,000 employees. It manages 95% of the Government’s budget and more than 45,000 resources. Catering to 7,000 users, the systems have saved the Government AED 4.3 billion between 2003 and 2015.

On the same note, Smart Dubai launched the Dubai Pulse platform – the digital backbone of Dubai – which has so far ingested more than 637 datasets on Dubai Pulse, 246 of which are open datasets and 391 are shared datasets.

Smart Dubai also developed the Ethical AI Toolkit to set clear guidelines on the ethical use of the technology, and prevent having a fragmented, incoherent approach to ethics, where every entity sets its own rules.

In an effort to strengthen its partnerships, expedite the emirate’s digital transformation, and fulfil Dubai’s smart-city aspirations, Smart Dubai signed a total of 191 agreements in the 2015-2020 period with various local and federal government entities, as well as prominent private companies, including SAP, Dell, du, Careem, IBM, and Network International.

In 2020, Smart Dubai launched a series of initiatives and projects, such as the ‘100% Digital Stamp’ initiative, to recognize and award entities that have fully implemented the Dubai Paperless Strategy, becoming 100 percent digital.