Smart cities: Govts should take lead
dubai — With the concept of smart cities quickly engulfing the world, cities — especially the global ones — are in a race to implement all technologies required to become a full-fledged hub for the future.
It is an intricate task, but the endresult will definitely benefit everyone — especially if the government is spearheading it.
“Life will be quite different; technology is changing the way we would be living,” Ahmed Adly, senior director and cloud computing leader at Oracle Mena, told Khaleej
Times at Gitex Technology Week. From the way of interacting with different services and beyond eservices to the way we are connecting with AI chatbots, he says that the way forward will become easier and smoother.
“When you want to hasten business in smart cities, you can’t wait for traditional processes or approval; you need to depend on a trusted network or partners working seamlessly together,” he added.
Oracle, in a recent report, pegs digital transformation spending in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa region to hit $32 billion by 2021. And as companies are now looking to change and drive change, the question is how.
This is possible only with new ideas, customer focus, an action plan and the best modern technologies.
But the other aspect, Adly says, is the backbone of smart cities itself.
“If you do the biggest investment to revamp the channels of dealing with citizens or business only, but your backend system is not supporting the new technology of a smart city, it will not help you,” he points out.
Asked whether Dubai is close to or far from becoming a full-fledged smart city, he says that while there is no single benchmark, it is important to compare the emirate to the rest of the region.
“It is very, very clear that, in the MEA, Dubai is the closest to a concept of a full smart city,” Adly stresses.
“This is not only because of infrastructure and investment; the most important factor is the initiative of the government — that builds trust for the private sector and partners to help provide more solutions.”
As part of Gitex, Oracle also announced a partnership with LinkedIn to improve candidate and employee experience to meet the shifting demands of the talent economy.
As technology continues to transform the global talent marketplace with the rise of automation and the shrinking shelf life of skills, it is critical to successfully manage these changes and address escalating recruitment costs and increasing employee turnover; HR teams need to swiftly evolve their strategies and technologies.
“The rapidly-changing global talent market is forcing organisations across industries to rethink how they attract, engage and retain employees,” said Nagaraj Nadendla, group vice-president for product development at Oracle.