Marwan Bin Haidar, Executive Vice President of Innovation and the Future, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) • Interview

Through its digital arm, DEWA seeks to disrupt the entire business of public utilities by becoming the world’s first digital utility to use autonomous systems for renewable energy and storage.

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF INNOVATION AND THE FUTURE, DUBAI ELECTRICITY AND WATER AUTHORITY (DEWA)

Moscow is Russia’s center of finance, IT, smart city technology, and political power. All of this comes together to build new digitalization services. Moscow was the first city in Russia to implement this because it is one of the largest cities in the world in terms of population. There is a lot of communication between people for business development and this ecosystem needs to be managed. The only proper instrument to manage this is IT and digital instruments. In that sense, our focus is to digitalize services for people, small business, and the big economic stakeholders. Without digitalization, Moscow cannot grow and stay competitive with the rest of the world.

EDUARD LYSENKO What is the significance of having public engagement in the design of a smart city strategy, such as Moscow City Government’s crowd-sharing platform?

to gauge development, satisfaction levels, and what can be done better across a range of smart city initiatives. Hundreds of thousands of people always give this feedback, so it has been a successful project. We also have a crowd-sourcing project where people present their ideas on specific topics. The best ideas selected by experts and project participants will be implemented by the Moscow government for sure.

Changing public opinion is a massive challenge. We strive to serve all citizens in the 125 districts in Moscow, with each district having a public services center, which is a physical premise to access all services. Citizens that do not have access to a computer, mobile phone, or the internet can avail these services at our centers. Governments should understand that marketing is extremely important when seeking to engage citizens in the digital era. Every citizen is a client, and we have to work with them through feedback, marketing, and advertising. We are investing substantially to communicate the benefits of technology and are observing far less resistance to change.

AB What are the main areas for collaboration and knowledge sharing between Moscow and Dubai?