UAE, August 30, 2016 – The Smart Dubai Office hosted 30 MBA students from the International Institute of Management Development (IMD), Switzerland for an interactive Smart Dubai workshop held at His Highness the Ruler’s Court yesterday.
he one hour workshop included H.E Dr.Aisha Bin Bishr, Director General of the Smart Dubai Office sharing an overview of the office, its current initiatives and future plans. Wesam Lootah, CEO, Smart Dubai Government Establishment, also shared updates on the Smart Dubai Platform, the new digital backbone of Dubai, announced in partnership with du earlier this year. Lootah elaborated on how the Smart Dubai Platform will unite infrastructure, data, city services and applications for the first time, becoming the ‘central operating system’ for the city.
“Being an alumni myself, hosting current IMD students for this workshop was an incredibly fulfilling experience for me. The enthusiasm and curiosity exhibited by the students about what we are doing through Smart Dubai and the impact our work will have on the city of the future, was both gratifying and inspiring. I hope the students will learn from our approach, always putting people’s happiness first, and apply this in their own careers, wherever their paths may lead.” said Dr.Aisha Bin Bishr.
“Students, business leaders and entrepreneurs are vital to the success of our smart transformation. Engaging with the IMD students today was a perfect example of how these workshops can enhance the short and long-term impact of our work. The Smart Dubai Platform will be even better for the whole city, thanks to our discussion today. I look forward to many more such opportunities, to share our journey and engage in discussions with our community.” said Wesam Lootah.
Smart Dubai is a unique leading initiative not only in the region but certainly in the world. Dubai has designed an impressive unified strategy to stimulate and channel innovation and technology in service of its citizens. IMD MBA students from more than 30 nationalities visited the Smart Dubai Government Establishment to learn and to enjoy a dialog with H.E. Dr. Aisha Bin Bishr, Director General, Smart Dubai Office and her team. This will give our MBAs the chance to gain insights about how city-wide smart transformation impacts the quality of life of citizens and their happiness.” said Dr Hischam El-Agamy; IMD Business School.
Smart Dubai is anchored in the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to make Dubai the happiest city on earth.
Collaborating with private sector and government partners, Smart Dubai is the government office charged with facilitating Dubai’s citywide smart transformation, to empower, deliver and promote an efficient, seamless, safe and impactful city experience for residents and visitors.
Smart Dubai is committed to a collaborative and agile approach to Dubai’s smart city transformation, empowering strategic partnerships with the public and private sector and academia to design and implement services and elevate citywide through leadership, in line with its mission to make Dubai the happiest city on earth through technology innovation.
Smart Dubai Government Establishment (also known as Smart Dubai Gov or SDG) is the technology arm of Smart Dubai, a city-wide initiative to transform Dubai into the world’s smartest and happiest city. Coming under the umbrella of the Smart Dubai Office (SDO), our vision is aligned with SDO which is to ‘make Dubai the happiest city on Earth.’
SDG officially directs and supervises the implementation of electronic and smart transformation in Dubai Government.
Our mission is to ‘deliver world-class smart services and infrastructure to create happiness’. Our visionary leader HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai equates technology to a building block towards an extraordinary quality of life; so technology is not our end goal. Together with our partners in Smart Dubai, we are moving forward on our journey to create sustained citizen, resident and visitor happiness.
As part of our mandate, SDG is entrusted with many tasks and powers including: proposing the general strategy of the smart government; overseeing smart transformation processes at the level of government entities; reviewing government entities’ plans and budgets related to smart transformation, IT, smart services and infrastructure; and proposing the legislation necessary for easing the smart transformation process.
SDG has been pioneering smart city solutions from the year 2000, when it was launched under the name of Dubai eGovernment. HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, changed the name to Dubai Smart Government Department in June 2013 in line with his initiative to transform to an era of smart government. In November 2015, HH Sheikh Mohammed issued another law making us an establishment and a further rebranding in March 2016 resulted in our new brand identity and logo.
SDG is led by Wesam Al Abbas Lootah, CEO of SDG. The entire team of SDG is working towards fulfilling the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, in his capacity as Ruler of Dubai, to transform Dubai into the world’s smartest and happiest city.
IMD is a top-ranked business school recognized as the expert in developing global leaders through high-impact executive education. The school is 100% focused on real-world executive development, offers Swiss excellence with a global perspective, and has a flexible, customized and effective approach. IMD offers a Global Leader Index where executives can see where they stand as leaders. IMD has locations in Lausanne (Switzerland) and Singapore.