Dr Mark A Smith
Impacts of technology on future of urban growth discussed
DUBAI, December 22, 2021
With the global autonomous vehicles market topping $1.65 billion and UAE planning to test self-driving vehicles, a session at Expo 2020 Dubai addressed the importance of the era of multimodal mobility and the emerging customer demands.
The session ‘Lead the path to autonomous mobility’ noted that Dubai’s Autonomous Transportation Strategy calls on 25% of trips to be driverless by 2030.
Shahzeb Memon, Vice President and Global Head of TaaS at SWVL, identified three main challenges for the future of mobility: access and reliability, safety, and the costs of inefficient operations.
During his speech, he said: “These mobility challenges need to be tackled in a smart and efficient manner, focusing on the daily commute, order in travel, and technology for end-to-end transportation services. With SWVL, we provide an on-demand, self-optimising, supply agnostic, and asset-light mass transit solution. This is packaged into a suite of cloud-based software that can be used by corporations, educational institutions, and transit agencies.”
SAP had hosted a day-long event which brought together Honeywell, the industrial software company that delivers industry-specific solutions, SWVL, a Dubai-based provider of transformative mass transit and shared mobility solutions, Bee’ah, the region’s leading sustainability pioneer, and SAP’s partners – Deloitte and Google Cloud – to discuss on how to leverage technology to build, deliver and operate a smart, human-centric city.
Aligned with Urban & Rural Development Expo Week, SAP organised the Smart and Human-Centric Urban Development Day with the overall objective of providing insights on the importance and how to leverage technologies in the future of urban development, enabling attendees to discover and exchange ideas on how digital can provide a competitive advantage for their businesses.
In the opening speech, Dr Mark A Smith, Managing Director for Capital Projects at Deloitte Middle East, highlighted the importance of the data-driven digital lifecycle of projects and said: “The organisations who get technology and digital transformation right becomes a true differentiator in the industry with 5-30% productivity increase.”
Following the event’s theme, Kashif Siddiqui, SAP CX Expert, shared how future cities are built on trust and delivering seamless customer experience. He highlighted that governments could consider adopting technology to “listen to, understand and act” on behalf of their citizens.
Dr Selda Konucku, leading Honeywell Connected Building Business for Meta region, said: “We believe that smart building insights play a crucial role in improving the overall building performance and enhancing the quality of life for occupants/visitors. With Honeywell Forge, we create system of record to maximise building health while driving real-time improvements in sustainability, operational excellence and occupant experience.
“Combining Honeywell Forge’s operational capability with SAP’s financial data, we are also able to provide visibility into portfolio’s financial performance; insights into portfolios’ financial problems thus enable the business leaders to make data driven investment decisions.”
Moderated by Slawomir Klimowicz, an Industry Advisor at SAP, a fireside chat with Bart Cornelissen, Leader of Deloitte’s Energy, Resources & Industrials industry practice, and Jihad Tayara, CEO of EVOTEQ, Bee'ah's digital venture, discussed about how technologies can drive in the waste management area in the next five years and the future of utility, using Bee’ah as an illustrative success story. Jihad said: “We focused on two pillars of sustainability and digitalisation to deliver better customer experience and retain talents. Customer centricity and human factors are always key success factors for any business.”-- TradeArabia News Service