Doha: Qatar is emerging as one of the leading countries in the world in technology adaptation and innovation. These technologies point out potential gains in terms of robustness, security, flexibility, and reliability of public infrastructures running in cities and services delivered to urban dwellers, discussed experts at the Smart City Expo Doha 2022.
The panel discussion entitled ‘Reshaping Digital Public Services - Unleashing the potential of disruptive technologies in urban management’ was held under Smart City Expo Doha 2022. The discussion shed light on different enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing or Internet of Things which depict a huge transformation of urban management in the coming years and decades.
Mashael Ali Al Hammadi, Acting Assistant Undersecretary of Information Technology Affairs, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) discussed about cloud computing, digital wellbeing, and clean energy and environment development. “We as a Qatar digital government try to bring the best and the latest technology from cloud computing from the service provider to support the digital transformation and help entities in their journey in the country from manual to cloud computing,” she said.
“We have a collaboration between Qatar and Microsoft, and we will establish three data centers in Qatar. We have more than 50 government and semi-government private sector who have migrated now to the cloud. They have migrated all their services, applications, and data to the cloud in a secure environment,” Al Hammadi added.
Speaking about data availability as part of the cloud computing she noted, data is now available anywhere, anytime for everyone and it makes life easy for government entities to digitally transform by using the technology in an easy way. She said, “We are working also on having data policies to manage and govern the data flow on the cloud. We will be launching soon the data privacy law in the country. Cloud services have supported Qatar National Vision 2030 in terms of environmental development.”
Al Hammadi explained the impact of clean energy on the environment development. “By establishing the cloud data center, we have less carbon emissions by 98 percent and have consumed less energy by 30 percent. We have also implemented a project for generating energy for using clean wind and solar power, for example Kharasaah solar plant which is a part of Qatar’s plan to diversify its energy sources and increase the proportions of renewable energy and its total power generation to 20 percent by 2030. Also, the use of renewable building materials in construction is reflected in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 stadiums as all the stadiums use less water and recycle materials and ensures sustainability.”
She also highlighted the recent achievements and efforts being put in the digital well-being. “We are promoting digital citizens by supporting the people to go digital by providing them with all necessary tools and channels, enabling to use the digital services and make their lives easier. We also encourage educators and lecturers to adopt digital education and positively impact the digital well-being for students. For example, we have recently launched the interactive platform called ‘Qatar Education’ by Ministry of Education, for students and parents and teachers as well.”
Mariam Al Khal, Head of IOT and Tasmu Platform, Ooredoo shared how Ooredoo is helping to unleash all the potential of disruptive technologies and help in the urban management and discussed about various technologies such as robotics, drones, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
She noted, AI is the heart of all the disruptive technologies which is the ability of technologies to continuously learn and progress the same way that a human does.
“Our financial sector is already exploring how blockchain technologies will be disrupting our future and VR and AR which can be used to transform and predict using these technologies.
“All of this is empowered by the infrastructure we put in place in the country. Ooredoo has put a lot of investment in ensuring that the right infrastructure is in the country and its all enabled and continuously progresses as now we have 5G,” she added.
Smart City Expo Doha 2022 aims to bring together experts from around the globe to share ideas and solutions on how to create a better, more sustainable future for cities and their citizens.
