Huawei’s Innovation Day at Gitex

DUBAI: Technology giant Huawei Middle East, is exhibited at GITEX Technology Week to put the spotlight on their various IT products, one of their important feature is Smart Cities and Safe Cities in the GCC and Middle East market. During Innovation day at GITEX, which is hosted the day Huawei shared its latest Smart City Index. Huawei says the index takes into account the strategy and execution progress in smart city programs.

Safder Nazir, regional VP smart cities, Huawei, told Kuwait Times, cities around the world continue to grow at unprecedented rates. According to the UN, the number of people living in cities will increase from 3.6 billion to 6.3 billion between 2010 and 2050. The growth in the urban population in just four decades will be equivalent to the size of the urban population achieved throughout all prior periods of human history, Mr Nazir said. He told that in the GCC, National agendas have placed the development of the ICT sector high on their list of priorities. Building safer, smarter cities is a common goal for local governments in this region, he explains. One thing for certain, that we cannot have smart cities without ensuring safety, and vice versa.

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Our aim is to enrich life and improve efficiency through a better connected world, acting as a responsible corporate citizen, innovative enabler for the information society, and collaborative contributor to the industry. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing.

Huawei's 176,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.

The Enterprise Business Group service offerings focus on the enterprise infrastructure, enterprise communications, data centers, and industry applications. To support the cloud-computing era and innovative new business models, the Enterprise Business Group also provides cloud computing-based data center and enterprise applications. The Enterprise Business Group has set up departmental organizations in over 100 countries and regions.

By leveraging its years of technical expertise and unmatched R&D capabilities, the Enterprise Business group is well-positioned to grow together with customers and partners for the future cloud computing and ICT convergence era.

Dubai tops 10-City Smart City Index

Dubai has emerged number 1 in a Smart City Index that studied 10Gulf cities' strategy and execution of smart city campaigns. Dubai stood out for its strategic vision coupled with a clear understanding of the practical requirements to deliver on its vision, in a study released by Huawei and Navigant on the first day of GITEX 2016. The study was undertaken by global research firm Navigant and commissioned by Huawei with the aim of understanding the level of readiness of cities in the region for the next level of smart city adoption and deployment.

SafderNazir, Vice President of Smart Cities & IoT, Huawei, Middle East said: "As countries in the Gulf are increasingly diversifying their economies away from fossil fuels, they are also coping with the need for rapid digitalization in business and government. Huawei is committed to helping countries in the region in their digital transformation through smart city initiatives that are customized to meet specific needs. We undertook the Gulf States Smart City Index in order to better understand the current levels of readiness of different cities so that we are better able to serve this region." The study found that the foundation laid by Dubai's leaders and the Smart Dubai Office provides an excellent basis for a range of innovations that have a significant impact on the city's operations and quality of life.

Eric Woods, research director at Navigant Consulting, who led the study, said: "Dubai stands out in this Navigant Research ranking as a Leader among cities for its strategic vision and ambitious implementation program. Overall, cities in the region are expanding their digital infrastructures, developing new services, and investing in large-scale building programs. The emerging focus on open data and data analytics programs is an important next step. This will be one of the most important developments in the next stage of smart city evolution in the Gulf region."

The Smart Dubai roadmap has targeted the delivery of 1,000 services by 2017 across 100initiatives. As of September 2016, it had documented more than 500 current and planned smart services and initiatives, of which 150 have been completed. With innovative programs such as Dubai Data Initiative for data sharing and data analytics, smart mobility solutions for traffic control, a smarter grid program for better management water consumption, smart health services, smart police force and other mobile-enabled e-Government services, the city is a leading example of how smart city strategies need to evolve and be refreshed to maintain focus and momentum.