It has oft been repeated – “Data is the new oil”. Similar to how oil drove growth and prosperity of nations and turned the wheels of global economy in the past, it is being universally accepted that how we harness data and constructively monetise it now will define the future wave of global growth. As per an estimate, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes – that’s 17 zeros - of data is produced every day.

Dubai has always been at the forefront of innovation and as a forerunner of change, it was quick to diversify into a knowledge-based economy. Data is a precious commodity, and at Dubai Data Establishment, our role has been to enable a trusted exchange of information by opening and sharing Dubai’s data. Our objective is to create more efficiencies for the Government and also build an ecosystem involving the same, private sector partners and academia who can benefit from a single data stream provided by implementing use cases. We are unanimous on the value data can bring to Dubai, and how it can be a growth catalyst to our future plans to transform this emirate into the happiest and smartest city in the world. 

From data policies, conducting research on data decentralisation, to manuals and even educational programmes, we have incorporated a 360-degree view on data to capitalise and extract most value. With the increasingly-pivotal role being played by data in shaping future smart cities, we recently launched the first “Data First, The City’s Data Challenge’ - a six-month-long challenge that brings together Dubai Data Establishment government and semi-government data partners to underline the importance of collaborative efforts in the realm of data.

At Dubai Data Establishment, we believe that we are at the cusp of our journey to explore data decentralisation and facilitate the effective and secure exchange of data. We are currently exploring the technical, governance and market requirement aspects around data decentralisation.  We are of the opinion that there is merit in complementing our Dubai Pulse platform by using decentralisation technologies in order to support the tokenised exchange of data between organisations.  Indeed, creating this sort of exchange will be important in establishing a city-data market and solving the trust puzzle.

Such a structured approach, we believe, has helped us plan the digital transformation of Dubai envisioned by our wise leadership, not to mention empower future leaders to have the right data in their hands to take more informed decisions, those which we prefer to call as “smart decision making”. We believe that we have just scratched the surface so far, and will be able to create far greater value from data in the future. As data unlocks more value for our smart city ambitions, we continue to surge forward with our plans to establish an open, collaborative, and innovation-friendly environment, which is indispensable for emerging technologies to flourish, and transform city experiences touching everyone’s lives and businesses.