Decentralised and Open Data Turns Dubai Into A Smart City
Dubai Could Be Producing Over 620M Gigabytes By 2020, Which Will Now Have The Potential To Be Connected To Blockchain
Dubai is planning to launch ‘Decentralised Data for Dubai’, a programme that brings an open data ‘Sandbox’ built using a range of decentralised technologies from the Outlier Ventures ‘Convergence Stack’, potentially including Sovrin, Ocean Protocol and Fetch.AI. The new programme will represent the largest living group of data sets ever accessed through blockchain(s) and it will bring public and private sector organisations together with a selection of decentralised protocols to create the open data Sandbox.
Decentralised Data for Dubai was conceived following a research report into smart city development undertaken jointly between Smart Dubai and Outlier Ventures.
The new programme will represent the largest living group of data sets ever accessed through blockchain(s) and it will bring public and private sector organisations together with a selection of decentralised protocols to create the open data Sandbox. Developers will have completely open access to Dubai’s data so they can build exciting new services. The initiative will be supported by a range of working groups and a two day hackathon that challenges developers to build prototypes.
By 2050, 68% of the world population will live in cities. These megacities will be producing more than 80% of the global GDP and are coming to resemble the ancient state-cities of Athens, Rome, and Carthage but now supercharged by data. These megacities tend to have similar challenges to nations around infrastructure, connectivity, mobility, and healthcare and have developed their own distinct cultural and economic micro-climates. Broken business models and misaligned incentives between different city stakeholders have restrained innovation and limited sustainable and inclusive growth.
As our greatest challenges become increasingly global and technological progress continues its exponential march, cities are once again coming to the fore. Nations are struggling to address global challenges like climate change, migration, and an integrated global economy supercharged by the Internet. Cities do not suffer from the same level of constitutional weight and are able to be more flexible and adaptable to the fast-changing technology, cultural and economic landscape. As the scale of problems is global like climate change and migration, the nation is no longer able to deliver effective policy responses.
Cities, on the other hand, offer a solution. Reinforcing collaboration and globalism to tackle these global problems regardless of national borders. It is the City that has the flexibility and opportunity to grasp the opportunities emerging from the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution and make a real and lasting impact. Cities must lead the revolution by utilizing data and emerging technologies in an open, collaborative, and shared way to build the digital infrastructure required to support a global, integrated and dynamic economy.
Public-private partnerships are a start and have fostered collaboration between corporations and governments by aligning the business models while ensuring solutions meet the needs of citizens not just shareholders.
