DUBAI: Data has the potential to add Dh10.4 billion to Dubai’s economy every year, according to the Dubai Data Report, released on Tuesday.
Smart Dubai, who published the report in partnership with KPMG, said that these gains could be realized by 2021.
“The public sector alone can add a value of Dh6.6 billion to the economy every year,” Younus Al Nassar, Assistant Director General, Smart Dubai, said at Arabnet on Tuesday.
“We wanted to prioritise data sets that were most valuable to the economy. We discovered that geospatial is the most valuable, followed by traffic and transport,” Al Nassar added.
Despite appearing abstract, open data can indeed have a material impact on the economy.
When Transport For London (TfL), which oversees all of London’s transport systems, opened up its data to the public, there was an immediate consequence.
Information like passenger numbers, route usage levels, traffic disruptions, and peak hours spurred significant investment from the private sector, according to Heather Sharp, Director of Economics, KPMG.
“Over 5,000 developers accessed this data in a year, with hundreds of apps created as a result,” Sharp said.
“These apps now have millions of users every year,” she added.
In London alone, cost savings due to reduced journey times totaled £60 million in one year, from a single data set, according to TfL.
“There are real tangible benefits that can be achieved, and the government plays a very crucial role in opening up the data,” Sharp said.
By 2021, Smart Dubai’s roadmap forecasts that the entire government of Dubai will be completely open in its sharing of data.
On Sunday, this paper reported that Smart Dubai was set to begin commercialising its operations from early 2018.
According to the organisation’s Director General Aisha Bin Bishr, Smart Dubai will sell enriched, contextualised data sets to the private sector.
This is in addition to raw, open data that will be made available to the public.
In the new report, Smart Dubai has identified the government sectors that will generate the biggest value through the sharing of its data.
Transport, storage, and communication will contribute Dh1.85 billion to the economy annually, followed by public administration, which will provide Dh1.57 billion in added economic activity.
For residents of the emirate, practical applications of this full sharing of data include maximising the time spent with one’s family, creating efficiencies in city planning, and helping entrepreneurs identify new opportunities.
“Through advanced statistical and spatial analysis on commute times, using combined data from multiple sources, developers can build predictive models for threats impacting commute times,” Nassar said.
These include accidents, location, time, and weather.
“Open data will positively impact how you raise a family in Dubai,” he said, adding: “Ultimately, we just want to make people’s lives easier.”
