Governments and private entities throughout the Middle East Africa region are increasingly enthusiastic about collaborating to use the data they gather. Authorities understand that they will have greater control over their infrastructure — and the use of their infrastructure — if they can aggregate the right data to create actionable information.
However, many disparate platforms on the market provide siloed solutions, tailored to specific use cases or particular industry applications, where a true smart-city solution would have the ability to gather and use data from a multitude of sources and would not be restricted by traditional industry verticals, or siloes, enabling new use cases and efficiencies by sharing data from a variety of sources.
The definition of a smart city remains indistinct. As a result, there are countless examples where the smart-city vision has been broken down into discrete components. In Amsterdam, the components are known as ‘’themes.’’ In Barcelona, they’re referred to as ‘’axes.’’ In Singapore, they’re also known as ‘’initiatives’’ and, in Dubai, as ‘’pillars.”