By 2020, the world will see more than 30 billion connected devices forming the internet of things (IoT) ecosystem and all the apps and devices creating as much as 44 zettabytes of data (or 44 trillion gigabytes) in the digital universe, a white paper released by EMC Middle East and International Data Corporation (IDC) showed. This transformation will lead to a data-driven software-defined world in which every "Smart device" will be receiving or transmitting vast amounts of data. The whitepaper provides an use cases and best practices of Smart City initiatives from the Middle East and how it forms a core part of the countries' national strategy to ultimately enhance the quality of life for citizens, residents and businesses, provide diverse and sustainable economy and foster innovation. The white paper provides deep insights designed to empower governments around the world and in the region to aid the transformation of their urban centers into Smart Cities, in Dubai. The whitepaper provides essential guidance to all stakeholders within the smart city ecosystem, outlining the benefits, the key ICT building blocks of a smart city and the significant role of ICT innovation. The research shares insights into the effective deployment of a comprehensive set of transformation technologies including cloud, big data analytics, data lakes, and security to build the agile, data-driven cities of tomorrow. The research also outlines a Smart City maturity model 2 that can be used to assess a single Smart City stakeholder or project or multiple stakeholders within the city ecosystem. IDC provides insight on the five stages of maturity of a Smart City each based on the evaluation of ICT readiness, government processes, coordination, collaboration and data governance. Megha Kumar, senior research manager software IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey said: "The GCC's transformation agenda has leapfrogged in terms of IT development and e-governance, with major cities in the region increasingly leveraging ICT in a bid to transform themselves into 'smart' or 'digitally-transformed' cities. " "A growing number of cities are realizing that they need to ensure an environment that is conducive to economic growth, sustainability, and efficiency. They also recognize the need to improve their levels of citizen engagement. To this end, IDC has created the Smart Cities maturity model. The model allows cities to assess where they stand in terms of their ICT readiness, government processes, coordination, collaboration, and data governance. While there are five distinct stages of maturity, cities need to aim to reach the "optimized" stage of maturity where by a properly defined strategy allows a city to achieve its goals and provision higher quality of services for its citizens." Kumar added The whitepaper comes at a time where the rapid pace of urbanization, coupled with the digital transformation characterized by the pervasive adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) among individuals, businesses, and governments, are driving the social and economic transformation of cities around the world. A recent United Nations (UN) report predicts that, by 2050, nearly 70% of the world's population will be concentrated in urban centers; the GCC countries are widely expected to have one of the highest urbanization rates in the world, ranging from 80% to 100%. Mohammed Amin, senior vice president and regional manager, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa and Middle East at EMC said: "As we continue to become a community of digital citizens always connected with the world's information at our fingertips, the need to meet citizen expectations drives cities and businesses to use technologies to deliver faster, always-on and personalized end-user experience." "In addition, the astonishing urbanization growth rates are driving cities to better plan for the optimization and allocation of their resources as well as ensuring a sustainable secure environment. A successful Future-proof Smart City must be built on a strong ICT foundation layer that allows for efficient city management, better allocation of resources, economic development, sustainability, innovation and citizen engagement. The EMC Federation provides a Smart City platform that are open, agile, secure, software-defined and analytics driven to aid the establishment of optimized cities that are well integrated, and capable of providing citizens with a superior personalized experience." EMC aims to provide a Smart City platform that is open, agile, software-defined and data analytics driven which deliver the speed, performance and scalability needed for hyper-connected, data-driven cities. Comprising three critical layers, the EMC Federation Smart City platform brings together best-of-breed technologies from EMCII, VMware, VCE, Pivotal, RSA and Virtustream. The Platform provides leading edge technologies to host the applications of today and to enable the development of Cloud Native applications which will enable the cities to accelerate innovation adoption, deliver superior, fast and personalized citizens and businesses experience and achieve agility and sustainability. The GCC region is already witnessing the innovation-powered transformation of cities across the region. In Saudi Arabia, cities such as Jeddah, Makkah and Riyadh have been earmarked for modernization. With Vision 2030, Qatar aims to transition into a ‘Smart Country', with its Lusail City currently under development and set to be a hub of integrated infrastructure, smart grids and intelligent transportation. In the UAE, Dubai has taken the lead in the deployment of smart services, with a hundred in active use already. Expo 2020 has further catalysed the local government towards the adoption of smart services. These initiatives align with the aspirations of GCC governments to improve the quality of life for their citizens, stimulate business and drive economic growth in the future. "Driven by the huge investments in smart initiatives to achieve economic diversification and firmly establish a knowledge based economy, Saudi Arabia continues to boast some of the most visionary initiatives in the region. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2015 Global Information Technology Report, Saudi Arabia is among the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to the ‘Importance of ICT to Government Vision for the Future'. EMC is excited and honored to be a part of this exciting journey and aims to enable the realization of these strategic visions through a comprehensive platform that is powered by the very best in technology and innovation from the EMC Federation of companies." said Mohamad Talaat, vice president, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Libya. — SG
