Expo 2020: Dubai is already connecting minds to create a hi-tech future

The countdown has begun for what is being billed as another game-changer for Dubai, with Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) set to announce the winner of the Expo 2020 bid next month.

Dubai is a candidate city to host the 2020 World Expo. Under the theme of “connecting minds, creating the future”, Dubai aims to be the first city in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (Menasa) region to host this highly celebrated international exhibition.

And if unofficial sources are to be believed, the emirate stands a very good chance of bagging the rights to host the global expo seven years from now.

“Sources seem to indicate that Dubai has one of the best chances,” says ExpoBids.com, a project of ExpoMuseum.com and which tracks the various bids for the BIE-sanctioned expo to be held in 2020.

After the city of Ayutthaya, Thailand, bowed out of reckoning on June 11, 2013, there are now four cities left in the fray to host Expo 2020: Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Ekaterinburg, Russia; Izmir, Turkey, and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Dubai’s theme of “connecting minds, creating the future” can already be seen in action as the emirate prepares for a seamlessly connected future with the unveiling of the project to transform Dubai into a smart city.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced the launch of the new project that “aims to provide all Dubai residents with high speed internet in public places and ‘live’ services and information,” Sheikh Mohammed announced via his Twitter feed.

“The Dubai smart city project involves remote sensor devices all over Dubai to provide better lifestyle and services to Dubai residents. Creating an international city model and a new bettered reality for our people is our purpose,” Sheikh Mohammed said via his Twitter feed.

Observers believe this is a huge step to boost connectivity that will make Dubai rank among a handful of global destinations offering wireless Internet across the length and breadth of the cities. Freely available connectivity will also prove to be a boon for students and budding entrepreneurs who will be able to transform their ideas into reality much faster thanks to the always-on pervasive connectivity.

This step sums up the essence of Dubai’s Expo 2020 bid theme of “connecting minds, creating the future,” and will usher the emirate and the UAE much faster towards a hi-tech future.

Dubai as a city is developing at a rapid pace, witnessing unprecedented growth in the past decade and looking to an even faster pace of growth in the current and forthcoming decades.

Despite the world losing a good five years to the global economic downturn, Dubai has continued on its journey to modernise its infrastructure and put in place a network of physical and digital connectivity.

The city saw the launch of the world’s longest driverless Metro system in 2009 when the world was still counting its losses from the financial crisis, and as the slowdown took its hold elsewhere, the emirate continued on its drive to upgrade its network of roads and bridges, all of which now seems to be paying off in terms of visitor arrivals and growth in resident numbers.

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