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29 March 2024

Sheikh Mohammed honours winners of World Government Summit Awards

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By Wam

The Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, said that building the future of humanity requires the improvement of government work globally, through the establishment of a lasting culture of innovation and the promotion of advanced science and future skills across all sectors.

His Highness’ comments came during an awards ceremony for the ‘Edge of Government Award’ and the ‘Shaping Future Governments Global Universities Challenge Award’ that closed the sixth edition of the event, held under the patronage of His Highness in Dubai from February 11-13.

Sheikh Mohammed said that celebrating individual, entities and university students as well as innovators translates our directives to inspire innovators from around the world, and support their efforts in developing cutting edge solutions to face future challenges. "It also reflects our objective from organizing the Global Government Summit, which represents a platform to build the future which we want humanity to acquire its tools from today," Sheikh Mohammed said.

"The distinguished global models that competed to win the WGS’s awards assured us that there many people in the world who share our vision and ambitions to serve humanity, and improve people’s quality of life and achieve their happiness; as well as equip them with science and knowledge so they continue the progress journey of the humanity. Today we honor people who left remarkable positive impact on societies and enhanced people’s lives. We believe it is a common responsibility among governments, private sector organizations, research centers and academia. We believe that the leap toward the future is the mission of the new generation whom we witness their innovation and distinction in drafting a realistic picture of future governments," Sheikh Mohammed said.

His Highness also congratulated the winners of the WGS Awards, and called them to continue their research and innovation journey to find solutions that facilitate people’s lives.

The award ceremony was attended by H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai; H.H. Lt. General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior; H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs; H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation; H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future and Chairman of the World Government Summit Mohammed Al Gergawi; along with senior officials and dignitaries from participating countries at the WGS.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum honoured the government of Kenya on its intelligent devices in vehicles for road maintenance’s project. The system utilised modern technologies in the maintenance of infrastructure by devising a new road maintenance system that involves the community. Intelligent devices consisting of vehicle sensors have been installed to monitor road conditions and identify hazards. The system is capable of signing maintenance contracts and assigning tasks to registered maintenance workers, who bid for the work on mobile phone.

The system has significantly reduced the time required for repairs and maintenance, and contributed to the creation of many job opportunities. It has also improved road conditions and developed areas inaccessible to the government.

The final stage of the Government Innovation Award witnessed seven innovative projects developed by governments around the world, including the Kenyan project.

The United Kingdom's "Augmented Human Project" represented the recognition of an enhanced human that was granted a passport and an identity - an unprecedented move in adopting new capabilities from human augmentation technologies.

The "Smart Chip in the Human Body instead of Train Ticket" project from Sweden, implemented by the Swedish state rail company SJ, represent a new government service which adopts human enhancement technology. Another finalist from Canada, a state-of-the-art cloud talent project, employs cloud computing technology to meet the challenge of talent shortage in the government sector.

A redefinition project of social welfare in the municipality of Asker in Norway – the Asker Wolver Lab - has developed a new mechanism that invests in human skills and capabilities through rehabilitation projects, capacity building and skills development for social groups benefiting from social welfare programmes, in collaboration with investment banks.

A project from the Netherlands allows individuals to measure air and noise pollution through an application operated by Blockchain technology. The ‘Decibel.live’ app was made available to individuals to become involved in the measurement of pollution.

The US-based Lifesaving Technology Project, C-Thru, qualified for the awards. The project utilizes the techniques of volcanic studies and provides imaging that allows firefighters to save lives efficiently and quickly.

The best global innovations were selected after a year-long research and evaluation process, including the review of more than 200 innovative experiences, in partnership between the Mohammed bin Rashid Center for Government Innovation, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Global Advisory Council of the Centre. The evaluation mechanism included three criteria: Level of innovation and uniqueness, impact and scope of improvement, and the replicability of innovation in other countries and regions.

The London Business School were named winners of the Shaping Future Governments Global Universities Challenge. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid honoured the winning student team for a project around "UAE Centennial 2071"., with teams from INSEAD and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also reaching the final stage of the challenge.

The competition featured 17 top universities and international academic institutions from around the world including Harvard University, University of Oxford, Cornell University, University of Waterloo, Imperial College London, London Business School, Insead Institute, Business School University of Navarra, China International Business School, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, The University of Sydney, The University of Tokyo, American University of Sharjah, American University of Cairo, Indian Institute of Business Management.

The Shaping Future Governments Global Universities Challenge is the only global initiative that brings students from the world's top universities together with the largest gathering of international organisations, governments, future think tanks and key influencers in the world of technology, business, economics, education and other key sectors.

H.H. Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan and H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan; honoured the winners of the Best M-Government Service Award. This included three awards: Best M-Government Service Award, the World Virtual GovHack and Best Government Emerging Technologies Award. Each category included several detailed hubs covering the entire range of vital public services provided by governments.

H.H. Sheikh Saif bin Zayed honoured the winners of Best M-Government Service Award, which included seven main categories and attracted 3401 participants, including 2615 international participants from 77 countries and 786 Arabic participants from 16 Arab countries.

The winner of the Best M-Government Service Award for the Protecting Human Life category is a Dubai Police application, which provides various traffic, criminal, and social services. The innovative application is available in six languages to cover all nationalities living in Dubai.

In the Knowledge Building category, the "Edraak" platform from Jordan, a huge open-source platform that provides high-quality teaching courses developed by leading experts in the world, and stimulates Arab experts from all fields to enrich the knowledge of the communities.

The winner of the Best M-Government Service Award for the Sustainable Living Category is France’s eCO2mix application, a government application that provides services and information on electricity consumption and helps users reduce waste of energy by providing detailed statistics and analysis.

My Hong Kong Guide application won the Best M-Government Service Award for the Enhancing Social & Cultural Awareness Category, for providing comprehensive information on Hong Kong's tourism and culture, and presents information and trends to thousands of attractions and events.

The UAE’S Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation application was named winner of Best M-Government Service Award for the Enabling Business Category. MOHRE provides a range of services including verification, renewal and cancellation of work permits, and the latest list of corporate transactions.

In the Effective Mobility category, the winner of the Best M-Government Service Award is the UK’s City Mapper, an application that provides information and services on comprehensive travel plans. It also automatically integrates all transportation methods to help the users navigate quickly and efficiently at the lowest cost.

India’s Umang was named winner of the Best M-Government Service Award for the Accessible Government category. The application provides users a unified platform that combines government departments and services, facilitating transactions for citizens.

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed honoured the winners of the GovHack and the Best Government Emerging Technologies categories.

The GovHack aims to encourage developers and programmers to create technology with broad horizons to help improve communities and enhance human life. The award attracted 775 entries, of which 61 are eligible.

The winner of the World’s Virtual GovHack Award for Food and Water Security Challenge is the Clean Water A.I. project. This application uses microscopic camera technology to measure water safety and purity, by detecting harmful bacteria and images. AI tech will update data across maps and alert the user on the state of water.

In the Access to Electricity Access Challenge, the second winner is Cycle, an electronic platform and shared infrastructure that allows users to access electricity by purchasing power and paying with e-currencies.

The 3rd Place Winner of the World’s Virtual GovHack Award for Smart Transformation Challenge is Smart Tender, a bidding platform that uses digital Blockchain technology, which documents the government tenders and procurement, engaging customers in the evaluation and participation process. This platform is highly transparent as all concerned parties are informed of each and every transaction details.

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed also presented the winners of the Best Government Technologies Award, devoted to governmental efforts in emerging technologies to positively impact the quality of life, with a focus on biotechnology, biometrics and open data. This award has attracted 75 case studies of which 10 initiatives were qualified.

Three initiatives won the awards in this category: Tanzania's DNA Sequence Devise is an initiative to control diseases affecting one of the most important economical agricultural crops in Tanzania, using a cost-effective mobile device to analyze the arrangement of DNA. The Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives collaborated with the government on the initiative.

India’s Aadhaar also won in this category. This project gave 1.2 billion citizens unique identification card with fingerprint, eye-print and other vital data. India now manages about 40 percent of the world's total electronic identity cards, which are used by 15% of the world's population. The initiative was achieved through the role played by the government partner, the Indian Identity Authority (UIDAI) of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The third award in this category went to Australia's National Cities Performance Framework initiative, launched under the Prime Minister's Office and Government sponsorship.

The initiative operates through a web-based dashboard to collect data from 24 cities in the country, and relies on the collection and provision of open data of 18 million Australian citizens for standard analogies, including about 74% of the country's total population.