A partnership between the UAE Government Development and the Future Office, Meta and the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) has produced the ‘Driving Data for Good’ initiative, which will support the agenda of the UAE Government through the use of Big Data supplied by Meta; the parent company of Facebook.
The initiative aims to employ Big Data in supporting government efforts for designing initiatives, projects and services that would enhance the UAE’s ‘future-readiness’.
What is Big Data?
Big Data is comprised of structured, semistructured and unstructured data, and is produced during everyday activities, like making a transaction, checking your feed, and even whilst visiting the doctor. Big Data is often described and identified through the three Vs: the volume of data, the variety of data and the velocity at which the data arrives. Some might also consider the data’s value, veracity and use-case variability to be categorising factors.
Big Data is often utilised by businesses to build more customised experiences and services for their customers, but due to the complexity of the three Vs, it is not possible for just anyone to utilise data of this kind, and only those with the most powerful tools will be able to chop down the biggest trees.
A partnership with Meta offers access to real-time aggregate public data related to various sectors such as traffic, demographics, social media use, start-up distribution, among others, as well as the tools necessary to harvest the data. The provided information from Meta will not be categorised as personal or private to ensure individuals’ privacy.
Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and the Future, stated that “the initiative reflects the government’s role as a platform for building and promoting innovative partnerships with various actors to shape the future. It further reflects the UAE’s approach to concluding partnerships with mega players worldwide, thus enhancing the efforts of shaping the future and developing the government work ecosystem using state-of-the-art tools and solutions.
“Big Data is an essential tool for governments to build a better future and enhance future-readiness. It presents vital indicators highlighting social trends and defining people’s aspirations towards the services and projects that contribute to enhancing their wellbeing,” she added.
Al Roumi stressed that the partnership with Meta comes within an innovative project to support policy-making, services and projects design, and impact assessment, using their tools and in partnership with the FCSC. The new initiative is expected to promote the quality of government decisions, enhance the effectiveness of government policies, and drive innovation in designing initiatives that improve future-readiness, raise performance efficiency and positively affect society.
“Creativity, collaboration and a human-centric approach sit at the heart of the government entities’ approach to the application of Big Data in government programmes and initiatives. The UAE is responding to advances and transformations through a proactive approach and key public-private collaborations,” said Hanan Ahli, Acting Managing Director, FCSC.
“Through this collaborative partnership with Meta and its efforts, I strongly believe we can drive progress, ignite social change, and accelerate the implementation of the nation’s digital transformation. We can support the fulfilment of the sustainable development goals and realise our leadership’s vision in the UAE becoming one of the best countries in the world by 2071,” added Ahli Azzam Alameddin, Public Policy Director, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey at Meta.
“We are truly excited to be embarking on this strategic partnership to expand Meta’s Data for Good in the UAE and help grow the academic and research ecosystem in support of the national agenda of the ‘Projects of the 50’,” he added.
