NEWS
UAE
Honeywell announces Burj Khalifa as UAE’ s‘ smartest’ building
Honeywell has named the Burj Khalifa as the UAE’ s“ smartest” building at the Middle East’ s first-ever smart building awards presentation at the Innovation Live! Summit today in Dubai. The world’ s tallest structure also received the award for the
Middle East’ s smartest“ high-rise residential” building.
The summit, an official anchor event of the widely celebrated UAE Innovation Week, held in association with Dubai Chamber, addressed initiatives that are being spearheaded in the UAE to drive forward the National Innovation Strategy and UAE Vision 2021. UAE buildings, Latifa Maternity & Paediatric Hospital and City Centre Deira were also named at the event as the‘ Region’ s Smartest Hospital’ and the‘ Region’ s Smartest Retail Facility’ respectively.
The Honeywell Smart Building Score Awards program, developed by Honeywell, a Fortune 100 global technology and Internet of Things
( IoT) leader, assessed the smartness of buildings across the region based on three key indicators – how green, safe and productive they are. The awards recognise the leading smart buildings in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and assessed hotels, hospitals, educational and retail facilities as well as the leading high-rise office and residential buildings across the region.
The awards are designed to help drive innovation and the‘ smart cities’ agenda in the UAE and across the Middle East in line with regional development strategies. The Burj Khalifa achieved the highest evaluation amongst all entries from the UAE, with impressive scores across all three smart building categories.
Nokia collaborates with UAE GCAA for drone operations
Nokia and the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority( GCAA) have entered into a strategic collaboration to drive the development of an end-to-end UAS ecosystem that will make the UAE the first country in the world to allow the operation of drones by both businesses and government agencies in a safe, secure and managed environment. The project is part of an initiative by the GCAA to make Dubai one of the world’ s smartest cities by 2017, and will allow Dubai government security network operator Nedaa to develop a next generation network for mission-critical and smart city services within the GCAA regulatory framework.
At the heart of this new ecosystem will be Nokia’ s UAV Traffic Management( UTM) concept, which is being developed to manage drones in and around cities, and coordinate their interactions with people, manned aircraft and an increasingly diverse array of connected objects. The Nokia UTM system will provide capabilities such as automated flight permissions, no-fly zone control and beyond-visual-line-of-sight( BVLOS) that are critical for the safe operation of UAVs in densely populated urban areas. The ecosystem will also serve as a testing ground for various applications of drone technology, which can be explored in a safe and controlled environment.
Drones are quickly emerging as important tools for businesses and governments alike, providing substantial benefits such as infrastructure monitoring and maintenance, public safety applications, logistics and transport and many more. The GCAA has launched this initiative so businesses and local government can take advantage of these benefits, making the city smarter while minimising any hazards that UAVs may present. www. intelligentcio. com INTELLIGENTCIO
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