• The initiative was launched on International Open Data Day on March 7, 2020.
• The Toolkit provides useful guidance and resources for private and public organisations to prepare for and design data-sharing initiatives.

Dubai, April 13, 2020 – The Smart Dubai Department has launched a Data Sharing Toolkit in partnership with globally renowned innovation foundation Nesta. The Toolkit will help unlock the value of data by creating trusted and ethical mechanisms for individuals, as well as public and private sector organisations, to share data.

The new initiative was launched on International Open Data Day on March 7, 2020. Designed to be used by individuals or teams, the Toolkit presents a flexible decision-making tool that provides useful guidance and resources for public or private sector organisations to prepare for and design data-sharing initiatives, and helps define the correct set of options to the specific context of any circumstance.

His Excellency Younus Al Nasser, Assistant Director General of Smart Dubai, CEO of Smart Dubai Data, said: “The Smart Dubai Department is steadily moving forward along its mission to harness the power of technology to make people’s lives easier and happier, and we firmly believe that no smart transformation can be achieved without harnessing the power of data – the ‘oil of the future’. Our progress will only continue if we work to ensure we are capable of efficiently opening and sharing our collective data.”

“The new Data Sharing Toolkit is another addition to our continuously expanding portfolio of data initiatives and services. It was designed to provide a secure way for all of the city’s stakeholders to open and share data, and was developed following a thorough analysis of various data sharing models,” H.E. Al Nasser explained. “It is another step forward on our journey to truly harness the power of data and establish Dubai as a full-fledged smart city.”

The Data Sharing Toolkit was designed with four categories of users in mind: First, innovators around the world interested in exploring data-sharing initiatives and looking for a tool to spark the right discussions, anticipate issues, and find new collaborative approaches to data-sharing. Second, international organisations, public institutions, businesses and non-profits; third, individuals or entities who are familiar with data and/or have previously been involved in traditional data-sharing, and fourth, for those individuals and entities who are experiencing a slow or failed progress in activating data-sharing collaborations on a bigger scale or dealing with complex initiatives.

The Smart Dubai Department conducted extensive research in the course of developing the Toolkit, which analysed a wide range of data-sharing models to determine their basic common traits and components. The outcomes of the research served as the basis for developing the Toolkit – a flexible decision-making instrument that underlines two components as the core of all data-sharing initiatives: First is the Decision Matrix, which identifies six key decision points, promoting discussion about all key elements of a data-sharing arrangement.

These six decision points correspond to six questions that need to be asked ahead of making data-sharing decisions: Why share data? What data to share (private/public sector, individual, open data)? What is the overall governance structure (i.e. top-down or bottom-up)? Who to involve? What is the appropriate data infrastructure (centralised, decentralised, or federated)? And finally, how is data accessed (open, restricted, or no access)?

The second element is the Project Foundation, which identifies the conditions required to move forward with a data-sharing project. Once the key decisions are made, a data-sharing model (or more) will emerge. The important question then becomes how to turn that vision into a reality. There are two sets of considerations in this phase: First, a checklist, to go through the considerations that need to be addressed before initiating the partnership; and second, additional requirements, such as legal, financial, and technical conditions.

Smart Dubai has undertaken tremendous efforts to engage with the private sector on matters of smart technology and services – and data, in particular. The success of these data initiatives relies on the extent to which the various stakeholders are involved.  A 2018 analysis of Smart Dubai’s strategy for engaging the private sector estimated that opening and sharing the private sector’s data would have an economic impact of AED9.6 billion.This Data Sharing Toolkit supports Smart Dubai’s Private Sector Data Engagement Strategy, which aims to facilitate and enable more data sharing among stakeholders in the smart city.

The Data Sharing Toolkit has been launched in English first, and the Arabic version is scheduled for release in mid-April 2020.