Dubai Startup Hub And Smart Dubai Host Open Data Workshop For Entrepreneurs In The Medical Tourism Domain Launched in collaboration with Smart Dubai, along with representatives from the Dubai Health Authority and Dubai Economy, the event showed participants how to access relevant medical tourism datasets using platforms such as Dubai Pulse and Bayanat.uae, along with other data provided by Smart Dubai.
By Megha Merani
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Entrepreneurs looking to develop new products and services for the Dubai's medical tourism industry had the opportunity to validate and further expand their business models using a data-driven approach at a workshop hosted by Dubai Startup Hub, the entrepreneurship arm of Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Launched in collaboration with Smart Dubai, along with representatives from the Dubai Health Authority and Dubai Economy, the event showed participants how to access relevant medical tourism datasets using platforms such as Dubai Pulse and Bayanat.uae, along with other data provided by Smart Dubai.
"The aim of our workshops is to enhance cooperation between the government entities and private sectors to overcome this challenge to help entrepreneurs better understand the target market," Natalia Sycheva, Manager of Entrepreneurship, Dubai Chamber, said in a press statement.
"Education and training is an essential part of our efforts to help entrepreneurs access datasets and exploit them for their projects. Dubai Startup Hub, in cooperation with its partners, is hosting a series of training workshops that will focus on how to access open data in strategic sectors and encourage entrepreneurs to make the best use of it," she added.
Sara Al Zarooni, Data Management and Compliance Director at Smart Dubai said that one of the most important goals of the Dubai Data Initiative was to support the business sector –specifically startups– and leverage the power of city data to derive economic benefits for the leadership, businesses, residents, and visitors of Dubai.
"We are very happy that the Dubai Pulse platform has proven to be a reliable and rich open data provider to entrepreneurs, and is supporting them in the decision making process when planning to market their products and services. The Dubai Pulse platform reflects Smart Dubai's strong support towards the growth of all business sectors in Dubai and the UAE. We encourage the local and global data ecosystem to take advantage of the Dubai Pulse platform, and enhance cooperation between the government and the private sector," she said.
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Smart Dubai is the government department mandated to ensure Dubai becomes the world's smartest and happiest city. Launched by Smart Dubai in partnership with du, today, Dubai Pulse is a one-stop open data shop with more than 420 open and shared data sets from 35 different government entities, that can help companies build business cases, validate new ideas, and make city-level data-driven decisions that give organizations a better chance of success. Dubai Pulse publishes data sets about the city's traffic, transport, the economy, social welfare, healthcare, and education, among others.
The workshop, which took place at Dubai Chamber's head office, also featured presentations by Amna Al Suwaidi, Head of the Follow-up and Development Department at Dubai Health Authority (DHA)'s Medical Tourism Office; Osama El-Hassan from the eHealth Section at DHA; and Mariam Ahmed Al Shamsi, Senior Manager at Dubai Economy. The government department representatives provided open data information relating to their respective departments for the entrepreneurs.
The event is the first in a series of three training workshops placed a focus on open data in relation to tourism in the healthcare sector.
The workshop was organised following the best practice advice of a whitepaper issued recently by Dubai Startup Hub on the necessity of startups investing in open data to help them gauge whether there is a need for their particular products or services in the market. The report recommended methods to develop the open data framework currently being used in the UAE. These included transferring datasets, formulating policies for open data in the private sector, developing an active data query service in government departments, enabling a regulatory environment, and inviting business incubators and accelerators to become involved in data exchange. The recommendations also touched on market entry programmes and joint development models, the need to motivate companies and government entities to adopt joint development models, and the necessity of developing platforms that can verify whether products and services fit the needs of the market.
"This workshop represents the tangible implementation of the recommendations of the report, which we issued recently in collaboration with global strategy consulting firm Roland Berger. Entrepreneurs frequently face difficulties in accessing data to verify the appropriateness of their products in the marketplace," Dubai Chamber's Sycheva added.
Established by Dubai Chamber in 2016, Dubai Startup Hub is an entrepreneurship initiative from Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the first initiative of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa region.
In line with Dubai Chamber's strategy of empowering entrepreneurs and promoting innovation, Dubai Startup Hub serves as a major online resource for entrepreneurs in Dubai with visitors able to find new job opportunities through the platform and know about forthcoming events, meetings and courses, as well as receive other important information relating to entrepreneurship.
The hub operates under the umbrella of Smart Dubai's efforts to make Dubai the world's smartest city and embodies the ethos of collaboration between government entities and private sectors in order to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.
This article was originally published on Dubai Startup Hub and has been reposted on Entrepreneur Middle East based on a mutual agreement between the websites.
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