As part of its interest in artificial intelligence and its uses,

The National Library and Archives devotes one of the seminars in its cultural season 2024 to raising awareness about the significance of smart sustainable cities.

The National Library and Archives hosted a seminar titled “Smart Cities: A Vision for Sustainability” within its cultural season 2024. The focus was on how smart sustainable cities utilize information and communication technology to enhance urban living, elevate the quality of life, and address the needs of both present and future generations. The discussion emphasized the crucial role of community involvement in the age of smart cities.

The National Library and Archives dedicated this seminar to advocate for the concept of sustainability, particularly as the United Arab Emirates embraces innovative concepts to position itself among leading nations in developing smart sustainable cities. The UAE is committed to planning and ensuring long-term quality of life while making substantial efforts to forge a sustainable future through a holistic strategy that protects the environment and cultural heritage.

The seminar, featuring a lecture by Ms. Dababa Saeed Nasser Al Romaithi, highlighted the essential function of smart cities in discovering innovative and sustainable solutions to enhance life quality and resource management. It showcased how technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence can improve public services. It also underscored that the effectiveness of smart cities hinges on community involvement, encouraging citizens to engage in decision-making and proposal submissions.

The seminar also explored the connection between community involvement and technological advancement in smart cities. It defined community participation in this context, clarified technology’s role in facilitating such participation, reviewed the challenges it encounters, and offered recommendations to boost future involvement, all of which support sustainable development.

Furthermore, the seminar outlined community participation as individuals’ contributions to decisions impacting their lives and detailed various types, channels, and methods of engagement in smart cities. They include digital platforms, social media, meetings, local Majlis, online surveys and consultations, community centres, public forums, electronic voting, grassroots initiatives, open data, and interactive mapping.

Ms. Al-Romaithi also presented technologies that bolster community participation in smart cities, identifying them as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality, and augmented reality.

The seminar concluded by reviewing the primary challenges to community involvement in the era of smart cities and recommendations that could enhance this engagement. It emphasized that smart cities present a tremendous opportunity to improve life quality through advanced technologies, but their success relies on active citizen participation in decision-making and resource management. Therefore, it is imperative for citizens to be integral to this digital transition to ensure sustainability and enhance the success of smart cities, thereby contributing to a sustainable vision that fulfils the needs of all and enriches urban living.