As part of City Makers Race initiative

Initiatives are joint effort by RTA, DEWA, Dubai Municipality and MRHE

TM, TARISH, and QAFAY support Smart Dubai by ensuring the management of the city's facilities and services through smart electronic systems

Initiatives underline Dubai's position as leading international city in developing the infrastructure and housing sectors

Dubai, UAE, 14 September 2015

The Red Team announced the official launch of its three shared-government initiatives: TM, TARISH, and QAFAY at a launch ceremony held today in Grand Hyatt Dubai.

The event was attended by a number of prominent figures including
HE Abdullah Abdulrahman Al Shaibani, Secretary General of Dubai Executive Council, HE Mattar Mohammed Al Tayer, Director General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors at RTA, HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, HE Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director General of Dubai Municipality, and HE Sami Abdulla Gargash, CEO of Mohammad Bin Rashid Housing Establishment, as well as managers, heads of departments, and employees from the four organisations that comprise the Red Team, partners and stakeholders as well as media outlets.

The Red Team's launch is part of the City Makers Race initiative announced by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council. It aims to introduce a new work mechanism for government authorities to assure an creative environment that enriches cooperation and leads to innovative solutions & initiatives for shared government services, serving all segments of society and enhancing the happiness of residents. The race also aims to create the ideal environment for government authorities to compete as integrated teams and to entrench the importance of integrating the efforts of the government sector in achieving excellence in all services offered.

The launch ceremony was inaugurated by Abdullah Al Hajri, Executive Vice-President, Customer Service at DEWA, and Head of the Red Team. In his welcome speech, he said: "On behalf of the top management of the Red Team's authorities, and all employees of RTA, DEWA, Dubai Municipality and MRHE, we, at Red Team, extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to our esteemed leadership, and to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for his boundless support to the government organisations and its employees. His Highness believes that the government sector is able to and can compete with the private sector, as well as surpass the level of performance and quality of services provided by the private sector, by nurturing and improving the employees of the government sector. For decades, the private sector has taken the lead in supporting and building innovation and creativity, which led to achieving a tangible and positive impact on people's quality of life, and improved their happiness."

"On behalf of The Red Team's authorities I extend our thanks and appreciation to His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, for launching this pioneering initiative. This is organized by Dubai The Model Centre at The General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Dubai, which has enabled us to reinforce government joint work, and compete as teams. This significantly fortified the integration of efforts of government entities, and has been able to achieve the best results so far. The Red Team organisations have united efforts and experiences during the past couple of months to come up with three leading initiatives which we are launching today. We are confident the initiative will be a great success, and will have tangible effect in boosting the real estate and construction sectors in Dubai. This will support the vision of Dubai Government in enhancing the happiness of all partners, stakeholders, and customers of the government sector. It will reinforce governmental efforts to fulfill the goals of Smart Dubai that aims to transform Dubai into the smartest city in the world in three years," he added.

In a creative and innovative way that reflected the essence of the Red Team's three initiatives, the heads of the four Government Departments officially inaugurated the initiatives through the collective pressing of a start button that initiated a video that illustrated the cooperation and collaboration between the Red Team authorities, the integration of services, and the unified vision in building Smart Dubai.

During the launch ceremony, the Red team delivered three presentations that illustrated their initiatives and highlighted their features and benefits. The first was by Jassim Hussain, Senior Housing Consultant at Mohammad Bin Rashid Housing Establishment, who presented the TARISH initiative. TARISH aims to integrate and unify laws and regulations, and conditions of electricity and water services, construction approvals, and NOCs. The initiative sets a clear framework for the Red Team's ambitious services, and enhances transparency among landlords, contractors and consultants. TARISH also increases awareness about the Red Team's projects and activities among the target audience. The word 'TARISH' is an Emirati Arabic word that means: Messenger, which implies the core mission of initiative; sending information to people.

Commenting on TARISH, Jassim Hussain said: "The Red Team was keen to achieve the highest level in the design and performance of the initiative. Therefore, we conducted opinion polls, live discussions with customers on-site, periodical customer forums, as well as organised several brainstorming sessions for all departments involved in providing electricity and water services, construction permits and NOCs."

"TARISH initiative enabled us to eliminate 16 paper-based processes for electricity and water services, construction approvals, and NOC. Additionally, in order to ensure the continuous improvement of the initiative, we have set a number of key success indicators. These include the time needed for completion of service, the number of returned transactions, the steps required to obtain NOCs and approvals for electricity and water connections, and the level of customer satisfaction," he added.

The second presentation was provided by Eng. Abdul Hakim Malik, Director of Geographic Information Systems at Dubai Municipality and Head of QAFAY's technical team, on QAFAY initiative, which aims to establish a sophisticated Geographical Information System (GIS). The system implements full automisation of engineering audits and NOC issuance procedure, provides extensive data on geographical places in Dubai, and integrates the operations of all concerned government entities that are responsible for the issuance of NOCs and government as well as non-governmental approvals. The system will also provide all data and information to all concerned entities in Dubai.

"QAFAY will help achieve 90% savings in time for employees and stakeholders in issuing NOCs and granting approvals. The system will provide 100% data, information on engineering drawing and geographical maps, and will increase customer satisfaction to 90%," said Eng. Abdul Hakim Malik.

Commenting on QAFAY, Eng. Abdullah Rafia, Assistant Director General for Engineering and Planning in Dubai Municipality, and Head of the QAFAY initiative said: "QAFAY will allow us to make 90% reduction in paperwork of all concerned organisations. It will achieve reduction in visits to concerned Departments and therefore result in 90% reduction in the carbon footprint caused by the frequent visits of contractors, consultants, landlords and building owners. The initiative will provide extensive and updated data related to the smart maps of Dubai, according to the ISO standards. It will also update this data automatically, which will improve decision-making process in the government sector, and help obtain accurate results in the field of infrastructure development."

QAFAY project is divided into two phases. The first one is being implemented in Al Barsha Area and includes providing the necessary information to the concerned employees of all government and semi-government organisations about issuing NOCs through Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The second phase will be implemented across the city, and will integrate the operations of all networks in the city as well as implement full automation of checking and updating the city's network of engineering drawing according to ISO 13567 standards. The Red Team will provide all these pivotal data and information to the concerned parties when the project is completed in October 2016.

Eng. Yousuf Al Khazraji, Senior Manager - Business Development at DEWA, and Head of the "Tm" technical team provided the third and last presentation during the ceremony on TM initiative. It is a smart application that provides - in its first stage- all necessary information for real estate owners, contractors, and consultants in Dubai. It helps achieves transparency by providing information regarding the approval statuses of building permits, constructions, and connections of electricity and water services in government organisations and concerned entities.

"We were keen to engage all stakeholders - contractors, consultants and building owners and developers - in enhancing the app in line with the Red Team's strategy, and its vision to establish the role of partners and stakeholders as an important pillar in achieving the success in any initiative. To sustain the continuous improvement of the app, and enhance the customer experience, the Red Team has started working on the second phase of this project. This includes a number of improvements such as increasing the number of beneficiaries by providing the app to commercial and industrial sectors, implementing creative ideas that are generated and collected from customers, and introducing the payment services of the Red Team organizations. Several new features are also being introduced that will enable customers to get the most out of the 'TM' app," said Moza Al Akraf, CIO of Information Technology at DEWA, and President of the 'TM' initiative.

"TM, QAFAY, and TARISH contribute to the smart transformation of the Government of Dubai, and fortify its efforts in achieving the objectives of Dubai Plan 2021. The three initiatives will be a valuable addition to the set of initiatives and projects of Dubai Government, which were launched as part of the preparations for Expo 2020. They underline the UAE and Dubai's position as leading international city in developing the infrastructure and housing sectors," she added.

-Ends-

For more information, please contact:
Nada Sharafi/Maitha Al Ajmani             
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority        
+971 (50) 7704242 / +971 (50) 586-67-44                     
nada.sharafi@dewa.gov.ae / Maitha.alajmani@dewa.gov.ae

Mazen Alebrahem
ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller
+971 4 450 7693 / +971 567 195 181
Mazen.Alebrahem@bm.com

© Press Release 2015