Subscribe

It's tech all the way for Dubai

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 25 Oct 2018
A model of what the main pavilion in the middle of the expo will eventually look like.
A model of what the main pavilion in the middle of the expo will eventually look like.

Dubai is set to host the World's Fair in 2020 and is building a new smart city from the ground up to place technology at the centre of the show and give visitors a glimpse of what cities of the future may look like.

The city of Dubai has tag-lined its event "See tomorrow today" and will highlight three areas of future tech at the show: smart mobility, sustainability and opportunity.

Visitors can expect to see flying cars and autonomous vehicles of all shapes and sizes at the smart mobility pavilion; large-scale solar-farms at the sustainability pavilion; and inventive solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems at the opportunity pavilion.

Iman Alomrani, VP for applied intelligence, innovation and future technology, Expo 2020 Dubai, says other than the tech on display, this world show will be the first to be technology-driven and will focus on the digital visitor experience.

A model of the sustainability pavilion.
A model of the sustainability pavilion.

"Solutions to be deployed include software that simulates crowd behaviour, video analytics to count visitor numbers, and GPS and mobile device tracking to predict the number of people in a given area, monitoring their mobility and ensuring safety," she told a room full of journalists, including a representative from ITWeb, on a recent trip to the building site in Dubai.

The site already has a 5G network, and was the first major commercial customer in the EMEA region to access it, as announced in July by Dubai-based telco Etisalat.

Each building will also be 'smart', with features that could include smart metering with digital feedback for energy and water consumption, and sensors that monitor the efficiency of utilities, climate conditioning and occupancy.

Expo 2020 will be held between 20 October 2020 and 10 April 2021. Visitors will be able to view, order and pay for their food and beverages, from over 50 million providers, online via a smartphone app.

A total of 438-hectares has been set aside for Expo 2020 Dubai and construction is well under way. The team estimates it will finish the shells of all the major buildings within the next year.

A model of the smart mobility pavilion.
A model of the smart mobility pavilion.

The site is situated 20 minutes outside the current city of Dubai. A new, larger airport than the current one in the area is being built to accommodate the millions of visitors they are anticipating (150 000 visitors per day over six months), as well as a new metro line and station.

The city says the site will continue to be used after the expo. The new area will be called District 2020 and become a hub for technology innovation, as well as house residential, entertainment and commercial areas.

Dubai says 80% of the buildings will be left up and it wants the legacy of the World's Fair to live on, like it has for other cities that have hosted it in the past. This includes Paris, where the Eiffel Tower was built as the entrance gates to the expo there in 1889 and supposed to be dismantled afterwards, but stayed because Parisians loved it so much.

Share