UAE, June 28, 2016 – Smart Dubai Office (SDO) held an introductory meeting at the headquarters of Dubai Customs, during which H.E. Dr. Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, Director General of SDO, showcased the Smart Dubai Happiness Agenda, which follows systematic and science-based methods to enable Dubai City to create the opportunities that would lead to happiness across the city by allowing its inhabitants and visitors the ability to access services in a 24/7 easy, efficient and convenient way, thereby creating a high level of satisfaction and happiness in their life.
The meeting comes as part of SDO's roadmap to implement the Happiness Agenda, the SDO being the entity charged with leading Dubai’s transformation to a smart city and at the same time striving to achieve people’s happiness in line with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make Dubai the happiest city in the world through using technology innovations. Smart Dubai is working side by side with its strategic partners in the public and private sectors to enhance happy experiences for the whole city.
The Smart Dubai Happiness Agenda is mainly aimed at formulating a strategy related to happiness experiences based on scientific grounds and designed to assist decision-makers and leading entities from both the government and private sectors in identifying the impact of policies, programmes and projects in terms of how much they achieve the satisfaction and happiness of the society.
During the meeting, Dr. Aisha showcased the Happiness Agenda initiative, which adopts a globally unique, science-based approach that puts the happiness of the public at the forefront of its priorities, stressing the importance of joint action and the need at this stage to unify efforts with the founding strategic partners to make a success of Smart Dubai's initiative aimed at positioning Dubai as the smartest and happiest city in the world. Dr. Aisha explained that the agenda included a roadmap developed by Smart Dubai following a careful study which featured a range of policies and programmes to ensure that leaderships are supplied with adequate tools and support structures as necessary for implementing the happiness strategy.
The meeting was attended from Dubai Customs by Abdullah Mohammed Al Khaja, Executive Director of Customer Management, Saeed Ahmed Al Tayer, Executive Director of Policies and Legislation Division, Edris Behzad, Director of Client Management Department, Younis Mohammed Othman, Director of Information Technology Department, and Shamsa Al Raisi, Manager of Strategy Section at the Strategy and Corporate Excellence Department.
Meanwhile, Al Tayer expressed his delight at receiving the SDO delegation, underlining Dubai Customs' support for the strategic goals of the Happiness Agenda initiative, which was launched by the SDO and represented a roadmap for making Dubai the happiest city in the world in line with the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
He pointed out that Dubai Customs is striving to maintain its leading position with respect to bringing happiness to its customers and employees, particularly after it had secured the top place among Dubai government entities in the general happiness meter at 95 per cent, according to the happiness meter initiative launched by the SDO early this year.
Praising the fruitful and constructive meeting with the SDO delegation which focused on the mechanisms and goals of the Happiness Agenda, Al Tayer underscored Dubai Customs' keenness on bringing happiness to customers, suppliers, partners, employees and the society. To this effect, Al Tayer said, Dubai Customs launched Mestanis campaign in May 2015 to measure the happiness of its customers in response to the Happiness Meter initiative, which was launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed in both the public and private sectors with the aim of measuring people's happiness and satisfaction with Dubai government services.
Al Tayer pointed out that the devices that had been installed in 46 customs locations and centres provided daily indications of how happy the visiting customers were, noting that Dubai Customs developed and innovated smart systems aimed in the first place at making customers happy. Dubai Customs succeeded in minimizing the completion time of transactions to 20 seconds only for valid risk-free transactions, he said.
The Happiness Agenda follows an internationally benchmarked change agenda framework, identifying 16 programmes in 4 strategic portfolios - Discover, Measure, Change and Educate - to create an unprecedentedly sustainable level of happiness for Dubai.