Emirate of Ajman digitizes government and drives engagement through open data marketplace

At Ajman, we understood that data sharing was the essential foundation to achieving our goals. The Department of Digital Ajman therefore began a project to collect and publish open data from government departments on its website.

However, this required time-consuming manual processes, limiting the ability to quickly share data with our stakeholders.

At the Department of Digital Ajman, we set out clear objectives for our data sharing program:

• To take a people-centric approach, ensuring internal data owners from different government departments were engaged and involved,
• To demonstrate that open data delivers ROI, showing the benefits for all stakeholders,
• To create innovative use cases based on data sharing, supporting digital transformation and the emirate’s wider strategy.

As part of its move away from our previous manual approach, we selected Huwise’s data product marketplace technology to power our Ajman Data marketplace, which was launched in October 2022.

Implemented by Huwise and its partner 01Gov, and available in both Arabic and English, the portal provides the foundation for collecting, sharing, and visualizing open data from across the Ajman government.

In line with our aim to involve data owners, we created an in-depth program to train data ambassadors from nine government departments. This began with a week-long boot camp which helped to drive engagement. The data ambassadors, who are from business roles rather than IT, are responsible for providing quality, regularly-updated data from their department. However, they have a wider role in communicating the overall vision of becoming data-driven and creating a data culture across the entire government.

Thanks to this people-centric approach, the Ajman Data portal has now grown to contain 211 datasets, covering areas as diverse as local amenities, business information and building projects. These are available through visualizations and maps as well as tables and are all downloadable via APIs.

Ajman is working to become a 15-minute city that enables everyone to access essential urban services such as schools, hospitals, government entities and entertainment centers within a 15-minute walking or driving distance. The project relies on open datasets shared through our portal, accessible via an interactive map. As well as the location of local amenities, users can see how long it will take to reach them, helping build more inclusive neighborhoods and communities.

Another innovative use case is around sustainability and waste management, created in collaboration with the Municipality & Planning Department. Delivered through an interactive, comprehensive data story, this provides citizens with information on how the emirate is handling sustainability and building a circular economy. It encourages citizens to recycle more and highlights the facilities that have been put in place to make Ajman more sustainable.

As part of a wider objective to attract visitors, the site now features a data story based on information supplied by the Ajman Tourist Department. This provides tourists with an introduction to the attractions, facilities, and accommodation available within Ajman City, accessible through a drill-down map which provides locations and more details.

After an extensive research process, the Department of Digital Ajman selected Huwise’s data marketplace solution due to three key strengths:

Ajman Data is now one of the pillars of digital government across the emirate, providing key information to the local community, international investors, businesses and government departments. It is driving results in three key areas:

Organizations and individuals across Ajman are using data from the portal to improve decision-making, in both their working and private lives. People can easily access amenities and locate government departments and services, while bodies such as the Ajman Chamber use the portal to provide consultancy for investors. Within government it is encouraging greater use of information as part of creating a data culture, led by the data ambassadors.

Over 5,000 people visited the portal in the six months to June 2023, and there were over 140,000 API calls. By tracking the most popular datasets, such as local amenities, the data portal team can demonstrate the ROI that data sharing brings and highlight its role in delivering smart government services and attracting investment. As the portal continues to develop, with new data stories and content added, usage and ROI is expected to increase further, showing the value that data sharing brings to all.

Analysis of users shows that while the majority are from the UAE, the portal attracts visitors from around the world, including Europe, Asia, and the Americas, with many developers reusing datasets via APIs within their own applications. Ajman’s innovative data sharing is attracting interest from across the globe, especially around projects such as Sustainable Ajman and the 15-Minute City.