RIT faculty take part in 8th Gulf Research Meeting

Dubai, UAE: Four RIT faculty from the main campus and Dubai have taken part in the 8th Gulf Research Meeting held at the University of Cambridge in the UK. The workshop, titled “Smart Cities in the GCC: Current State, Opportunities and Challenges”, had participants from a broad range of institutes including the Golisano Institute of Sustainability, RIT Dubai, Smart Dubai Office, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Arctic University of Norway, National Technical University of Athens, University of Southampton, Heriot-Watt University and NYU Abu Dhabi.

Spanning three days, the workshop drew in more than 30 international experts in the areas of smart cities, urban planning, public policy, IoT, big data, cyber security, systems engineering and blockchain. Workshop co-director Wael Samad, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at RIT Dubai, met with Giovanna Potesta, assistant professor of architecture at GIS, where discussions focused on the people’s sense of place in the implementation of smart cities as well as the corresponding consequences in the cultural references and social behaviors of the citizens. Ioannis Karamitsos and Ali Raza from the department of network and system administration at RIT Dubai presented their work and case study on the Riyadh Digital City and the current cyber security threats and opportunities for smart city infrastructure in the GCC. Furthermore, smart city holistic frameworks were introduced by experts from Smart Dubai Office (part of Dubai Government) with a very novel insight into the quantification of the city’s inhabitant’s state of well-being or “happiness”.

RIT’s involvement in such academic research activates are in line with the Global campuses’ mission and commitment to contribute to newly evolving disciplines, with graduate degrees and diplomas currently being offered in City Sciences and Corporate Happiness, and soon in Data Science.

More details on the published book volume from this workshop to be announced in due time.