Security Middle East caught up with George Bou Mitri, vice president and general manager, Honeywell Building Technologies, META to talk about how smart technologies will be essential in ensuring business continuity over the coming months
How are large-scale IoT-based projects such as smart cities being adversely affected by the economic downturn due to the pandemic?
Large scale, longer-term smart city projects encapsulate all the benefits of a digital transformed society and support the development of future urban environments. At the core is ensuring the safety and security of citizens and so factors around health and well-being are already considered in these longer term plans. For brownfield sites, with smaller scale smart projects, some of the challenges presented by the ‘new normal’ are being more readily addressed. What is most critical is demonstrating the opex efficiencies and supporting the delivery of strategic digital transformation goals over and above this.
As a pioneer in the evolution of digital operations, Honeywell is helping all affected parties embrace the shift to digitalisation, by supplying our technology to more than 10 million commercial buildings worldwide. By understanding and applying the diverse range of technology platforms at our disposal, infrastructure operators and occupants can adapt quickly to the shifting requirements and disruptions that are inevitable during these times.
1. Tell us more about the smart city project that Honeywell is involved in Egypt for the New Administrative Capital?
The concept of the New Administrative Capital in Egypt was born with the purpose of solving existing issues such as congestion, overcrowding and pollution. The Administrative Capital for Urban Development (ACUD), the developer for the New Capital located 45km to the east of Cairo, is collaborating with Honeywell to roll out city-wide security and surveillance systems as part of the first phase of the project’s development. As part of this, Etisalat Misr and Honeywell will also establish a City Operations Center (COC) to provide citizen services at the New Capital. The central COC platform will include data analytics, a city-wide management dashboard, a smart city services citizen engagement portal, and mobile application capabilities. This will support administrative functions and deliver smart city services for citizens, as well as public and private sector entities, in the new capital.
Honeywell technology will also power advanced management systems for smart parking and smart utility services for electricity, water, and gas, including street lighting, smart metering, smart grid monitoring services, and integration with smart digital signage management, billing, and financial systems. In addition, the technology deployed will include Honeywell’s latest cyber-proof services.
Read the full interview here.
