EIDA employee first place in innovative ideas competition “Afkari”

Ms. Sheikha Al Raihi, employee of the Emirates ID Authority, won the first place in the innovative idea competition “Afkari” that had kicked off on Sunday 20 November and wrapped up on last Saturday. The competition was hosted by Mohammed bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation as a part of the 2nd edition of the UAE Innovation Week. Ms. Al Raihi presented “Khedmaty”; an idea that focuses on achieving customer satisfaction by reducing the time and effort through smart systems and applications. The idea uses Google Maps to provide indicators for the customer to know the number of customers and level of crowdedness at the customer service centers or whether it faces technical problems in addition to the basic function of the map; that is locating the centers. The idea will save time and effort, improve the service provision and achieve the customer satisfaction.

HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, honored the winners of the first three places in the competition during the ceremony held under the auspices of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid last Thursday.

Emirates News Agency (WAM) said that the winning ideas was selected at the final stage of the competition after being evaluated by members of the expert panel consisting of HE Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, UAE Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs, Mr. Fady Ghandour, Founder and CEO of Aramex, and Mr. Ahmed Al Shugairi, the well-known Saudi media personality. The expert panel checked the six projects qualified by public voting via Afkari website.

The innovative ideas were determined through four criteria: (1) the innovation originality and how it differs from other existent solutions and relies on modern practices and state of the art technology; (2) the scope of application given the spread of the challenge worldwide and its applicability in different geographical scopes; (3) the expected impact that would be evaluated through consideration of the challenge and how successful the innovation is in addressing this challenge; and (4) the completion percentage of the innovation project and the compliance with the budget allocated for the application.

The ceremony was attended by HH Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Lieutenant General HH Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior, HE Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, Chairman of the National Committee for Science, Technology and Innovation, and HE Dr. Saeed Abdullah bin Mutlaq Al Ghafli, Director General of the Emirates ID Authority. The ceremony was also attended by number of ministers and officials in government bodies, chief executive officers at the leading companies in the private sector, heads and directors of the top media institutions in the UAE, several government employees and the students in the first and second classes of the Governmental Innovation Expert Diploma.