UAE’s Digital Aid Platform launch & the impact of this kind of technology

The UAE’s announcement to harness cutting-edge technology for aiding countries in need holds immense promise for revolutionizing aid distribution. The platform’s ability to allow countries to specify their aid needs with unparalleled precision and speed is a testament to the potential of digitization, and to techniques like AI and machine learning in addressing pressing global challenges. By integrating these advances into humanitarian efforts, disaster-hit countries will be able to request the exact types and quantities of aid required, ensuring a more efficient and targeted response.

With the COVID-19 pandemic exposing the sector’s wider fundamental weaknesses, we saw the critical role that logistics and supply chain management play in relief efforts. Aligning with DP World’s vision of leveraging technology to optimise supply chains and improve global trade operations, these digital tools have the potential to significantly enhance logistics operations. Customers need greater supply chain transparency and accurate prediction of inventory levels to prevent future shortages and for that, we need to make supply chain truly resilient to future disasters. This is where AI can help.

Learning from past inefficiencies is valuable to a degree, but AI, when implemented correctly, can help predict potential future scenarios, thereby enabling us to take corrective actions ahead of time. For example, at our Jebel Ali Port in Dubai, our terminal operating system, CARGOES TOS+, uses IoT to digitally track every element of our terminal, from container movements to equipment and vehicles. By feeding in this data into Machine Learning models, we have been able to predict future disruptions in operations, leading to reduction in delays, inefficiencies and breakdowns. Even more invaluable, the technology is using data from the terminal to suggest solutions to prevent operational disruptions.

Business operations aside, it is exciting to see how this kind of technology can overcome the challenges we expect in the coming years, from political unrest to climate change, and help the world for good.