1AIMICT Newsletter | August 2016

AUGUST 2016

AIMICT.ORG

AIMICT Newsletter | August 20162

IN THIS ISSUE• ParticipantsPassPMI®Exam

• AIMICTParticipatesin“TransformingSocietiesandEnablingDigitalEconomies

forSmartNations”Conference

• AIMICTHoldsProfessionalQualityManagerProgramCourseinJordan

• UpcomingProfessionalQualityManagerExamination

• HowFloridaandColoradoaretryingtobuildsmartcitiesfromthegroundup

• AirbustoCompleteASelf-Driving,Flying-CarPrototypeNextYear

3AIMICT Newsletter | August 2016

AIMICTORGANIZESPMPCOURSE,PARTICIPANTSPASSPMI®EXAM

The Projects Management Professional PMP® Exam (Fifth and

last Edition), which was organized by the Arab International

Society for Management Technology (AIMICT) in July, concluded

with participants obtaining PMP ® Certificate after they passed

the Exam of the Project Management Institute (PMI).

The course held by AIMICT included the following phases:

• First Phase: 40 training hours that qualify the participants

to PMP Certificate;

• Second Phase: Online Mock Exams similar to PMP Exam; and

• Third Phase: One to One 20 training hours for the

participants who failed in the Mock exams.

PMP Certificate is one of the global certificates that provides its holders with the needed knowledge

and skills to manage projects professionally. It also provides the participants with the skills of planning,

leadership, risk management and problem solving efficiently and effectively.

AIMICTPARTICIPATESIN“TRANSFORMINGSOCIETIESANDENABLINGDIGITALECONOMIESFORSMARTNATIONS”CONFERENCE

AMMAN – Under the Patronage of His Royal Highness Crown

Prince Al Hussein Bin Abdullah II, the Arab International

Society for Management Technology (AIMICT) participated in

“Transforming Societies and Enabling Digital Economies for

Smart Nations” Conference organized by The Information and

Communications Technology Association of Jordan – int@j.

The Event aimed at shedding the light on the significance of

cloud computing, Internet of things and big data in enabling

digital economies and transforming societies into smart

nations.

The Conference which targeted the Entrepreneurs and owners of start-up companies, Owners & leaders

of large enterprises, SMEs from all industries and sectors, Policy makers and government officials,

Academia and the education sector, and ICT professionals; aimed to expand the knowledge about the

origin, achievements, latest trends and future prospects of the evolving computing paradigm, learn

more about the Singaporean and UK experience in transformation towards smart nations, in addition

to know more about the latest development in cloud computing, Internet of things and big data and

acquire genuine knowledge about the current status of technologies.

AIMICT Newsletter | August 20164

AIMICTHOLDSPROFESSIONALQUALITYMANAGERPROGRAMCOURSEINJORDAN

AMMAN - The Arab International Society for Management Technology (AIMICT) held a qualifying course on “Professional Quality Manager (PQM)” for a group of participants from different sectors in Jordan.

PQM program aims at providing the participants with the necessary knowledge to implement effective quality practices in quality and strategies implementation frameworks, and at developing and promoting research in the field of quality principles and practices.

The program addresses a number of important knowledge frameworks such as Essentials of Quality Management, Total Quality Management Tools, Core Concepts of Leadership and People Management, Strategic Planning in Quality Management, Customer Focus for Business Excellence, and Supply Chain Management.

The program is accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management, ILM - UK. It targets companies’ managers, heads of units and departments, quality control officers, and professionals seeking to improve their productivity.

UPCOMINGPROFESSIONALQUALITYMANAGEREXAMINATION

The Arab International Society for Management Technology (AIMICT) will hold new sessions of the Professional Quality Manager (PQM) Exam according to the below time-schedule:

Date SessionSeptember 19, 2016 First

• Essentials of Quality Management • Total Quality Management Tools• Customer Focus for Business Excellence

September 21, 2016 Second• Core Concepts of Leadership and People Management• Capacity Building and Training• Strategic Planning in Quality Management• Supply Chain Management

5AIMICT Newsletter | August 2016

HOWFLORIDAANDCOLORADOARETRYINGTOBUILDSMARTCITIESFROMTHEGROUNDUP

Masdar, on the edges of Abu Dhabi, was billed as the world’s first sustainable city when it was conceived in 2006. It was intended to be a zero-carbon, zero-waste city, with smart technology embedded across all the city’s functions. A decade on and ambitions have cooled. The completion date has moved from 2016 to 2030 and city authorities have said it won’t achieve the original aim of being a net zero-emissions city.

In South Korea, the purpose-built city of Songdo was built on land reclaimed from the Yellow Sea. It is an “aerotropolis”– where an airport, in this case Incheon, is the anchor for a city rather than vice versa. Planned as “the world’s smartest city”, it has sensors embedded into everything from waste management systems to roads, tracking citizens by measuring consumption, emissions and other activities. Yet the tech-driven city remains under-populated and unfinished.

While these cities may not have lived up to their original promise, new, smaller scale projects, spearheaded by private companies are aiming to act as laboratories for smart city planning.

The American aerotropolisIn a 400-acre space just outside Denver International Airport, Japanese tech giant Panasonic has taken a lead role in the development of a US aerotropolis, Peña Station NEXT.

The commercial and residential project is influenced by a Japanese smart city that Panasonic teams have spent the better part of the past decade creating. Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town is a 45-acre community of 1,600 homes, around 30 miles outside Tokyo, which opened its doors in 2014.

“We’re taking the genesis of Fujisawa and adapting that to Peña Station in an American way,” says George Karayannis, vice-president of Panasonic’s CityNow.

The American way means less emphasis on security through video surveillance and facial-recognition technology, for instance. And while Fujisawa is residential, Peña Station is a commercial hub, connected to Denver mayor Michael Hancock’s vision of the city’s airport as an aerotropolis, and Panasonic is starting with the commercial and travel aspects of the future community. As the last pre-airport stop on the new 22-mile light-rail line that connects central Denver with the airport, the company beckons travelers with an 800-spot parking garage that also hosts a 1.3-megawatt solar array.

AIMICT Newsletter | August 20166

Panasonic is also at work on its own office building in Peña Station, which should open in September with space for 300 employees. Next in line is the development of a 219-unit apartment building, a hotel and several restaurants.

Peña Station is built on the smart infrastructure technologies that figure into smart city projects the world over – fast internet, a microgrid with battery storage for all that solar energy, kiosks and smart displays, smart street lighting, smart parking, autonomous electric shuttles and more.

The community run on solarNearly 2,000 miles south-east of Denver in south-west Florida, Babcock Ranch, perched on the edge of a nature preserve, is being billed as America’s first solar community. It eventually aims to be a city of roughly 50,000 people living in an area the size of Manhattan.

Built on a former cattle ranch and current wildlife corridor, and spearheaded by private developer Kitson & Partners, it hopes to be a model of how to build a hi-tech, low-carbon development.

A coalition of government, environmentalists and Kitson purchased the property in 2006, designating 74,000 acres of land for conservation and another 17,000 acres for development. Construction started on phase one of the planned 25-year project late last year and the first residents are scheduled to move in from January 2017.

Since 2010, Kitson has partnered with IBM to design and develop the technology aspects of the city, which include gigabit-speed internet connectivity and a shared fleet of autonomous electric vehicles. The city will host microgrids throughout the community, and – perhaps the most high-profile aspect – a huge 75-megawatt solar farm being installed by Florida Power & Light.

That array will be enough to meet the town’s entire needs during the day, although the city will be powered by an existing, natural gas-fired power plant at night. Kitson, and the developers who will build the homes in each neighborhood, will also offer home solar facilities as an option for every buyer. As energy storage technology continues to improve, it is hoped that demand on the power plant will dwindle as Babcock Ranch grows.

There is no shortage of challenges to planning and developing a tech-reliant city along a 25-year timeline, especially as the landscape of available technologies is changing on a near-daily basis. “The cornerstone of a successful development is the ability to be flexible,” Kitson says. “You have to be able to change to meet people’s [changing] demands.”

7AIMICT Newsletter | August 2016

Limitations to smart citiesWhile smart city projects - such as Songdo and Masdar - have in the past over-promised and been over-hyped, it may be that smaller projects such as Babcock Ranch and Peña Station – built from the ground up with future residents in mind – represent the future of smart city development.

“We’re not trying to create a utopia,” Kitson says. “It’s the opposite of that. We’re trying to offer people the ability to live their lives the way they want to.”

But one lesson from the world of urban planning remains true, says Jennifer Henaghan, manager of the Green Communities Center at the American Planning Association – collaboration and consensus are what makes a new city development able to stand the test of time.

“You’re seeing with these communities that they’re developing partnerships with tech companies, utilities and the state so that there are other stakeholders who’ll be there, involved long after groundbreaking to support and maintain those relationships and that development,” she says.Source: https://www.theguardian.com

AIRBUSTOCOMPLETEASELF-DRIVING,FLYING-CARPROTOTYPENEXTYEAR

Urbanization is quickly migrating populations back to cities where they once thrived before suburbia’s growth beginning in the 1950s. In just 15 years, 60% of the world’s people will live in cities, a 10% increase.

As city populations grow, so will traffic jams, which already cost commuters around the world up to 100 hours in wasted time annually, according to an INRIX study.

In order to get above the noise and pollution of congested city life, Airbus plans to produce the first working prototype of a self-driving flying car by the end of next year.

“In as little as ten years, we could have products on the market that revolutionize urban travel for millions of people,” Rodin Lyasoff, project executive at Airbus’s A³ group in Silicon Valley, said in an article on the Airbus website.

“Many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most of the way there,” Lyasoff stated.

What’s still needed is reliable sensing and object avoidance technology, which is next on A³ group’s plate. “That’s one of the bigger challenges we aim to resolve as early as possible,” Lyasoff said.

AIMICT Newsletter | August 20168

Under the project name Vahana, A³ has been developing an autonomous flying vehicle platform for individual passenger and cargo transport. Airbus’s Helicopters division has also been working on a design that it believes could meet regulatory requirements.

Airbus said executives were not available to offer further details of the autonomous flying vehicle project.

Launched in May, A³ by Airbus Group is a skunkworks unit of sorts whose aim is to run a small portfolio of projects designed to foment industry disruption, according to remarks at its launch by Paul Eremenko, CEO of A³. The organization sees itself as a private version of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the U.S. Defense Department.

Eremenko joined A³ after leaving Google, where he was director of engineering in its Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group. At Google, Eremenko led the development of Project Ara, a modular smartphone.

One hurdle any self-driving flying vehicle must overcome is government regulations, which are only now catching up to small unmanned drones, never mind flying cars. And, “no country in the world today allows drones without remote pilots to fly over cities - with or without passengers,” Bruno Trabel from Airbus Helicopters, said in the company’s blog.

Trabel is lead engineer on Airbus Helicopters’ Skyways project, which “aims to help evolve current regulatory constraints.”

Earlier this year, Airbus Helicopters and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) signed a memorandum of understanding allowing Airbus Helicopters to test a drone parcel delivery service on the campus of the National University of Singapore in mid-2017, according to the company.

“We need to prepare for the greater use of unmanned aircraft in our urban environment to help address the new and future needs of our society,” Kevin Shum, director-general of CAAS, said at the time. “We want to facilitate their use by industry and the public sector, and also hobbyists, but we must at the same time ensure that the regulatory regime keeps apace with these changes to enable such uses, whilst ensuring public and aviation safety and security.”

Up until recently, Airbus’s autonomous flying vehicle project has been kept on the down low. Developers in several countries have taken on various aspects of the flying vehicle project. For example, in France and Germany, Airbus engineers are developing a bus-like flying vehicle under the project name CityAirbus. The flying bus would use multiple propellers and resemble a drone more than a helicopter.

9AIMICT Newsletter | August 2016

The company said CityAirbus would initially be operated by a pilot in order for it to quickly gain market entry, but it would then move to a fully autonomous platform once government regulations catch up to the technology. Airbus’s Skyways and Vahana flying car projects would contribute to the CityAirbus autonomous platform.

“Our Group’s strength is that we have interconnected projects that together are helping to drive the upcoming revolution,” Jörg Müller from Airbus Group’s corporate development department, stated. “The contribution of Skyways, CityAirbus and Vahana in terms of regulations and public and market acceptance will bring to life the future of smart cities’ multimodal transport networks.”

Airbus sees an autonomous flying taxi or bus operating similarly to a ride-hailing or ride-sharing service; a smartphone could be used to schedule a pickup.

“We believe that global demand for this category of aircraft can support fleets of millions of vehicles worldwide,” Lyasoff said.

“A taxi ride through a new city is a nice experience as it is, but flying over that city would be much more thrilling,” said Marius Bebesel, head of Helicopter Demonstrators at Airbus Helicopters.

Airbus acknowledged that it is far from alone in its pursuit of a fully autonomous flying passenger transport vehicle.

Flying car projects abound, including the PAL-V, Skycar, AeroMobil 3.0, Maverick LSA,Icon A5, Switchblade, Lilium Jet, Pegase Mk2, Skyrunner, Volante Joby S2, Terrafugia TF-X and e-volo’s Volocopter.

In April, e-volo’s Volocopter lifted off for the first time with a human passenger.

“This market will develop quickly once we are able to deploy the first vehicles in megacities and demonstrate the benefits of quiet, emission-free air transport at competitive prices,” Müller said. “When looking at the transport needs of business travelers to and from airports or between business districts, you quickly realize that the potential demand corresponds to about 100 times the yearly production of Airbus Helicopters. And that this would only require replacing one out of a hundred ground taxis.”

Source: IT News official website: < http://www.itnews.com >*Written by Lucas Mearian

AIMICT Newsletter | August 201610

For more informationThe Arab International Society for Management Technology Majd Farahat - Executive DirectorTel: (0962-6) 5100900- 1315Fax: (0962-6) 5100901info@aimict.org AIMICT.org

This newsletter is published by:The Arab International Society for Management Technology©AIMICT 2016Reproduction is permitted providedThat the source is acknowledged