Helping to make cities smile
Dan Schirren, Head of International Sales, Ordnance Survey, talks to Danielle Kenneally
AFTER more than 20 years advising clients in developing and delivering digital transformation and strategy, Dan Schirren, has embraced the role of head of international sales at Ordnance Survey to develop and grow international relationships. Over the years he has been based in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the US and has founded and co-founded emerging technology start-ups and led commercial projects and sales teams in global deployment, helping customers in the public and private sectors.
Taking on his new role in February having been at Ordnance Survey since November 2017, his task now is to encourage the use of geospatial data internationally, encouraging the transformation of raw data into smart decision-making globally.
He wants cities, countries, governments, and companies to become smarter and in turn become happier, recently returning from Dubai, where he was involved in doing just that. He talks to the Civil Engineering Surveyor’s Danielle Kenneally about how geospatial data can create smarter cities.
How did you become head of international sales at Ordnance Survey?
I have over 30 years of techno-commercial and consulting experience and have helped clients turn raw data into information, and information into smart decision-making throughout my career in different industries such as manufacturing, finance and services.
We’ve been talking to a lot of stakeholders in the engineering sector as part of this work. What the Dubai Municipality wants to do is be a partner for the ecosystem of civil engineers and surveyors in Dubai.
I joined Ordnance Survey though around five years ago and what really excited me about this opportunity was realising that the geospatial world, which is not always well known outside of our industry, was like no other industry in its potential to deliver outcomes and drive value through the transformation of raw data into smart decision making. It is so impactful for citizens, countries, governments, and companies and it’s a pleasure to be a part of this journey.
Tell us more about how you developed your recent partnership with the Dubai Municipality, did this come off the back of Ordnance Survey’s See your City Smile report?
It really came about from the already excellent partnership we have developed over the past five years with the Dubai Municipality. We started out in 2017 and have continued to have a team of about 50 people on an annual basis helping to transform how the Dubai Municipality creates, manages and shares location intelligence and geospatial data to drive the development of Dubai as a city. The See Your City Smile Report has helped communicate how Ordnance Survey approached urban planning and the development of a city. I think our See Your Nation’s Potential campaign also reinforced our partnership with governments and municipalities globally.
What does the partnership mean and how will it support the United Arab Emirates government’s pursuit of citizen happiness in Dubai?
We currently have two ongoing contracts with Dubai – one of them is to do with transformation and geospatial production. The other one is to look strategically at how the Dubai Municipality, across multiple departments and organisations, works together and optimises its ways of working to drive performance. The goal is to be the happiest city in the world, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, is very clear that Dubai should never be second place. Dubai is growing so quickly and there is so much infrastructure and amazing development programmes that you see. It wants to make sure it develops sustainably.
It is working towards the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan, and there are a number of key performance indicators (KPIs) in there to make Dubai happier and more sustainable. They want to increase public beaches by 400%, improve access to green space, and accelerate transformation. Ordnance Survey’s partnership with the Dubai Municipality is delivering better services to its public sector, private sector and developers, and to the residents and visitors of Dubai.
With construction and infrastructure at the forefront of these contracts with Dubai, what can the likes of civil engineering surveyors do to help improve planning and construction processes?
We’ve been talking to a lot of stakeholders in the engineering sector as part of this work. What the Dubai Municipality wants to do is be a partner for the eco-system of civil engineers and surveyors in Dubai. It also wants to lead on sustained quality. When we looked at processes, ways of working, and governance, it is really impressive when benchmarking against other cities such as London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Copenhagen. We’re seeing that Dubai in many of these KPIs is leading the way. We’re impressed by the ecosystem for civil engineers and eco-systems in Dubai and believe the work we’re doing will help improve this further.
Are there more cities you are in the process of developing similar partnerships with?
We are in the process of developing similar partnerships in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Vision 2030 is driving the country. Whenever I travel to Riyadh, so many things in the urban landscape have changed from even a month ago and it has projects such as the Red Sea Development Project, the Neom, and other massive infrastructure projects. We are developing relationships and having the conversations there both with clients and other organisations to offer our services and drive more value for our partners and customers.
Will developing these relationships result in the possibility of sharing what works and what doesn’t between cities?
There are already some forums globally where best practices are shared. For example, the World Cities Summit. We think there is more work to be done around sharing between cities with great ambitions. We have an important part to play in that conversation. There are a number of countries and organisations who are stakeholders in this eco-system, but we would really like to have more of these conversations with more of these cities to learn from one another. The work we are doing in Dubai and in Saudi Arabia means we are always looking for exemplars globally. We have a lot of knowledge in that space, and we bring with us partners with a lot of knowledge.
What are your best tips for harnessing geospatial data to make cities happier?
When we help plan cities and drive performance it needs to start with the citizen. That’s our end customer, and that’s our customer’s customer. It is important we take that human citizen perspective, along with sustainability and liveability, into these big city projects as it is only going to become more and more important and more of a competitive advantage for cities.
Big cities have historically been driven by economic growth and opportunity. But as more global cities develop, the liveability of a city will become more and more important.
The other thing is if you compare cities which are successful with cities that have more work to do, it’s the ability to share data and best practices within the city and government which makes a big difference. Where there is real collaboration between public and private sector and real community engagement, where data is shared and collated in the right way, we find those cities are most successful. It is not always down to technology; it is down to practices.
What can the future hold?
There is a lot of exiting buzz about how the metaverse can help the urban space. Digital twin technology is becoming more mature. But if we look to the future, I think there are two things that are going to distinguish a successful city. We are convinced when we look a little bit further into the future, that a city will be equally judged by its physical properties as well as its digital representation of that physical world.
Take two exact copies of a physical city in the real world – one that only has some digital representation of itself and the other one with complete digital representation – the fully digital one will be more attractive globally. It will have happier citizens, a more effective and efficient economy, and better sustainable liveability.
One of the challenges we see with stakeholders is that a building and a bridge is something you can touch and feel. So that is where investment goes right now. But we believe the intangible data is going to be just as important and cities that want to move into that digital space will be in a position to advance to the top-tier global cities in the future.
Dan Schirren, Head of International Sales, Ordnance Survey, talks to Danielle Kenneally
See os.uk/citysmile