RTA kicks off transition into a knowledge authority

The scheme was unveiled in an inaugural meeting attended by a number of CEOs, directors, experts and employees representing various agencies of the RTA.

Abdul Mohsen Ibrahim Younes, CEO of RTA Strategy & Corporate Governance Sector, stated that the RTA from inception sought to adopt the latest administrative concepts in all fields of business as a means to achieve its vision of providing safe and smooth transport for all.

"In this context, RTA relied on standards set by Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP), which is viewed as an advanced and extensive administrative tool to leverage government agencies and departments to attain higher standards of excellence," he said.

Abdul Mohsen stressed the vital nature of the project in terms of enhancing and furthering the knowledge content of the RTA, particularly when taking into consideration that most projects undertaken by the RTA are top-notch pilot projects across the region, such as Dubai Metro, the Floating Bridge, bridges networks and other transport systems, to name a few.

"This underscores the importance of allocating sufficient resources to embed and diffuse knowhow and cumulative experience. Through this exercise we will be able to establish a comprehensive knowledge base, which will prove useful to the rest of the Dubai government departments in particular and the UAE in general," Abdul Mohsen continued.

The CEO of Strategy & Corporate Governance Sector then gave a brief historical account about the evolution of knowledge concept through various ages. He explained how it evolved from absolute facts and ideals in which Greek philosophers based their convictions, to a field of study in universities and institutes in medieval centuries. Knowledge underwent further evolution till it became a key propeller of industry during the Industrial Revolution era.

Contemporary knowledge, which is a product of modern time billed as the Knowledge Era, warranted equal evolution of supporting tools and systems needed to document, publish and produce knowledge deliverables in various fields.

"The foremost aim of Knowledge Administration scheme is to disseminate the awareness of knowledge applications, benefits and tools. The scheme also aims at listing the explicit and implicit knowledge catalogues and identifying knowledge communities of the RTA and affiliated Agencies. This will help in identifying knowledge gaps and developing necessary work plans to redress them. RTA will embark on developing a strategy and a road map to materialise the objective of 'Knowledge Authority' during the next three years. An overall regulatory body will be instituted, together with its organisation chart, policies, procedures, resources and infrastructure needed for selecting, applying and providing training on appropriate knowledge systems," said Abdul Mohsen.

Abdul Mohsen then gave a full conceptual analysis of the potential benefits of the Scheme, with particular reference to documentation of the accumulated knowhow and expertise gained from various projects and sharing them with various agencies of the RTA. He also dwelled on the need to improve decision-taking levels by means of providing the right knowledge, to the right individual, in the right time. He also highlighted the need to cut short the time spent on data searching and retrieving.

"We have got to rationalise the cost of appointing experts and consultants through Emiratization and rotation of knowhow and increase the productivity of employees and knowledge communities. This is envisaged to be achieved through adopting sharing, communicating and interacting tools, and realizing the principle of an educated entity, thanks to its previous experiments and projects," said Abdul Mohsen in a concluding remark.