Dubai eGovernment offers up-to-date, bilingual information service on Dubai Shopping Festival 2010 activities

mDubai is an innovative communication channel that facilitates interaction between the public and government departments via SMS.

The DSF 2010 service provides information about five random events on any given day. To request information in Arabic for five random events, users only need to type "DSF A" and send it as an SMS to 4488. The same information can be received in English by typing "DSF E".

Ahmed Bin Humaidan, Director-General, Dubai eGovernment, said:

"DSF is one of the most important entertainment and shopping festivals of the year as there are numerous fun-filled activities such as concerts, exhibitions, competitions and promotions that offer exciting prizes. Dubai eGovernment's goal is to allow residents and tourists to have a truly enjoyable experience throughout the DSF festivities by providing up-to-date information about the daily activities."

"Users may request information about a random list of activities so that they can set a schedule and choose which places they would like to visit first. This service is particularly useful for tourists or visitors who will be in Dubai only for a short period. Having experienced the advantages of the mDubai information service during DSF 2009, residents and visitors are now again taking advantage of this innovative service as shown by the growing volume of requests we have received since the service was launched," he added.

The mDubai service is one of the most successful e-services of Dubai eGovernment as it receives thousands of pull messages and sends millions of push messages each year. Some of the most common push messages include health card expiry notifications; traffic on roads; driving test notifications; traffic fines notifications; opening and closing timings of water bridges; trade licence expiry notifications and payment voucher notifications.

The most widely availed pull messages include fines enquiries from Dubai Police; flight information from Dubai Civil Aviation Authority; prayer timings from Islamic Affairs & Charitable Activities Department; transaction status inquiries from Dubai Department of Economic Development and daily event schedule inquiries for Dubai Summer Surprises and DSF.