Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) | DEWA Adopts Smart Dubai’s Ethical AI Toolkit on AI Projects

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has used Smart Dubai’s Ethical AI Toolkit on a total of 13 AI use cases across various divisions.

Smart Dubai had developed the Ethical AI Toolkit to set clear guidelines on the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence to prevent having a fragmented, incoherent approach to ethics, where every entity sets its own rules.

HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, commended Smart Dubai for developing the Ethical AI Toolkit on AI Projects, making Dubai the first city in the world to set out a voluntary approach that helps businesses and governments create fair, accountable, transparent, explainable, and trusted AI systems.

“At DEWA, we work according to the vision and directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to use AI to improve services and strengthen the UAE's position as a global hub for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. DEWA started its AI journey in 2017 with a road map for AI applications. We launched several services and initiatives that use AI to add value to the customer, employee, and stakeholder experience. Digital DEWA, the digital arm of DEWA, aims to redefine the concept of utilities so that Dubai becomes the first city to provide electricity and water services using AI technologies. DEWA is one of the first government organisations in Dubai to use self-assessment tools to ensure it is using the most critical AI applications ethically with corrective measures as needed,” said Al Tayer.

His Excellency Younus Al Nasser, Assistant Director General of Smart Dubai and CEO, Dubai Data Establishment, applauded DEWA’s progress in developing AI-based use cases in compliance with the Ethical AI Principles and Guidelines, stating: “Smart Dubai has a mission to drive the emirate’s rapid transformation into the ultimate smart city. Our main goal has always been people’s happiness and wellbeing; technology is our means to achieve this objective. With that in mind, Smart Dubai launched the Ethical AI Toolkit to guide and promote the responsible use of this breakthrough technology to develop advanced, human-centred services and initiatives.”

“Smart Dubai appreciates DEWA’s efforts in developing AI more responsibly and encourages other government and private sector entities in the city to test their own AI systems’ performance against Smart Dubai’s Ethical AI guidelines using our self-assessment tool,” added His Excellency.

DEWA’s 13 AI use cases among different departments include Outage Planning and Load Forecasting, Solar Power Generation Forecasting, Network Design and Area Planning, Visual Inspection on Solar Photovoltaics, DEWA’s virtual assistant Rammas, Wisdom Chatbot, Smart Response (Fuse Box Application), My Sustainable Living Programme (MSLP), Water Burst/Leak Detection (HydroNet), AI-Based Tamper Detection, the Asset Performance Management project, the Gas Turbine Intelligent Controller (GTIC), and the Distribution Asset Criticality Ranking (DACR).

DEWA has set up several policies and quality procedures that are rooted in the Ethical AI and Self-Assessment Toolkit to govern procedures and operations.

On an enterprise level, DEWA aims to use the Ethical AI Toolkit to study the AI projects that are currently in progress, any AI project that was completed in the past few months, as well as any upcoming new project. It has set a minimum performance and compliance threshold on the Self-Assessment Tool to consider an AI project successful. Any scores falling below the minimum score, calls for closer inspection of the project to determine challenges and resolve any issues.

Smart Dubai developed the Ethical AI Toolkit in January 2019 to set clear guidelines on the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence and guide the development of AI-powered services and initiatives. There is also an AI Self-Assessment Tool, as part of the toolkit, which allows AI champions to implement and develop AI use cases, and self-assess its performance against the guidelines to ensure an ethical approach.