Projects: 2020 to 2024

Keywords: Capacity Building, Digital Transformation, Disaster Risk Management, GIS, Government Collaboration, Knowledge Products, Municipal Finance, Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), Spatial Planning, Urban Development, World Bank, Zanzibar.

Transforming Zanzibar: OHK's Pioneering Project in Spatial Data for Enhanced Urban Planning and Financial Management

OHK undertook a project to improve Zanzibar's urban development and financial management by incorporating Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) technology. This initiative was part of a comprehensive strategy to enhance municipal finance, disaster risk management, and urban planning, addressing the challenges posed by rapid urbanization. Funded by the Korea World Bank Partnership Facility, the project highlights OHK's commitment to fostering sustainable urban growth through innovative technologies. This collaborative effort involved the World Bank and the Government of Zanzibar, focusing on mainstreaming SDI technology to improve urban service delivery and governance. OHK's contributions included conducting analytical studies, developing knowledge products, and providing practical training to local government officials and stakeholders. This project represents a significant milestone in integrating advanced technologies into urban development practices. The experiences and lessons learned in Zanzibar will serve as valuable references for similar initiatives elsewhere, aiding in navigating complex urban challenges through innovation and strategic collaboration.

The Zanzibar initiative aimed at integrating SDI technology into urban development and achieved several significant outcomes that have had a transformative impact on the region. This initiative significantly enhanced the capability of local government officials to utilize SDI technology effectively in urban planning and disaster risk management. By training these officials, OHK ensured that the local workforce could leverage cutting-edge technology to predict and mitigate the impacts of natural disasters, thereby safeguarding communities and enhancing urban resilience. Furthermore, the project led to improved own-source revenue collection through the digitalization of financial management processes. This modernization effort enabled more efficient and transparent management of municipal finances, increasing the local government's ability to fund public services and infrastructure projects independently. By automating and streamlining financial processes, the initiative not only improved accuracy and reduced errors but also minimized the opportunities for corruption, promoting a more accountable and transparent governance framework.

Another critical achievement was establishing a sustainable framework for the ongoing development and integration of SDI technology in Zanzibar. This framework laid the groundwork for continuous improvement and adaptation of urban planning and management systems to accommodate future growth and technological advancements. It ensures that the benefits of the project are not temporary but continue to influence urban development positively long after the initial implementation phase. The project is a prime example of how strategic investments in technology can address the multifaceted challenges of urbanization. The enhanced skills of local officials in utilizing advanced technologies for urban planning and disaster risk management have made Zanzibar a model for other regions facing similar urban challenges. Moreover, the increased revenue collection capability has empowered the local government, providing them with the financial resources needed to sustain growth and improve public services.

In conclusion, OHK’s project in Zanzibar has improved local capacities and financial management and established a replicable model of technological integration in urban planning. It highlights the critical role of innovative solutions in addressing the challenges of the 21st century and sets a benchmark for future initiatives aiming to enhance urban environments through technology. The ongoing development and adaptation of the framework established by this project will continue to benefit Zanzibar and potentially other regions looking to harness technology for urban improvement.

Keywords: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Information Strategy, ICT and Technology, e-Government, B2B and B2C marketplaces, cloud computing, SaaS, PaaS, Jordan.

The Middle East’s First E-Government Platform Focused on Online Innovation Services to Public and Private Stakeholders

OHK was hired to formulate and translate over 300 global best practices from nearly 100 innovation organizations performing innovation advocacy and support worldwide into a working model for a nationwide digital platform for Jordan. This mapping of best practices, combined with a comprehensive screening of Jordan’s existing innovation ecosystem, yielded a strategic vision and roadmap for a new organization, the National Center for Innovation, that is very strongly informed by an innovation support platform, the Jordan Open Innovation Platform (JOIP). 

The viability and impact of JOIP are enhanced by the fact that IT B2B and B2C systems are underused in Jordan and that no overarching ICT framework has been applied across the innovation ecosystem, and therefore the platform has a broad remit to set innovation digital transactions standards that apply nation-wide. The strategic centrality of JOIP as the nucleus of Jordan’s innovation ecosystem is highlighted by OHK implementing a detailed technical design of the platform. Jordan suffers from a multiplicity of tech-enabled ambitions that have fallen short because the strategic and business logics are not translated into technical specifications, and thus there is no continuity of vision or personnel to ensure that digital platforms that are introduced enable e-government products that respond to country and stakeholder needs over time. OHK has implemented a 2-year long project to support Jordan avoid this pitfall. The thought leadership and visioning capability brought by the OHK team have realized the design and development of the platform to become a global leader in the use of technology in national innovation practices and enhance the development of an innovation-based society in Jordan.

First, JOIP is established as the leading portal to Jordan's innovation ecosystem and act as a single point for all things innovation through an integrated, technology-empowered cloud-based SaaS platform. JOIP is integral to the innovation mission of public and private stakeholders and the majority of their interventions. It turns support functions into digitized services and optimizes B2B and B2C exchange, cooperation and oversight tasks. The services in SaaS are enabled by productivity tools that automate the innovation processes involved such as lead qualification, recruitment, matchmaking, grant processing, and reporting. It does so while consolidating information, integrating organizations and individuals into one productivity space and building the collective inputs and outputs into a country-wide knowledge databases. 

JOIP is the hub and marketplace for innovation services in Jordan as well as the open information highway for Jordan’s collaboration with the world. Therefore, it serves private and public stakeholders in Jordan and beyond and connects hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of researchers and entrepreneurs active in R&D and science and technology. 

Secondly, JOIP utilizes a Cloud-Application-User Framework which acts as one integrated cloud computing, innovation processes’ workflow system built on applications that operate with and within cloud resources. JOIP is defined as a computing cloud made of a set of network-enabled applications that provide scalable services, service-guaranteed, normally personalized, and on-demand, and accessible in a simple, user-friendly and pervasive way. The P/SaaS technical architecture built for JOIP generates and aggregates value to help any organization active in innovation deploy and manage a spectrum of innovation activities that meet its target stakeholders or latent needs. The platform is built on functions common to R&D and innovation. 

JOIP’s core users are not only the individuals in research centers, universities, or the private sector but also the organizations that house them and that are keen to use JOIP to derive information and use tools to help them improve their standing and the productiveness of their communities. Any organization in Jordan, government, public, private, donor, or NGO can join JOIP as an enterprise user and qualify part or all of its staff to become individual users in JOIP.  The platform intends to achieve a balance between a tool available to all at a marginal cost and enough revenue to allow the platform to grow and develop. A pricing tier is adopted across both individual and enterprise users  of JOIP with fees charged monthly or manually and depend on options such as the type of services the user accesses and the number of accounts per enterprise.

OHK has helped position JOIP as both a steward of Jordan’s innovation system and a provider of products and services to innovation stakeholders across the innovation value chain. Given the novelty of such a model in Jordan and the Middle East overall—where digital platforms built on products and services via modern web tools and applications—this sets a new model in the region and worldwide for one-stop-digital-shops offering innovation-support services to diverse and varied innovation stakeholders.

For more information about OHK’s innovation advisory services in emerging markets and across the globe, contact us.

Keywords: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Information Strategy, Market Research, ICT and Technology

OHK Implements the World’s First National Innovation ID System in Jordan

The existing fragmentation in Jordan's innovation ecosystem means that multiple frameworks, databases, and information silos persist and hamper advancement. Globally, not a single country has a comprehensive national identification system for its innovation communities and agencies that is systemized into law and implemented across the totality of innovation processes and value chains. The new system implemented by OHK in Jordan achieves this; it consolidates all operations of innovation into a single database and communication system. To name a few game-changing developments, it introduces new and state-of-the-art e-government services, streamlines integration and knowledge sharing between innovation players, prevents information loss, digitizes processes, and limits red-tape and bureaucracy. 

Both individuals and organizations active in the country's R&D and innovation ecosystem benefit from this government-endorsed, comprehensive ID system for its identity, qualification, and certification applications. It covers personal and professional information, academic abilities, innovation achievements, publications, patent track record, and innovation metrics. National agencies and ministries, local government units, government-owned or publicly-controlled corporations, government financial institutions, donor-supported projects, and public, bi-lateral, and IFI funds of innovation will endorse and utilize the system in a national roll-out effort led by the country’s National Innovation Center.  

OHK implemented this nationally-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique IDs linked to any person or organization active in innovation in Jordan. Moreover, the national ID system represents Jordanians and their organizations overseas and connects them to internationally certified databases including the majority of reputable publishers. Since the framework of identifications is tied to a global set of internationally recognized, corresponding IDs, Jordan's own IDs are standardized by virtue of linkages to the world of innovation beyond Jordan.

OHK has facilitated agreements with international organizations managing global ID standards to harmonize them with Jordan's ID system. Under this system, a Jordanian person or organization acquiring a national ID in Jordan receives an international ID at the same time. The system consists mainly of five category IDs, each connected to a broad set of corresponding international IDs, and, therefore, once a user is registered locally, they are effectively linked to approximately one-hundred IDs in use globally. This design by OHK works as a translator, connector, and harmonizer between all IDs and for all data reference and innovation management purposes.

This work is financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development with funding from the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Transition Fund to support the Jordanian Government, via the Higher Council for Science and Technology, strengthen the country's innovation ecosystem.

For more information about OHK’s innovation advisory services in emerging markets and across the globe, contact us.