QMIC and MoI Sign a Partnership Agreement to Pilot MASARAK™

Doha, July 15, 2012: the Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC), formerly known as the QU Wireless Innovations Center (QUWIC), located at the Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), and the Ministry of Interior (MoI), announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a pilot agreement for trying out QMIC’s Intelligent Transportation Solution and Applications (Masarak™) and exploring the development of further transportation and safety applications.

Dr. Adnan Abu-Dayya, Executive Director (CEO) of QMIC said: “This collaboration with the Ministry of Interior once again will demonstrate how local entities can and should come together to partner on the delivery of innovative solutions that are made in and optimized for Qatar. We are honored to embark on this journey with MoI that will enable them to explore QMIC’s Intelligent Transportation & Logistics suite of services (Masarak™) and allow us to realize our vision of creating knowledge-based ventures in Qatar”.

This partnership will help MoI explore QMIC’s solution for monitoring local traffic conditions in realtime. This is a key step towards full deployment of Masarak services in Qatar, later this year. One of QMIC’s goals is to engage governmental entities in the cycle of innovations development and delivery, and this partnership with MoI is an example of how national entities can work together to deliver locally-engineered innovations to the market.

Brigadier General Mr. Abdulla Bin Mohd Al Suwaidi, Qatar Civil Defence Director and the Director of the Qatar National Command Center said: “This project, Masarak, is to develop services and applications where intelligent transportation is helping monitor realtime traffic information in Doha. This development is one of the Ministry of Interior’s goals, which contributes to the strategy of Qatar’s 2030 vision”.

MASARAK™ represents a major segment within the Smart Living Services initiative that was launched by QMIC few months ago. It addresses a gap in the market for an integrated and expandable suite of intelligent transportation and logistics services that are developed locally and customized to address the needs of Qatar and the region. Masarak is powered by QMIC’s proprietary intelligent sensing and M2M Services platform (Labeeb™) that collects traffic data in realtime from multiple sources and transform this raw traffic data into very meaningful and useful traffic information. This information is then used to develop intelligent services and applications that address the needs of different user segments. Examples include traffic congestion monitoring, intelligent dispatching, intelligent telematics and fleet management, etc.

Masarak’s applications are based on realtime traffic information, which will help MoI boost its accuracy of traffic information delivery, as well as keep track of any incidents on the road using realtime info. Masarak has a historical data archiving feature that will serve as a very useful tool when analyzing traffic conditions, incident frequency and more. The applications offered by Masarak are customized for Qatar’s roads and population, making it a reliable and accurate solution.

About QMIC:

QMIC is an applied research and development center founded by Qatar University in Collaboration with and at the Qatar Science &Technology Park (QSTP) to leverage the use of emerging mobility and wireless technologies in creating solutions and smart applications for use in a number of markets including Transportation, Utilities, Healthcare, and Environment.

QMIC was founded with the objective of filling the existing gap in the region for institutions focusing on applied research and solutions delivery.

QMIC has strategic objectives in the areas of local capacity building, innovations leadership, and in becoming a virtual R&D center for local and regional partners.

For further information please contact

[email protected] , +974 44592702.