Q Life Magazine Q Magazine June 2017 | Page 32

| Issue 2 Qatar Mobility Innovations Centre The first of its kind in the region, Qatar Mobility Innovations Centre (QMIC) seeks to address challenges in the areas of transport, healthcare, the environment, and sports by pioneering smart mobility systems and services. Q MIC aims to use locally-engineered innovations and knowledge to create technology-based industries that address local and regional challenges. Among the challenges currently being addressed by QMIC’s team of researchers and thinkers are how to improve Qatar’s traffic systems, rethinking local postal delivery systems, and deploying automated vehicle systems in the region. The centre’s flagship smart living product is Masarak™, a suite of transportation and logistics solutions developed in partnership with Qatar’s Ministry of Municipality and Environment. Masarak’s suite of products and services tackle major daily challenges on Qatar’s roads, such as traffic congestion, workflow 32 delays, and road hazards. They include a popular mobile app that helps drivers assess traffic conditions and select the shortest and fastest routes. QMIC is a locally-conceived yet widely-influential set-up that represents the best of QNV 2030 in practice – knowledge-based innovation driving forward a diversifying economy. And its reach is extending beyond Qatar’s borders, with January 2017 seeing the signature of a partnership with Belgian enterprise, SmartEnds.