ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi Housing Authority (ADHA), won this year’s edition of ‘UAE Innovates 2024’ Award under the category ‘Most Impactful Social Innovation’.
The award is credited to the ‘ISKAN Abu Dhabi’ app, introduced by the Authority in June 2023. The application was developed as an interactive digital platform running in tandem with the Abu Dhabi Housing Centre.
The award shield was presented by Omar bin Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, to Khalifa Al Ketbi, Executive Director of the Housing Services Sector at the Abu Dhabi Housing Authority, at a ceremony of the ‘UAE Innovates 2024’ Award recently.
The Authority was honoured with the award in this year’s special category, ‘Most Impactful Social Innovation’. This category underscores the significance of innovation in enhancing the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of community services. It further highlights the ability of innovation to overcome challenges, address needs, a
nd promote empowerment and an individual’s capacity-building.
The “ISKAN Abu Dhabi’ app serves as an interactive digital platform that consolidates the emirate’s government housing services. It allows users to apply for various housing services and seamlessly manage property ownership processes through their mobile devices, eliminating the need to visit physical service locations.
The app achieved success in enhancing customer satisfaction levels with housing services, achieving a satisfaction rate of 98 percent by the end of 2023. The version launched in June 2023 played a key role in enhancing transparency, allowing users to monitor their requests at any time. This development was evident by the substantial reduction of phone inquiries regarding application status, witnessing a decline of 49.5 percent as compared to 2022.
Hamad Hareb Al Muhairi, Director-General of Abu Dhabi Housing Authority, stated, ‘We are delighted to be honoured with the ‘UAE Innovates 2024’ Award for the Abu Dhabi Housing app. Our
goal is to enhance user experiences by providing seamless and convenient access to housing benefits through smartphones, eliminating the need to visit service locations. This aligns with our commitment to adopting comprehensive digital transformation initiatives in line with the ‘Abu Dhabi Programme for Effortless Customer Experience’ agenda, which offers streamlined and customer-centric experiences.’
Al Muhairi highlighted the fact that this award is a testament to the efforts of the Authority’s team, which consistently strives to embrace innovation in diverse aspects of its work, showcasing its achievements in improving user experiences and enhancing the government housing services sector throughout the emirate.
The app has effectively increased awareness among users. The technologies integrated into the platform played a significant role in reducing the average rate of application rejections to below five percent with the system’s automatic assessment of user eligibility for the service and prompt notifi
cation of qualifying housing benefits.
The user experience with the app also includes the ‘Financial Awareness Programme’ initiated by the Authority. This programme aims to bolster the financial skills of housing loan beneficiaries, fostering financial awareness and the capability to make well-informed financial decisions.
The app has significantly minimised the effort needed for users to access services, offering all its functionalities through mobile phones, and eliminating the need for visits to service centres. Furthermore, it has heightened procedural efficiency by reducing the number of required steps from service application to approval by half.
Furthermore, the app actively contributes to minimising the environmental impact of housing services by offering a completely paperless experience, achieving a 100 percent paper-free service. It is projected to save over 200,000 sheets of paper in the next five years.
The app is a pioneering initiative that supports the efforts to strengthen the housing sec
tor in Abu Dhabi. This has enabled the emirate to excel over numerous leading countries across key indicators in the housing sector, resulting in an overall satisfaction rate of 94 percent for housing services in 2023.
Source: Emirates News Agency