Abu Dhabi Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA) has recently launched “Musharaka”, the new knowledge management solution built to create a more structured and efficient government information systems’ network and has showcased it to government organizations at a seminar in Abu Dhabi today.

“The World of Knowledge Management,” organized by LINK Development and SmartLogic in Abu Dhabi on 25 May, 2011, will highlight the benefits of knowledge management to government organizations and private enterprises, showcasing Abu Dhabi’s initiative. Professor Allam Ahmed, Consultant Knowledge Management at the Business Support Division at DMA who led the initiative, will share with the delegates DMA’s experience in implementing “Musharaka.”

The initiative integrates productivity and search towards a comprehensive knowledge management. A solid knowledge management strategy was supported through the integration of various technologies, such as Microsoft FAST Search, SharePoint, BizTalk, and Smartlogic’s Semaphore.

“In order to deliver competitive, innovative and improved services to our staff, and at later stages to citizens across the United Arab Emirates, a strategic change in structure was called for,” says Professor Allam Ahmed.

“There are numerous municipalities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi that have been up to now unconnected. Implementing “Musharaka” with LINK Development and SmartLogic has enabled us to connect all entities under one content classification and taxonomy management system. This will enable government staff to access data and documents across a variety of platforms,” he adds.

This pioneering project is a first for the region and was designed to create a knowledge platform shared between Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, and Western Region municipalities, as well as the DMA. Collectively these organizations employ nearly 5,000 people.

“Musharaka” solution improves the overall staff performance and collaboration between organizations, departments and individuals, while increasing both information “findability” and accessibility. Microsoft will showcase at the seminar its SharePoint and FAST Search solutions for Knowledge Management, which formed the basis for the project.

“Musharaka” integrates with Smartlogic Semaphore platform which analyzes the content of those knowledge assets in order to classify the information in the backend. Furthermore, throughout the integration with FAST Search Engine, all of those knowledge assets will be indexed and searchable through the powerful search tools ensuring information “findability”, increasing the employees’ knowledge and productivity, and eventually allowing for better customer service.

In implementing “Musharaka”, LINK Development also had to integrate with the different back-end systems of the various municipalities.

Staff will reap the benefits of community sites as well as, numerous related features available throughout the portals such as, blogs, wikis, discussion forums, document workspaces, newsletters, and RSS feeds. Such features encourage and enable staff to create some knowledge assets to be shared across all DMA entities.

“We are extremely pleased with the project so far and are looking forward to our staff seeing the benefits in very real terms on a day-to-day basis. We plan to advance the Knowledge Management technology out to other government entities and then to extend the knowledge base out to the general public.

“We are confident that this solution will enable us to reach the current and future objectives of Abu Dhabi’s knowledge based economy,” he concludes.

“In today’s dynamic and highly agile business environment, organizations are facing growing challenges in creating, capturing, organizing, sharing and refining information and content across teams and geographic locations,” says Irini Rafaat, Managing Director of LINK Development. “We have tailored our solution to support organizational knowledge management strategies with the right technology tools for collaboration, information management and enhanced find-ability to optimize operations and foster innovation.”

The system is based on Microsoft Office SharePoint and provides the five different bilingual intranet portals with a variety of capabilities and features intended to improve employees’ overall collaboration and performance.

Richard Pinder, Commercial Director EMEA, SmartLogic says: “As a partner, we are excited to have played an exceptional role in implementing a world-class knowledge management solution that leverages the latest semantic technologies and practices, as well as has the potential to deliver great value to our clients in the Gulf region. Increased efficiency & collaboration, as well as creating more innovation-fostering environments are some of the immediate benefits delivered and recognized by our clients and their employees.”

The event took place at the Hilton Hotel in Abu Dhabi on 25 May 2011, and was attended by delegates from government and non-government organizations as well as private enterprises.