(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

The Department of Community Development in Abu Dhabi has unveiled two groundbreaking AI-powered platforms designed to transform the emirate's understanding and response to the needs of its residents.

The Community Wellbeing Platform and the Family Support Insights Platform represent a major shift from reactive to proactive social services, leveraging vast amounts of government data to identify challenges before they escalate.

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Asma Al Rashidi, Acting Executive Director of the Monitoring and Impact Office at the Department of Community Development, explained that the Community Wellbeing Platform was developed to provide a comprehensive, 360-degree view of residents' needs across Abu Dhabi.

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“We, as a department, are trying to understand the needs of Abu Dhabi's residents. These needs differ from one area to another,” Al Rashidi said.“In order to be proactive in providing services and have a comprehensive understanding, we developed this platform.”

360o view of community needs

The Community Wellbeing Platform draws on three primary data sources to build a complete picture of residents' lives.

First, it integrates government records from various entities including health, education, and police departments. Second, it incorporates surveys and community feedback to capture the voice of residents. Third, it analyses secondary data from online sources such as Google reviews and other publicly available information.

By combining these data streams, the platform can assess needs across multiple dimensions, including community relationships, family ties, health, education, employment, and economic stability.

The AI-driven system then prioritises interventions based on the specific challenges facing each neighbourhood.

“The needs differ from area to area,” Al Rashidi noted.“For example, Area X might need hospitals or family centres, while Area Y might face challenges with air quality or noise pollution. The goal of this platform is to use AI to help you prioritise people's needs from these sources.”

The platform is currently in a pilot phase, with the department working closely with all government entities not only as data providers but also as partners in developing the system.

Identifying vulnerable families

Complementing the Community Wellbeing Platform is the Family Support Insights Platform, developed by the Abu Dhabi Social Support Authority under the Department of Community Development.

This system takes a proactive approach to family support, aiming to intervene before families face financial or social crises.

Sultan Al Mansouri, IT Projects Manager at the Abu Dhabi Social Support Authority, explained that the platform analyses data from the Social Support Authority and the Family Care Authority to identify families that may need assistance.

“The Family Insights Dashboard or Platform, is concerned with taking the concept of family support - whether financial or social - from reactive to proactive,” Al Mansouri said.“Instead of seeing a problem happen, where a family falls into a financial challenge or a sensitive family issue, we intervene in advance.”

The platform examines a wide range of family data including household size, debts, legal cases, whether there is a breadwinner, ages of family members, number of spouses, and housing conditions.

This information is then analysed and categorised into one of 18 different scenarios, each with its own recommended interventions.

“I have data on a specific family with all its details. I put it into this dashboard with all its details. The dashboard will tell me, based on the data you gave me, this family belongs to scenario number five,” Al Mansouri explained.

Each scenario comes with specific intervention pathways, which may include financial support, legal assistance, family counseling, educational support, or referrals to specialized agencies.

This data-driven approach dramatically reduces the time needed to understand a family's situation and determine the best course of action.

From months to minutes

Traditionally, case managers would spend weeks or even months meeting with families, conducting research, and gathering information before they could develop a comprehensive support plan. The Family Support Insights Platform condenses this process into a matter of minutes.

“Today we have people we call Case Managers. A Case Manager studies all the details of a family. It takes time to understand a family - it can take weeks or months of sitting with them, researching, gathering details, until I have the full picture,” Al Mansouri said.“With this platform, as soon as I enter the data into the dashboard, it gives me results from the 18 scenarios. I have intervention pathways, I have what I should do, I have existing cases. I act based on that.”

The platform is currently in the testing phase and has not yet been officially launched. However, officials are focused on ensuring the system has access to comprehensive data to provide the most accurate and helpful recommendations.

“The more data we have, the more we understand the family, and the more we can help and serve them,” Al Mansouri added.

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