Abu Dhabi Housing Authority bags ‘UAE Innovates 2024’ Award for ‘ISKAN Abu Dhabi’ Application

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 ‘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 His Excellency Omar 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 the recent ceremony of the ‘UAE Innovates 2024’ Award.
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 effectiveness, efficiency and impact of community services. It further highlights the ability of innovation to overcome challenges, address needs and promote empowerment and capacity-building of individuals.

The ‘ISKAN Abu Dhabi’ application serves as an interactive digital platform that consolidates all government housing services in the emirate. It provides users with the convenience of applying for various housing services and seamlessly managing property ownership processes through their mobile devices, eliminating the need to visit physical service locations.
The application achieved success in enhancing customer satisfaction levels with housing services, achieving a satisfaction rate of 98 per cent 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 per cent as compared to 2022.

His Excellency Hamad Hareb Al Muhairi, the 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 application. 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 Program for Effortless Customer Experience’ agenda, which aims to offer streamlined and customer-centric experiences.”

Al Muhairi highlighted that this award stands as a testament to the efforts by the Authority’s team, which consistently strives to embrace innovation in diverse aspects of its work, showcasing the Authority’s achievements in improving user experiences and enhancing the government housing services sector throughout the emirate.
The ‘ISKAN Abu Dhabi’ application 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 5 per cent with the system's automatic assessment of user eligibility for the service and prompt notification of qualifying housing benefits. The user experience with the application also includes the ‘Financial Awareness Program’ initiated by the Authority. This program aims to bolster the financial skills of housing loan beneficiaries, fostering financial awareness and capability to make well-informed financial decisions.

The application has significantly minimised the effort needed for users to access services, offering all its functionalities through mobile phones, eliminating 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 application actively contributes to minimising the environmental impact of housing services by offering a completely paperless experience, achieving a 100 per cent paper-free service. It is projected to save over 200,000 sheets of paper in the next five years.

The application is a pioneering initiative that supports the efforts to strengthen the housing sector 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 per cent for housing services in 2023.

Additionally, the application strives to drive the competitive edge of Abu Dhabi and the UAE in maintaining top positions in international rankings for social care and government efficiency in 2023. The country further secured the first position in the Bureaucracy Absence Index in the Global Competitiveness Report for 2023.

Through the application, the authority seeks to establish a comprehensive and integrated housing system. It involves collaboration with partners from both the public and private sectors within the Abu Dhabi Housing Centre. It further aims to offer users a three-dimensional selection system for housing benefits. The application also provides users with the capability to access all data on available lands and homes, facilitating comparisons and enabling the selection of the most suitable option. Users can also make reservations, whether the project is completed or still in the planning stage.
Moreover, the Authority is working to develop an updated version of the application, which will soon be available for users to download on their smartphones.