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Now, how Smart is that!
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Fareed Abdulrahman, the man behind SmartCity, is confident of the venture’s success
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Young and dynamic Fareed Abdulrahman, Executive Director, SmartCity, loves a challenge
It was a smart move. Practical, intelligent and quick. Just like the man himself. Fareed Abdulrahman, Executive Director, SmartCity, took the Jan Shatabdi from Thiruvanathpuram to Kochi to check out basic parameters of the State before zeroing in on
Kochi as smart enough for this 1700 crore-IT project. Not only that, he even took a car ride from Coimbatore to Kochi to suss the city and its satellite towns for feasibility. “I saw opportunities,” he says, recalling his train and car ride. And it was these opportunities that form the foundation stone of SmartCity, inaugurated last week.
Cautious
So when the moment to savour came Fareed was cautious, “We in Dubai don’ t like celebrations before things happen. We celebrate after the victory.” But then this itself had been a victory of sorts, for him and his team, after battling some hard negotiations with two ideologically different governments and people’s protests.
Do the protests, the displacement of people, the evictees trouble him? “If there is any guilt we wouldn’t leave the wound to become bigger. There is a system that handles it.” And did this ever raise any doubts in his mind about the project? “If we had doubt we wouldn’t come here. If you are talking about risk then everything has risk, even married life.”
Yes, and married life for this dynamic, 34-year-old is on a roll as his wife, Fatima is expecting their second child. And while he talks of his family, on his modern arranged marriage, ‘as it is here’, he is interrupted by a call from his two-year-old daughter, Rawdha who calls in, just to say hello. “My Indian friends always call her Radha,” he says about a country and people he knows surprisingly very well. “Our relations with India go back. My father still comes to Mumbai for any medical treatment. Business has brought me to Kochi but I would love to see Rajasthan, Goa and Sikkim too.”
Coming back to the start of a project that is envisaged to create 90,000 jobs over a period of ten years, Fareed is pleased as work begins but says the work will complete much before the stipulated ten-year time frame. “We in Dubai excel when it comes to execution. First of this beginning is a great thing . It shows you the commitment of all stakeholders to this project. It is amazing. Look at the government and the other parties, the press, the people.” And on doing business here he says, “ Doing business in Dubai and in Kerala is not the same. Every country has a different style and culture of doing business. If I am a Keralite doing business in Dubai it will be difficult to begin-I would go through some challenges. I call it international challenges. International challenges are always there. It is the language, culture, distances, policies, systems, local knowledge. It is there for both sides.”
Adventure lover
And overcoming challenges has been a part of Fareed’s life. A person who is passionate about earth and studied geology, he climbed the Fuji mountain and loved every bit of the adventure. “I love to travel. I will bring my family to India and take them from North to South, from East to West.” But Fareed has come a long way in a rising career graph. From the accounts manager at TECOM Investments-Dubai Internet City in 2000 to Director of Sales, Dubai Internet City and now Executive Director, SmartCity (an international venture between TECOM & Sama Dubai, both members of Dubai Holdings) he is inspired by the ruler of Dubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid. Fareed quotes him and says, ‘in the race for excellence there is no finish line.’
Kochi and Malta
And he has made his choice of setting up SmartCity in Kochi and another in Malta. “Dubai, Kochi and Malta are all tourist destinations. The places have potential and so people come. You will be amazed with what we are coming up with. We will use 30 to 35 per cent of total land as public space, which means no building, no construction. It will be left green and very fresh. The SmartCity project is about people. Our aim is not only to come up with a business park but with a business park that will gain the heart of Knowledge Workers. It will create a global network that will bridge lots of gaps, businesses and cultures between countries, governments and people. Our business model depends on a couple of factors to select a location, on political stability which is there in Kerala. We look at macro-micro economical factors, at availability of knowledge workers and whether the place can attract them.’
And Kochi has it all, believes Fareed. His love for Hindi films, for SRK, for Tabu, for places in India from Bhopal to Mumbai, he is comfortable. And what about Kochi, beyond business?
“Yes, for retirement, definitely yes,” he says with a happy laugh.
PRIYADERSHINI S.
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