The Smart Dubai Office, SDO, and its affiliate organisations the Smart Dubai Government Establishment, SDG, and the Dubai Data Establishment; have sent a delegation on a study tour, which includes team-building workshops, to the Nordic countries of Denmark and Norway from 20th to 24th November 2017.

The visiting delegation will have the opportunity to learn from the experience of these countries in promoting happiness. Norway and Denmark are consistently rated as the happiest countries in the world in the annual World Happiness Index, issued by the UN General Assembly’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The index, which is based on Gallup polls in 157 countries, ranked the UAE as the happiest in the Arab region in 2016.

The trip is set to include activities and workshops to identify the best practices implemented in Scandinavian countries, which boast high levels of happiness, productivity and institutional performance. The objective is to replicate the best of these solutions in Dubai’s smart transformation plans and achieve the strategic objectives of Dubai Plan 2021.

Dr. Aisha bint Butti bin Bishr, Director-General of the SDO, said, "The Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has taught us that human development depends on the strength of ideas and their ability to spread across countries and continents. With that in mind, we organised this training programme for Smart Dubai’s senior management, along with our partners and affiliates. Delegates are being taken on a tour of the Scandinavian countries, which consistently rank as the happiest in the world according to the 2017 World Happiness Report."

The first stop on the tour will be Oslo, Norway, where experts from Bjornson Organisational Psychologists will give a presentation on happiness in Scandinavian countries, followed by another session on boosting the use of artificial intelligence. The Norwegian start-up, No Isolation, which was founded to reduce loneliness by creating solutions to bring people together, will give a presentation on day two, followed by three presentations from the consulting firm, Miles, including workshops to strengthen relationships among team members.

The delegation will then head to the LEGO House in Billund, Denmark, where they will spend a full day with one of the world’s best brands. Attendees are in for a behind-the-scenes tour with LEGO’s "disruption team", which focuses on future tech, accelerators and start-ups, before taking part in LEGO Serious Play, an innovative communications and team-building workshop.

At their third and final stop in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, delegates are set to take part in a workshop on organisational disruption at Thurmer Tools, which has been producing high-quality thread-cutting tools for more than 100 years. This will be followed by a presentation on what makes Scandinavian workplaces some of the best in the world.