Mobility Innovators

Jaspal Singh [00:00:04]:

Welcome to the mobility innovators podcast.

Jaspal Singh [00:00:10]:

Hello, everyone. I’m so happy to welcome all listeners from around the world to Mobility Innovator Podcast. I’m your host, Jaspal Singh. Mobility Innovators Podcast invites key innovator in the transportation and logistics sector to share their thought about the key changes in the sector, about their work and what is their forecast for the future.

Today, I’ll be speaking with an amazing intrapreneur. He has worked in academic, consulting, corporate world and startup ecosystems around the world. He worked in North America, Europe, Asia, and Middle East. He’s currently the CEO of City Group company. City Group company is providing public transport and on-demand mobility, as well as warehouse servicing.

Prior to joining City Group, he was the co-founder and CEO of Arnab Mobility, running a micro-mobility platform in the middle east. He had a long career in consulting space with PWC and develop corporate innovation and his sales strategy for the public and private sectors.

Some of his key projects include developing an Innovation strategy for $25 billion crossrail project in London, developing Dubai’s Innovation Index and innovation, automated freight collection and Marine transport strategy for road and transport authority in Dubai.

I’m so happy to welcome Dheeraj Bhardwaj, Group CEO, City Group Company.

Now it’s time to listen and learn.

 

Hello Dheeraj, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I’m really looking forward to our conversation today.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:01:36]:

Hello, Jaspal. Thanks for having me here with you. I’m really looking forward to sharing some of my experiences and it’d be my pleasure.

Jaspal Singh [00:01:45]:

Thank you so much. So today I’ll be spending time getting to know about you, about your professional journey and your thought on innovation in the mobility sector.

To begin with, I would like you to share a little bit about yourself with our listener, and also, are there any interesting facts about your career that are not on LinkedIn?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:02:03]:

Sure. Well, LinkedIn is a very linear profile system, but let me just give you quick glimpse. I spent first 10 years in academics. I strongly academic rigor is good. You can do everything. If you know mathematics, you can do anything your life. Then almost nearly more than 17 years, I’ve been in the industry jumping between consulting and the industry and using my knowledge of consulting, applying to the industry, going back to consulting, learning new things, and applying new things. And in between I’ve done a few startups, few failed, few successful. That’s the highlight of my career.

Jaspal Singh [00:02:44]:

That’s great. And I saw you have such a wide experience, you know, jumping from academy to corporate world and then consulting, building your startup, and then coming back to the corporate world. And, and that’s something I want to poke in more.

So you did your PhD in computer science from IIT Delhi and then you did your MBA from Imperial college, London. You started a career in India and played a key role in the development of India supercomputer program, which is really amazing to see that you were participating in that kind of initiative and helping the country.

And after that, you moved to academy and worked with IIT Delhi. After you stinted, you played an instrumental role in transforming the construction industry in the UK and middle east. And later you led the strategy digitalization and innovation at PWC and work on various innovation projects.

Jaspal Singh [00:03:32]:

You jump from one industry to another and try to establish your feet everywhere. In 2019, you co-founded your micro mobility startup in Dubai, and now you’re working as a CEO of City Group. I have two questions.

• You have such a wide experience work as an innovation consultant, strategist pitching new idea to CEO, and now you are working as a CEO and listening to those ideas from the consultants. So how does world look like from both sides from being consultant to CEO? How do you see those ideas?
• And the second question which I want to ask you is a lot of people think about a startup is only for young people and fresh graduates. I mean, you’re still young, so it doesn’t mean your old, but you did launch your startup after a very long professional career in the corporate and consulting world. So any lesson for other executives, who are still not sure about the launching of their own or still thinking about doing something on their own?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:04:28]:

Well, let me answer the first question. And as the consultants, I highly respect consultants. Consulting is a great profession and I advise to all the young people who are starting their careers, they should spend two to three years, minimum working as a consultant. Consulting gives a lot of structure thinking. It gives you exposure to the lot of the different types of businesses, different types of leaders. And it opens up your mind totally completely and opens up for learning new things and keeping yourself abreast with all the latest developments all the time. And, and as you said that since I’m on the other side of the table, I still respect and I still interact with the consultants. I respect that the knowledge and I need to be because we are focusing on one particular industry. These guys, the consultants bring knowledge from different industries, and different sectors and they bring you new technologies. So, that’s how I see the consultants, but another thing, which is very important with the consultants when I see on their side. And sometimes I laugh at it because sometimes they don’t know the operational reality of the life.

Jaspal Singh [00:05:41]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:05:42]:

And one of the highlights of my carrier is that I’ve seen the both worlds. So I can clearly see that what consultant is saying is doable and what is not. So that’s my view on the consultant, but I do respect them a lot. On the startup side, I don’t think that there is any age for startup. And then the very interesting part on the startup is, so I give you two things, right? We are living in a world. If you look at it, the macroeconomic aspects of it, we are in a world where is a digital acceleration. Is that the super-fast speed, right? Or technology exploration is super speed. So the businesses have two challenges. They have to remain relevant if they’re not relevant and they’re not up to speed, they can go out of the business, any kind.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:06:29]:

Right. And the second thing, which usually the use the term called fit for the future, what means is that you got to have a very operationally, you know, very efficient. So operational improvement and continual operational improvements are extremely important. And this is where digital transformation come into play. You know that when you talk about the relevant means your customer facing, when you talk about fit for future, it’s your back office thing. And if you think what it means is in a reality world is you’ve got to be agile and lead.

Jaspal Singh [00:07:02]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:07:03]:

And, and ready for the challenge and change. And what, where you learn this, you’ve learned this in startups. The startups with a great place and platform for me, I have many, few failed few successful startups that the learning is that you have to be on your feet all the night. And when you’re starting and you don’t know what is coming, right. You don’t know. Right. And you should be able to change. As I said, the lean and giant, that’s what is needed. So to me, to my advice, to all the business leaders is very simple. Always remain in a startup mode. That’s how I see it and I love these startups and I’ll continue to do these startups. So as you seen in the recently, I’m still into the startups, not just doing my own, but also I believe in it. I invest in those and support these startups. And I have a good portfolio of investment in these terms.

Jaspal Singh [00:08:03]:

Great thanks for sharing these interesting points and like your first point about consultant. I fully agree being a consultant myself. So I know sometime, you see different world, you get an opportunity, but, the sad point is sometime they are not connected with the operational. Sometime your solution come out from a purely, from a theoretical way on a PPT. That’s what I tell people to be on the ground and see their operation reality first, before making any recommendation, like you can’t just make one change and it’s always has a ripple effect. So as a consultant, you need to understand that ripple effect.

And yeah, there is no age ho launching a startup. It can be as in as 18 or 15 or it can be 70 or 80, and good to see are connected in this world and supporting. Why not?

I wish my kids who are four to launch their first startup by seven or eight.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:08:57]:

Why not?

Jaspal Singh [00:08:58]:

Yeah. that’s a plan probably lemonade stand first and then something else.

Now, following up on my previous question, you had such an impressive career journey and work with amazing company. Why did you decide to join a public transport company? And that is in Kuwait where public transport is not very popular, I guess.

And also if you like to share a little more about City Group and its operation, you have recently mentioned that you created a Digital and Greener Future Strategy 2026. I mean, as a consultant, you will be always thinking about creating some kind of a framework and model to transform the public transport in Kuwait. I would love to know what’s is the background story of moving to Kuwait.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:09:44]:

Interesting. so let me tell you, so I love challenges. I love challenges, and I keep on challenging myself, right? And I love change and transformation, and that’s what you learn. You know, that’s what you learn in consulting. And that’s what you learn in your probably you learn from your, this is in my DNA, simple as that. Let me keep it this way. And another thing which is very important for me is I love to make world more affordable, and livable. Livable place for future generations, right? And there is something after I moved from academic to the business world. So let share a little story. I had few startups when I was a professor, and I invested my own money into it. And lot of efforts and they failed. Reason was that the two reasons one was when you are an academic institution, like IIT Delhi, you are always ahead of time.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:10:44]:

That was one reason. The second thing is you think that technology is everything. You do not understand that technology only do not make money, right? You got to have a commercial and understanding how businesses operate, how they make money, commercial aspect of it. So I decided to do my MBA right. Full time MBA at the age of 35, right after leaving the professorship of IIT Delhi. It was a crazy thing to do, but I just did it because I thought, no, I want to make my startup successful, no more failures. And I will learn the business and then do it. The interesting thing happened is that when after I finished it and I met the chairman and the owner of Laing O’Rourke, who’s a really pioneer in the construction industry. He said to me, there is a 40% waste in, in construction.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:11:38]:

And so in transport. And I said, what is he talking about? What do you mean by waste? At that time, to me the waste was the waste, which you throw every day. And the guys pull you up. But they were talking about all the different types of whatever, six-seven types of waste, which are, which you learn in Six Sigma, the process waste, and that’s all types of waste efficiencies and all that. And that was important. That was the triggering point for me to start thinking. Oh, that waste is serious. That what I got it. And this is what is making world you know, not good. It won’t survive. The world needs to change.

This waste has to come out to make it a place for future generations. Right. And this is where I entered into the construction of it. And what is small little story that I was given a single task by the chairman. I was not civil engineer. I’m a computer science, mathematics scholar, no clue of civil engineering. But he wanted to bring somebody who doesn’t bring any baggage of the construction. He gave one task. He said, I want to build without scaffolding. Then what I did was, and scaffolding was a new term for me. I never knew about it. Yeah. Never heard.

Jaspal Singh [00:13:00]:

It’s new for me too.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:13:03]:

Let tell you what it’s. So, you know, when you see the construction sites and you see all the pillars and everything, where people go up and down. If you think of it, there’s a total nuisance. And why do they have the scaffolding? Because the production of the construction is on site. And that’s where you have everything under control. That’s where you have these wastes and it becomes very risky. People die, falling from different places, unsafe environment to work for people. And it’s dripping water and everything unsafe for the community. And it makes noise. Right? My simple solution was in 2006-2007, this production has to move to a control environment in the factory.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:13:53]:

That was a change and in 2000 I gave them a 70, 60, 30, 0.

70% of the construction product goes to the factory. Right. Okay. You design in a way that you manufacture that reduce a 60% labor on site, because there is, and then 30% your reduction in your program, overall timeline, zero accident, frequency ratio, because now you’re no longer asking people to climb on these poles, right. And the production is in our control environment and zero environmental, you know, impact by offsetting carbon. Right?

And this work was supported by this gentleman and the CEO of this. And we changed this. There was a great transformation. So your whole construction process is rather than Institute construction is, does design, manufacture assembly.

Jaspal Singh [00:14:51]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:14:51]:

And it brought so much of predictability in in the program, in the cost and everything, because you cannot do this until your design is complete, 90% or plan is complete. That was an amazing, it took me 6 to 7 years, literally six years to transform a lot of money, 200 million pounds investment in an advanced manufacturing facility. So you need a to do that. And I was lucky to work with rail work that who had the, and we changed that thing. Believe it or not nearly 30 patents over the 6 years I filed for a construction company. Right now the same thing when I was working, I was very much involved in the number of projects in the transport sector. So I was work involved with the Crossrail were building it at that time in the program management, I was involved with the London 2012.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:15:53]:

And, and I wrote the crossroad strategy anyway. And then and I was also involved from a PWC on the aircraft. So all the aspects. I’ve worked on aircraft carriers. So one of the things is, if you think about the cities where the cities are really suffering is because of the poor public transport in particularly in the Eastern part of the world. Right?

I would say far Eastern Singapore, Hong Kong done a great job, but if you get MENA, Middle east, even India, you know, the transport people is still think that the transport is means people love the cars, right. They think that cars and expensive cars are the public transport, but they don’t even help. I mean, look at it, 40 tons of metal and one person riding it, how good is that?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:16:54]:

So that is one of the reasons why I thought, I think the next transformation when it’s needed. So next transformation needed is the public transport. So if you can make houses, offsite, and bring to this offsite and bring in the city, and if you have a transport, which public transport driven, your cities will become believable places. Ready tight. If you go to city, most of the cities are always, as you know, the anything you design in the cities are designed in the buildings are designed typically in the places. Like London, commercial buildings, most the buildings are designed for 35 years. After 35 years, you need to renew them. So cities are suffering from these continuous cycle of constructions and improvements and everything. And you know, this diversion, that diversion, this, that, right. If you think of it, if you can start manufacturing in the factory, start assembly, we can shorten these periods, could have these nuisance going away.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:17:51]:

And you have a vehicle in which is shared mobility and a kind of a public transport. Cities will do amazing. They’ll become a living place. They will create more opportunities for people to do things. And that’s one of the reasons why I moved it. The next step is public transport. Let me tell you that after this there’s challenge come, it’s all-around environment and all around, you know, how do we make this right. Considering rising.

Now the next question you said about Kuwait was an interesting, because when I was in the middle east, and I was involved in number of projects in Kuwait. I did some transformation projects in Kuwait, as well as I did in Saudi Arabia in Dubai. I noticed that Kuwait is far behind in public transport, and it needs a lot of help in terms of, you know, making the changes quickly and see the results.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:18:54]:

This really creates to me the opportunities as we call in, as we call it the low hanging fruit. I saw that in terms of transformation, where you can make really significant impact in a very quick timeframe and there thought less, that’s a great place. And Kuwait is a city, is a country. And it’s not a very big place to test few new things yeah. In the changing environment and changing world. So I thought let’s do it. And, you know, as I come to the City Bus and City Group, our key brand at City Bus, so we have two businesses. One is the public transport. Second is a warehousing business. Which is for the FMCG takes warehousing. But the key flagship business is bus, which is a red bus, Double-deckers.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:19:46]:

I think we are the only one who have the double Decker. We are the only one in Kuwait which run Double-deckers. Most people don’t believe in that, even the authorities here believe that we run too many buses and we cause the traffic congestions on the streets. Oh. And in the downtown area, particularly. And I talk about, and I think about, you know, what is the one line you say that this is the best public transport. If you have a safe transport, that is you need to do. You need flow transport and a safe transport. That is the true identity of good Transport. So if you think about that what we are seeing is that buses is a great example. The bus is a fantastic example of public transport so that you can move big people. It is kind of a, not a perfect last mile, first mile solution, but it’s still, it’s not very far from there. It covers both sides. If the roads it trusts you.

Jaspal Singh [00:20:54]:

And integrated with other modes.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:20:56]:

Exactly. And so Kuwait doesn’t have other modes by the way, but not many other modes, but we have only system. And I call it. So I divide the whole public transport into three spaces. You have the mass transit, you have micro mobility, and you have a software at a broader level. So Kuwait has the mass transport is only the buses. And there’s a micro mobility, which is mixed of many things. Primarily the people level, the expensive cars and, and gas guzzlers. And I think the pickup trucks are the most popular in Kuwait, as opposed to Abu Dhabi where the Rolls Royce are popular.

Jaspal Singh [00:21:35]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:21:37]:

So City Bus is a 20 years. We have just completed this year, 20 years running the, and we are the market leader. We run, we take about 55 to 60% of the market share. And in terms of the rider shape, in terms of the revenue, as well as the market we run the largest fleet and we run the nearly about, you know, 400 buses, like a double Decker, while overall fleet we run is about 800-900 buses depending on the departments.

Jaspal Singh [00:22:12]:

OK.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:22:13]:

Yeah. And we are digitally, very advanced. Even now we have the City Bus app. You can do a planning and tracking. We use, you know, IT systems to have the live the bus route environment, route information where the buses arriving when the bus is leaving. And, you know, we continuously investing in the operational systems, we have introduced the first digital field management system. Nobody in Kuwait has ever heard of, as well as lot of other technologies, which we are bringing in to have fit, making us fit for future.

Jaspal Singh [00:22:53]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:22:54]:

We also are investing in the new technologies, as you see, in terms of the planning, dispatching, building a new command and control center. We just have all the CCTV cameras, which is IPTV cameras, which in all purposes, which is not also, which is not only helping us, but is also helping the authorities,

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:23:22]:

The city, the government governments, the police and traffic, even if there is any incidents happen around the actually the traffic, the police department comes to us for the video recordings. We do provide them. The video recordings do provide from outside, inside everything, which is a great so this is how this is helping us in the overall transformation and working together with authorities and giving the confidence that we are with them. They’re not, we’re not their enemies. Right?

Jaspal Singh [00:23:54]:

We are private but working closely.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:23:56]:

Yeah. So we, we are private operator, but it’s still, we are the public transport operator.

Jaspal Singh [00:24:02]:

Oh yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:24:04]:

That’s how we want to build our image’s, how we want.

Jaspal Singh [00:24:08]:

And also you’re working in a public space, so you have to cooperate with these civil authorities like the traffic department and transport department and work with them and provide. I love this formula of 70, 60, 30, 0.

I think it can be done for transportation as well. We need to think about how to make it zero emission, extend that kind of stuff in transportation as well.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:24:35]:

Absolutely. I mean, and that’s, and the thing is, it’s a big transformation and we are there, we are moving towards that direction.

Jaspal Singh [00:24:43]:

Great, we learn more about in following question. So my next question is about your professional journey in middle east. You spend nine years of your career in middle east and work in different country. Like you mentioned, you work in UAE, you work in, so you work in Kuwait and I’m pretty sure there must be other country where you have done some projects. And you mentioned that public transport and shared mobility were not a priority in these countries. Most of these countries are car-dependent society, but things are changing dramatically. Now I would say we are seeing investment in rail infrastructure, Metro, light rail, buses, other modes in last 10 years.

How do you think the next 10 years will be different compared to the last 10 years in the middle east, if you would like to share evolving social demographic and technological trend in the region compared to what’s happening was earlier.

Jaspal Singh [00:25:38]:

But I think now society is much more connected and changing. Like you just mentioned, sorry to add one more point is how City Group will be part of this journey. Currently there is no rail system in Kuwait. Like you mentioned, it’s only mass system is the buses and doesn’t have any other infrastructure. So you don’t have an integrated public transport infrastructure in the country, but what are the plan in future? How Kuwait will also emerge as a city, which is investing in this infrastructure and make it much more integrated with other parts of the world.

Like we see a Qatar because of the FIFA game, they have redeveloped their whole country. How do you see other middle eastern countries will follow?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:26:18]:

Well, this is a very interesting question. And I think this is one of my favorite parts, which I share with every forum I speak at. Well, if you look at it fundamentally, what’s happening in the middle east. Fundamentally, if I tell you that they are going through so-called industrial revolution in the Western world, right. Which has right? That’s what is happening in the middle east in kind of industrial revolution or civilization revolution or whatever.

Say you can say political, social, technological in revolution. It’s wider than industrial revolution. If I say they put the industrial revolution brought the same thing, right? That’s what is happening now. And that’s now what is happening is they are catching up. But at this time, same time, they also know that they have to move forward. Fast forward this, because the catching up is too late.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:27:14]:

Right. But the good thing is that, you know, they have, they know what to, they have the learnings from the best. So that’s what is happening. So let me tell you where the way the transport is. So if you look at the fundamentally in any industrial revolution, there are three fundamental things – Communication, Transportation, and Energy. These are the three fundamental infrastructure technologies, which has done the industry revolution.

Look at the first industry revolution, steam press, you got the newspaper, right. Then there was a mode which goes the energy. And then there was a local, you know, was built by the Britishers and it became the transportation, right? Yeah. So communication, energy and transportation. These are the fundamental, the second industry revolution was the, the internet, sorry. Was the, the telephone right? Telephone by the internet was, I don’t believe that internet was a radical change or is really big.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:28:11]:

But the telephone that remotely is talking to each able to talk was the very big innovation, right? That was a communication. Then there was a fossil fuel invented was that in Texas, by the cheap, deep Texas oil. And then Henry Ford will put and build the cars into it. Right? Second industry revolution.

Third industry revolution is now you have the internet, the web, the energy is going into more sustainable, more distributed, your wind energy, solar energy, and, you know, district energy and the transportation changed to Uber. Right?

All digital, IOT based, right? All the mobility, all these mobile apps. That’s the third, I don’t think there is a fourth Revolution. If you ask me what a fourth industry revolution to me is, it’s what’s happening in East, right. What’s happening is middle east of that revolution. Right? So if you think of it for economic development or any economic activities, these three fundamental technologies play critical. I think, and this realization has happened in the middle east, right? So transportation, they are building up the whole transportation system. They have learned that what are the benefits and what are, having these the transports and all. All these you know, the systems, what they’ve seen in the Western world. Let me tell you something very interesting. And you’ll be surprised in Dubai. There was a very interesting system that any public employee going on their own holidays.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:30:01]:

They had to bring wherever they’re going in the world. They had to bring at least two ideas right. After their holiday and to submit to the government and to their departments.

Jaspal Singh [00:30:15]:

Oh, so its mandatory’s like every employee?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:30:18]:

It was mandatory. I don’t think, I don’t know whether it’s there today or not, but it was mandatory, fantastic system. Right. So you go there, you learn and you know, you see these things and these things are like, you know, the knowledge gathering, knowledge collecting System, right?

Jaspal Singh [00:30:36]:

Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:30:38]:

It’s so you see it and out of that, there’s an evaluation process. Then maybe can talk later about it. But what I’m trying to say is that this is what they’re just trying that, what is the benefits? I mean, look at it. They love the cars they’re here. When they go to the Europe, they use the same public transport. Right. And they know it, the benefits now. So Riyadh has, as you know, the south Arabia has invested heavily into the Metro system and buses and everything. The Dubai is continuously investing in it. The question comes, the Kuwait is an interesting place. It’s a small place, small country, small city, by the way, they are, they are planning to they are planning to build the rail system. But as you know, I kind of have a, some sort of an assessment, my own amount of view that it’d be very difficult for any country or city to build the Metro system or rail system so easily because the, the planning and the planning for the rail system and, and the construction takes minimum 10 years.

Jaspal Singh [00:31:48]:

Oh yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:31:49]:

Right. And it takes billions of billions of dollars. Right. And the business case for having those is totally different. It’s very hard to make any Metro system to make profit, right? Yes. If you have an objective to reduce the traffic congestion and all those things, when you’re suffering for it, you need it. You definitely need it. I mean, nothing can beat the system in terms of the convenience in terms of the air pollution, in terms of making life easier for people, you know, but it’s just that you need a big will. You need to build it and have the patience to have that. Now, whether Kuwait will have it. I have no idea, but there is a plan and is plan being, it has been in the past to been reviewed and divided and they’re going to have it most likely to have it because there is always the neighboring countries in the region, within the countries that always a competitive struggle or competitive you know, I’m just missing the word, but spirit.

Jaspal Singh [00:33:07]:

Have competitive spirit.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:33:10]:

Right. And, and then they have to compete with each other. Right. They cannot let themselves behind the other countries, as you know, rail is a major project.

Jaspal Singh [00:33:20]:

Oh yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:33:21]:

Between in the region. And you know, this at the rail project is going forward. Going ahead, there was a point, when we thought that the other rail will not happen, but now it’s being done. Right. They having, right. So the other thing is that the Kuwait not, they have to build the rail infrastructure. I think the best strategy for them is to have not just for the passengers, but have to have for freight as well and connect with the neighboring countries.

Jaspal Singh [00:33:54]:

Right. Yeah I think that’s advantage infrastructure that you can use it for multiple purposes.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:34:00]:

Exactly

Jaspal Singh [00:34:01]:

So the freight passenger it can be good and it can reduce the carbon emission and, and also the traffic on the road. I agree with you, there is a lot of changes. I’m also witnessing in middle east. And like you mentioned communication, energy and transportation are the fundamental pillars for any change. And we are seeing that there is a lot of transformation happening in these space and middle list is going through the transformation and there is a competitive spirit among these country. Yeah. Which is good. And I think that should be the way, you want to be the best place to live. You want to be the best place for people to move around and work. And that’s what these countries are trying to do. And we will see a lot of more development happening in next 10 year where the young people are taking command and changing the cities and changing the surrounding. And, and there is a moment about leaving your car and use the public transportation, the best infrastructure.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:34:56]:

Yeah. I think there’s another thing, which is the young generation part, as you touched upon. I think the young generation is understanding the need for the environmental sustainability. They’re quite, and more concerned about the environment and they they’re choosing and see, they’re seeing that the technology changes and they’re seeing this, these all the things are available to them. They’re not rigid into having the right.

Jaspal Singh [00:35:22]:

Oh yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:35:23]:

And then, yeah. So, you know, I think, I think there’s a bright future. That’s what.

Jaspal Singh [00:35:28]:

Yeah, you are at the right place, at the right time making that revolution and being part of that revolution, which great. Now you are doing a lot of new projects at City Bus as well. Like you mentioned City Bus is investing a lot of digital infrastructure. In fact, I love founder who promote their own brand. You are promoting right now, the city bus shuttle service brand, which you just launched like 10 days back. So firstly many congratulations on this initiative. I think it’s an on-demand bus service you launch in Kuwait. So I would like to know more about this project.

Also what is the business model of this whole City Bus shuttle service in many city, they see on-demand buses as a replacement for fixed line, but I’m curious to know how you’re seeing City Bus shuttle n context of Kuwait. And what is your key objective? Is it to increase ridership or save cost or improve efficiency? What are you going to achieve with that? And do you think this service will help people to move from the private car to public transport? What is you want to achieve with this service?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:36:36]:

Great. So let me just tell you, so this is more of a complimentary service, rather than the substitute for the city bus, right. As I said that we clearly segment three segments – the mass transit, micro mobility, and right. So the mass transit, we have the city buses where we have a separate you know, we have a very clear segmentation of the customer segmentation, right? This is more affordable. This is more for the people who must, could move more people together. Right? Yeah. But then this, we call it this one – CityLink. Right. And it’s a very interesting story. Jaspal, that I attended one of the events with you – IT-Trans.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:37:27]:

You’re talking about on-demand, on-demand and I found that most of these on-demand services are actually run by the public transport agencies, which are funded by the company. Right? Yeah. More of a public organizations. If you see for a private operator, it’s not quite common. And all of a sudden this triggered in my mind that no on-demand is not the right term. Right. So I’ll come back to that. But in terms of the CityLink shuttle, the reason why we needed this micro mobility was because the way the road infrastructure prevailed, and it’s more in most cities, right? The way that the whole, the hierarchy of network is you have the main roles, then you have the crossroad, then you have the, the collector, and then you have the local streets.

Jaspal Singh [00:38:21]:

Yes.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:38:22]:

The public and the local streets and collector rules actually create the need and demand for the last mile or first mile. You know, and if you do not have the first mile or last mile solution, what happens is people pick up the car. And then if they, once they pick up the car, then you are in a car. Now you, you will not go somewhere, park your car, take the mass transit and go to, because you know what will happen? The next same story, right? You’re not at this side. The other side is also, you have a challenge. So that gap was very clear in most of the cities, which is the last mile or first mile gap. And that is, that has become in the last few years, that has become my magnet in my mind. So I had the startup in at least in UAE, which was about the electric scooter startup.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:39:09]:

Took over the last mile. Yeah. Similar thing in considering the temperature room infrastructure. I think that’s not feasible. So what you need is you need to pick up the riders and you need to reach out these shared vehicles, micro mobility, shared vehicles, closer to the people’s phones and closer to the people’s where the people’s appointment places or their office, the way they need to.

Right now the problem, the difference is that when you have a mass transit, when you are a public transport, you have to continue to run on a route, right? Oh, because that’s the nature of the public transport right now. If you want to run on the local street, first thing you will do, the you’ll choke all the roads. Second thing is you’ll burn the fuel and you create a more car CO2, not good for the environment.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:39:59]:

So this has to be something different. So we pick up the term, which is called Demand Responsive Transport DRT, right? So this is not a on-demand. This has more of a Demand Responsive Transport. It’s a shared vehicle based on the digital app and smart behind it. Right? So you basically, there’s a very tricky thing we did. And I think this is quite a unique that we want to make it more profitable. We want to make it a profitable while helping the city while giving the right, you know, the prices, which are not. So one of our pricing point was the kind, the pricing strategy is more than the city bus, the public transport, and less than it actually. And somewhere in between, which is affordable, which is attractive to the people, which you know, which makes people think before they pick up their cars.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:40:53]:

Yeah and the quality of the vehicles and the quality of the vehicles is extremely good. Right? Our buses are fragrance. We use the fragrance because in summer days in Kuwait it’s very hard. Another very interesting thing. If you think about that, where we differentiate the ridehailing service or taxi, the problem is taxi is that I’m not against it because it’s still, we need taxis. Sorry but you’re very close to the driver, right? You’re very close to the driver. If you are, if it’s country or place where the taxi services are not regulated, I’m talking the example of Singapore. And if you are not regulated at the level of the Singapore is regulated or is regulated taxi. You know, the, the taxi user suffered from several things because of the being very close to the driver, this service you’re not talking to driver at driver is operating you.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:41:53]:

You communicating through the driver in the, through the digital system, right? It’s a fully automated driver. Doesn’t need to, you don’t need to interact. And you have a place where it’s a very comfortable, right? You can do your work. You can take a, you can talk, you can listen, music, you can interact, you can do anything, right? Yeah. It’s an end its. And the way we have done it is very optimal way. We have launched this in the core pockets of this. We are not running everywhere. We’re running in the way the demand is we call it. We have a strategy, the two strategies – “chase the demand” and “chase the customer”, right? So this is how the CityLink struggle has been designed, right. Making it more attractive. And so, let me just give you the very interesting customer segmentation.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:42:43]:

This may not work in every part of the world, but it does work in part, call it blue collar, which is the people who have a certain category of people who are work, the construction projects and all that. Then we call it a pink collar. The people who are more skill labor, who are work in a more sophisticated environment, they have a, and then we call it white collar. And then, then the Kuwait, the citizens speak. Yeah. So this service is targeted for people who are skilled people. They skilled people, right. Who work in a sophisticated environment, work like young in an early stage of their careers. They need more affordability. They’re more environmental conscious. Right. And that’s the target market we have kept in, right? This service, we evolve a little bit more into the subscriptions as well.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:43:37]:

So people can book it for the whole month, at the same time, but they can use it as they, as they pay work. Right. And the good thing is what this will do is this will reduce. And this is something we are monitoring. We have started monitoring the economical and environmental impact of what surveys we had started measuring it. Because I keep on saying to everybody, is that if you are not measuring, if you are not recording, you’re not playing. You are practicing. Yeah. We have started measuring. Right. And we really want to measure the, all these impacts that how our surveys is going to create these. So one of the measure is that this service, how many cars we are taking off the streets through this service. That’s one of our key measure measurement.

Jaspal Singh [00:44:28]:

That’s, that’s quite interesting. And how do you do that? Do you ask people?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:44:34]:

We do. We do ask people and then we have a mechanism to see that if you’re moving these many people and we ask these people, how do you, most of these people are using the taxi or their personal cars. Ah, so we have created a feedback form in a little feedback form would be questions. One of the question is right prior to this, how did you travel? And we have the offer taxi city, bus, or car.

Jaspal Singh [00:45:02]:

Okay. So you’re seeing whether it’s taking passengers away from public transport, or it’s taking shared away from these private transport the cars and other mode. This is interesting.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:45:12]:

Its interesting for us, the, the first thing is we don’t want to cannibalize our own business, right? That’s one thing, but still we know that from the people we pick, our buses do not come because these are very tight, very crowded, local streets. They cannot come.

Jaspal Singh [00:45:29]:

You covered very interesting points. You mentioned about that. It’s important to see how public transportation it’s like carbon emission per passenger. So even if it’s a bus but if you’re carrying only five people instead of 40 and so per person, carbon emission may be more than the car. So you need to make sure that your service actually, the overall objective is to reduce the carbon emission purpose. Not just claiming that the bus are more greener than, than the car, because if you’re not doing that, that’s not true.

And secondly, this demand responsive. You rightly mentioned, if you’re not measuring, you are practicing. You’re not playing. So all the public transport agencies, they have to have some kind of a KPIs or measurement to know how the service is actually helping the public transport system or taking away people from the car. Like you said, you don’t want people to get bored with hundreds of questions, just three questions, ask them what they were doing earlier. What’s their future plan and make sure that they get a good service, reliable service or any feedback or suggestion for them and giving this subscription will be interesting. So actually you are you are doing interesting stuff because many of the city, they are not doing subscription. They feel it as like one of the trip. But if you can bundle it as a subscription package it’ll be compelling people to use it every day, rather than think about before starting the journey.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:46:57]:

Absolutely. And then that is what is the, so people have to go to work every day, right? So there has to be a subscription model to do that.

Jaspal Singh [00:47:05]:

In fact, my next question is about your Automatic Fair Collection System AFCS, because you mentioned to me that you are doing some innovation in that area. You’re planning to launch this account-based ticketing as well as Open Loop Payment System in Kuwait. So I’m very curious to learn more about the new ticketing system you’re planning to launch. And what is your plan to integrate other players in Kuwait, including your competitors, Kuwait Gulf Line and taxi operator and any other mobility player. Are you planning to integrate them as well with the AFCS collection system?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:47:42]:

Very interesting. So AFC considering that I have a lot of experience in building writing the strategies in AFC in the middle east and in India. So most people to me, the AFC is not just a ticketing system. It’s not just the ticketing system. It does more than a lot more than this. And the way that the new AFC we are bringing in, it’s not just the ticketing system. It is integrated with the three things. One is, it has the AVL system, automated vehicle location system.

Jaspal Singh [00:48:14]:

OK.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:48:14]:

And then you have the ticketing system, which is, has a pass smart card passes and everything. And, and the, and the third thing is a mobile app, which you do, your planning, your book, your tickets, and you pay for it, take the right and you can have a wallet, right? So, so the AFC is a truly is, is your, it is more than ticketing. That’s, that’s how I, I now the why the, why the, the car-centric architecture was there because there was no 5g. There was no, you know, not money satellites in the space. Very so now it’s, it’s very clear that if you’re bringing a new AFC system, it has to be a account based there there’s no, I think that nobody can go back to the, the card based open loop is interesting because, you know, there are several ways of making. So as I said, there’s smooth and safe transport, right?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:49:09]:

The flow of transport, the mass transit systems need the number of passengers who take the journey and, you know, it’s quite a lot. And in certain times it’s very difficult for any driver to show the tickets easy. So I think that’s one of the tasks aspect is that when you have a mobile app where people can pay through the mobile app, they don’t need to worry about it. And, and that’s how that’s, and this is a, and I would say that this is the way we are saying, we are digitalizing the mass transport.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:49:44]:

Right? Because now ticket system is connected to the passenger information system on the bus stops and person for is just done. Like, what else you need, right? This is like a that digitalization for the customers. From a customer facing side of it. So the interesting bit is that in most of the world, the AFCs like a Noel Card in Dubai, Oyster in London and Octopus in Hong Kong, these are issued by the public transport authorities, right? Not by the private operators because in Kuwait, it’s not done and it’s, we are not seeing any will for it. So we decided to do ourselves. And of course our business model, because this hold our part technology partner and the business model is such why to limit to ourselves, why to limit to ourselves the same technologies. And this is where we are going to do is we’re going to go to even to our competitors saying, you don’t need another technology. You just come and use technology. There’s a really interesting thing I’ve seen in the recently in AFC world or ticketing world that some people do not differentiate between the tick seat reservation in the AFCS.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:51:01]:

They think that you can buy through some planning, you can create a ticket QR code and you validate it. That’s the AFC. No, that’s not AFC. Right. So anyway, there is a bit of an education piece in this part of the world, right? And there is an great opportunity and we are up this whole new you know, business model, a product and service to actually go in other region, like Saudi Arabia, is our target market. Qatar recently have done it, but a lot of private operators. Oh yeah. Because this not just the ticketing system, as I said, this is a full digital solution and that’s what we are doing. And probably, I would say, if you be somebody benchmarks, we we’ll not stop there. Probably I’ll ask you today that we could discuss later, but this will go up to the super app.

Jaspal Singh [00:51:59]:

Yeah, actually, that’s my next question about the super app, because you’re very bullish of building super app, but just to finish the point, you mentioned about the AFC system, and actually that’s true. It’s no more, just a ticketing or payment system. It’s much more. The kind of data you can get through your payment app. It’s much more important for the planning to understand the demand and also understand the journey pattern of people. And that’s why it’s important to have integrated service, a payment service, because then you can cover the people journey from A to B, and then you can understand how they’re moving around the city and you can plan your service. You can plan your route. You can increase the number of buses. If there is more demand to provide a better, like you said, smooth and safe transport option to people.

Jaspal Singh [00:52:46]:

So regarding the super app, many agencies are bullish about MaaS Mobility as a Service. So they talk about Mobility as a Service, but you never talk about MaaS. For you, what is more important is to have a super app. And, and just to tell people what does super app mean? So it’s basically offering multiple services, including payment and financial transaction processing in a single app. So there are good example in Southeast Asia, like Grab and GoTo, which are building super app and quite popular.

But in Middle East also Careem has aspiration to build a super app. And in fact, they outlined their strategy to launch a super app in 2020. And right now they have 11 services, including mobility, food grocery, delivery and they have 48 million user in whole Middle East and 2 million captains or driver on their super app. So it’s a big player to compete with first.

I would love to know more how you are planning to compete, but also what is the plan of City Group to build this super app? And how will you extend other services with mobility? So right now you’re offering mobility, but how you’re planning to offer grocery, let’s say movie tickets, and what’s your feature plan in that area?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:54:01]:

So this is so super app it’s a very interesting area because when you look at It, it’s very much connected to AFC, right? What is AFC, if you think of it, you are bringing, so let me just tell you it’s, to me, I would call it more of it, FinTech solution, right? In the sense what’s happening when people are taking the journey, right. They have to pay first, the money in and money stays there. And they take the journey. Yeah. At the same time, if you can allow people to use, and there is a mobile app, as we said, so there is always an option to generate the transit revenue as a non- transit revenue, essentially. Let’s talk about the metros, right? When you have a ticket, you go, you tap, then the barrier open, and you go inside.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:54:54]:

Exactly. The same thing happens in the museums. The same thing happens in library. Exactly. The same thing happens in cinema theater. Access, for example. So as a strategy in the middle east with one of the public transport authority, when we did this. This is how it happens.. But same AFC card or same AFC app is actually doing the access because what is AFC app doing is providing you access, you pay for it, and then it provides you access to it. Right? So that’s the obvious area for non-transit revenue.

Jaspal Singh [00:55:29]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:55:30]:

I mean, this can extend up to the, to the schools, for example, when school kids are going into the buses that you can do, they can have the same app. You do that there. And then you can provide access to the parents to see that, to the way the kids are moving. Right. Which is people are in developing anything different. Now imagine that on your mobile phones, how many apps you have for different things. Right? But there, isn’t always an opportunity as you see that you have to come up with the ages and business models, right. It just business and other services. So of course, for super app for us is one aspect of this spread is very clearly to provide all of our mobility services because we have range services. As I said, the mass transit, your micro mobility, we’ll have a number of micro mobility services.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:56:20]:

And then we also somewhere or other eventually will bring the mobility. So all that mobility platforms on one, why do you provide one app on the same app? You provide a wallet, right? So that people pay through the one single thing, or the people have the money into the wallet you for now, when you take a journey, it’s very normal that you find the coffee shop, you go and take a coffee right now. You’re not pulling up another card. Right. You’ve seen those magnet cards, you could fill them and then tuck, they come out and you tell it, I hate that. And this whole concept of the physical wallets, the let the bullets is going away, right? You don’t need your device. Your device is enough, right? So when you have that, so you can go because you have put the money into it.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:57:08]:

When you know that this is your transport need, but sometimes, you can use it for things. And business model is simple. Your business model is we will be driving the volume to the retailers through us, and we make a cut out of it right out of that. This is a simple, simple model of any app, which you are talking about, any delivery service you talk about or any other the business model you’re talking about. So our idea is that using the super app, using the wallet, provide the customers, the service at one stop. And as we move, expand our market from COA to the other markets, you know, it’s easy for us to move and, you know, the expose, the services, local services based on the geolocations, right? And it’ll evolve. It’ll continuously evolve more than that.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:58:02]:

There is more than this because we as a group company, we have an airline called Jazeera Airways for example. Okay. So Jazeera Airways is why not? When people are flying into Kuwait, why can’t we have the transport integrated both ways from their side, our side. Right? So one of the biggest problem is when you go to the new place, you say, how am I going to get taxi? Where am I going to get taxi? How am I going to go there? This is a given solution, right? Oh yeah. What is your goal? You finish your journey. You come, you have the City Bus or CityLink bus. You go out. So you pay bucks in your ticket from home to destination to your home, right? So, there are a lot of evolving business models, which are coming in the super app.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:59:00]:

It’s to me, super is a super app is a kind of a hype. But you know, to me, It is a, if we say this, that Careem has a great super app. Look at the Uber has a great super app. I mean, these are the super apps where you provide the transit and non-transit services at one stop, right. There are other things, you know, if you think of the government you pay a fee for a lot of government services, right. And in middle east, it’s little because there is no tax, but there are a lot of government fee, right? You pay.

Jaspal Singh [00:59:34]:

Yeah

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [00:59:34]:

Right. It’s easy to, this can help the government departments to make them cash. Right. The people store this and they pay through this, pay through the super app, which is, I don’t know what we call it, but we are working, designing it because as we are building up all the AFC and the DRT and all those services, which should be part of the same super app, and it’s a great service for great service for the public sector departments, right. For the people to pay, make it easier if they have to renew their licenses, if you have to their penalties anyway, everything you create through this. So you can integrate any service you like, because to me, the most important part as a FinTech is the money in and what you do with this and what, how you help customers. And how do you create your own value? That is the FinTech solution. I mean, one of one side of the FinTech solution, one part of that, that many FinTech solutions. That’s how we seeing it. We are seeing super app as FinTech.

Jaspal Singh [01:00:43]:

That’s great. In fact there is a funny quote with say that “All bank want to be a technology company and all technology company want to be a bank”. So I can say same for transportation. All the transportation company want to be a payment app and all the payment app want to become some kind of mobility, like if you see Apple Pay and Google pay etc. They want to do more work with transit and similarly transit want to develop. So I think there is a middle ground where both will work together. And I think super app is a good thing. It’s just it’s not for all the countries and not all the places. And that’s why we saw in some places it’s more successful than other. And I think in middle east, there is an opportunity because there are a lot of services, like you mentioned, which are not digitalized yet.

Jaspal Singh [01:01:28]:

And I think that’s the opportunity for super app to capture that area. Many of these agencies and authority cannot develop something in-house. So the super app or these kind of digital solution can be easier for them to bring onboard the customers.

Now, my next question is which is kind of unthinkable in middle east two year back. It’s about electric buses. Many cities recently are now looking to induct electric buses and electric taxis. Riyadh has procured their first electric bus. Similarly Dubai is adding electric taxi to its fleet and expanding it. How do you think the landscape in middle east will change the next five year? I just wanted to tap in your consultant experience about how these electrification will take place in these middle Eastern country. And I’m pretty sure there must be a discussion going on within City Group about this electrification plan. So what is a City Group plan to be ready for the future? Like you mentioned, lean and agile, so you have to be prepared for future. So what are you doing within City Bus?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:02:34]:

Interesting. The electric bus is a very interesting thing in middle east. And one of the challenge in electric bus is the temperature

Jaspal Singh [01:02:43]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:02:44]:

And high humidity as well. So imagine you know, the Kuwait, during the summers around this time, the tars temperature can reach to 60 degrees. I mean, I personally have seen a 52-53 degree in when travel, while traveling on the car, I’ve seen that temperature, right? Give you another, another strand that our double Decker buses during the winters, they can do 3.5 kilometers but in summer, they do 1.5 – 1.6 kilometers per liter.

Jaspal Singh [01:03:22]:

It’s like 50%

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:03:26]:

Because of load on the air conditioning system, you have to run the air conditioning system. Very strong air-conditioning system. And we really literally have to switch off to save the batteries and efficiencies. We have to switch off the USBs and number of other things in the machine right now, you have to bring, you want to bring that city electric bus. So one of the major challenge in electric bus is that, you know, the heat is the biggest challenge.

Jaspal Singh [01:03:55]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:03:55]:

So without naming that particular manufacturer, I saw one of the top, the car manufacturer. I went there and I said, okay, how is this car look like I said is great. How many mileages can do in a one single charge? Oh, this can do 300 kilometers. Okay. But if you switch off this, if you switch off this, if you do this, and then then later on, he came down and said, yeah, but if you are running the heat weather, you run during that evening and mornings.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:04:24]:

Well, but if you are running the heat and then 300 kms reduced down to 250 kms, so it’s a challenge, right as the technology, right? And particularly in terms of the battery, I don’t see any other problem, but the heat and running the heavy air conditioning is a challenge. Now, electric charging infrastructure is another very big challenge because you need to build that infrastructure. Now, in order to build it, you have to have a clear business case. You have to have them, you know, on a normal line, the electric lines, you cannot run. You need to build a new substation together. Totally a new infrastructure to have the charging platform, because so let me give you, our example, our city buses in a day, they run literally 16 hours on the roads and each bus blocks really nearly around 500 to 550 kilometers a day.

Jaspal Singh [01:05:26]:

Oh, that’s long.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:05:28]:

Right? Because this is how the public transport is. And the way that the old city is when we think of the electric bus, when you are in single charge, you can get the best electric bus charge, say 300-350 kilometers. And with all those factors it down to two, where do we do the business? Right?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:05:51]:

That’s the biggest challenge into now that if you look at the other region from a consultant, if I see it Abu Dhabi, we tried one, and the results were very discouraging, right? Dubai is being a very innovative city and they want to do everything first in the world or something they have decided to go for it. Dubai weather is considering that other than the humidity is much better, a lot better than, in terms of the heat. And then the way he has the other motor transport, they can work around, right. They can work and they can have some part of what we can happen right now. Qatar is an interesting one that because of Qatar had a pressure they are using the same buses from same manufacturer, which we are the part, which we are the distributor as well in Kuwait. So we know how that these technologies work, they’re pretty good decent buses, but they had no choice. They have to do it for FIFA, right?

Jaspal Singh [01:06:57]:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:07:00]:

The question is that we also have a plan to bring electric buses and do the testing. We are doing all that. The first thing is the cost is very expensive. The second thing is the operational challenges, as I said, explained to you, and we don’t know, we still are trying to watch that, how the co experience, how the, the way experience work before we bring in into it. But a very interesting thing, what we started it. And as you know, so yeah not promoting it, but they’re great. We are exploring hydrogen not going the electric. We go hydrogen, to me, that makes more sense.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:07:46]:

That makes a lot more sense than electric, right? Because if we tend to think of in present time, we don’t think of the whole life cycle of it. What do we do with these batteries, right. How these batteries look at it. What, sometimes we always in middle east look for the city benchmarks to, towards the west. And this time I said that the west would look for the benchmark from Kuwait to understand the, how we run our lives at 60 degree temperature.

Jaspal Singh [01:08:25]:

Oh yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:08:26]:

Right. So as a strategy, I don’t want to rush into the electric process because they’re expensive. First of all, and having one or two buses is not going to help us and it’s not going to do anything. I would rather wait and see how this spends out. The test programs are better in the UAE and if they are successful and they’re successful, they’re going, taking ahead. We have fully committed to bring this into operation because one of our strategies is that to make it greener. And that is one of the reasons, if you see our fleet is probably the youngest fleet in the region, I would say, right. We are continuously buying new and we are throwing away the old fleet so that we remain very efficient. We remain greener as much as possible considering what is available in the country.

Jaspal Singh [01:09:29]:

In the market. That’s an important point. You mentioned about the electric bus is the heat and the challenge to operate in such an extreme condition.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:09:38]:

That is correct. And there’s no point, I mean, to me, I’m not hundred percent sure whether you know, it’ll not forecast the fire, I’m not sure there are incidences, right. It is in expensive that after the accident was in the garage and it caught fire. Right. And imagine here you are sitting on the hottest temperature where you can get, you just need a spot.

Jaspal Singh [01:10:06]:

Right? Oh yeah Hydrogen is an interesting technology. In fact I had a lot of conversation with people. It just, people feel that it will take more time for hydrogen to be more commercially available as well as make any business case. Right now it’s too expensive. I mean, even electric buses are expensive, so hydrogen is even more expensive and also the supply for fuel and all, but I’m pretty bullish about hydrogen technology. And like you said for electric buses have other challenges, what really do with the batteries after end of their life. So although there are new companies, new startup emerging, which are trying to recycle those battery, but at the same time, if you can have hydrogen vehicle. And in fact, I was reading in China, they’re investing heavily now in hydrogen, and Japanese are investing in fuel cell.

Jaspal Singh [01:10:56]:

Also, there are a lot of testing going on for hydrogen in North America too. So it’ll be interesting to see. I mean, you also mentioned about that like the guys who are selling these electric buses, putting so many conditions for you not to do this, not to switch on the Aircon. There was a funny joke about a guy was selling an umbrella, and the other person asked will it last long? And he said, don’t use in rain and sun, it will last long forever. So I think for electric buses too, you don’t switch on aircon. Don’t go on a high gradient at all and the battery will last long for 300 kms.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:11:35]:

Funny, this is a more of a practical side of it, which is, you know, you cannot have considering that the extreme weather and extreme conditions.

Jaspal Singh [01:11:44]:

Yeah, it’s one need to understand the local conditions.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:11:49]:

Yeah. You can’t follow the blindly, but let me tell you one more. We are not, we trying everything possible. We are, we have, experimenting bio diesel.

Jaspal Singh [01:11:59]:

1. That’s Great

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:12:00]:

We have tested and have tested running our buses. We have tested the results. They are there encouraging, but the only problem is that it’s expensive. First of all, bio diesel is expensive and it’s not enough. It’s not enough to run, you know, the fleet of 500 vehicles, the full fleet.

Jaspal Singh [01:12:19]:

But at least you’re experimenting, which is good. At least you like, If you make it.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:12:23]:

All our effort, maybe in certain cases where it’s required we will be able to run it.

Jaspal Singh [01:12:29]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:12:29]:

And we that’s good run our buses. We have. Yeah.

Jaspal Singh [01:12:34]:

Makes sense. It’s like you mentioned, idea is to explore and be always in a startup mode. Even if you are a CEO for a big company, but you always need to be a startup mode and think about what’s coming next and how to experiment.

And in fact, my next question is about your innovation strategy side, because you are involved in the innovation space for quite long, like you mentioned construction industry, then working in PWC. You, co-authored the innovation strategy for Crossrail London. I saw the document quite impressive and later developed that Dubai Innovation Index which was very interesting to see comparing Dubai with many other cities around the world on innovation side, and also develop our innovation strategy for RTA at the Road Transport Authority for the Dubai.

What are your key learning from all these project? Also my point is many organization, especially the big one. They develop innovation blueprint, but fail in execution. So they have a big document, but when you go and ask these innovation, how they’re using it, you see certain gaps. How can public transport organizations build an innovation culture? That’s an important point. Not just having a document, which is prepared by a consultant like you mentioned, which is probably a way from operational reality. So how can public transport organization can really build a real innovation culture within their organization?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:14:00]:

That’s a great question. And let me tell you the, the one thing I learned by developing these numbers of innovation strategies, I mean, there are many more than what you’ve. So first thing, what I learned is that innovation means different things to different people, different organizations.

Jaspal Singh [01:14:19]:

Oh, yes.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:14:20]:

Right? and the most important part value developing the innovation strategy. If you want this to be a successful strategy, first thing. And the most difficult thing is to define what innovation means to that organization and the people of the organization. That is, that is the most fundamental thing. Right. I can tell you, my definition of innovation is very simple, right? That an idea that converts into commercialization that can the idea that generates money, or it generates value for a public sector organization or a not for profit organization, simple definition, but that’s not enough. You have a very clear understanding and work with the people what it means. So give you an example of it. This is the two great examples crossrails. The crossrails strategy, what it meant for crossrail innovation means was the cross rail was saying, look, we do so many major projects. We do so many brick projects. Every time we go back to come back to the white board and we start fresh. We do not learn from past, we do not get on moving forward, the IPS to the next level. And then these there is, nobody’s been incentivized for the IPs to generate, develop IPs. We have done so many fantastic projects in the United Kingdom with no patents around them.

Jaspal Singh [01:15:45]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:15:46]:

There’s nothing, no commercial value. And we are not even created a value so that we can say, okay, now the UK Crossrail can take this and go and sell it to others, it is commercialization. So to me, that wants to be it’s like wants to be millionaire, manufacturing process, right. That you can repeat it and you can make it multiple times. If you look at the major infrastructure projects in the UK, I was involved in London 2012 Olympic Park Terminal 5. And then I got involved in the Crossrail and there was a previously I studied the English Channel tunnel. Nobody’s keeping any legacy or anything like IPs had been transformed through the individuals, not like as institutional IPs. So the whole idea behind the Crossrail project was that we want to build something, which we can take it to the next and make progress through these IPs and these IPs and take it to the past legacy rather than just have this project. It is like within that project.

Jaspal Singh [01:16:53]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:16:54]:

So that was the whole main objective of the crossrail project and there was a more, the biggest success. The important part was the IPs model.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:17:03]:

So the problem is that most of these major projects are delivered under a master slave kind of a contractual, right? Yeah. I’m the client, you are the contractors, you do it, whatever do it, there is no collaboration, right? So the IPs model was fantastic. IPs model was you work on this project, you create the innovation, whatever the IPs you create. The Crossrail said, we will put in some money into the idea. Crossrail will match it, whatever the IPs generated you crossrail project, get for free, but then you own it. And if you say there were four drives and number of stations. If you come up with a new idea on a four protractors right on the project you share free, but later on you commercialize it.

Jaspal Singh [01:17:58]:

Interesting.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:17:59]:

That was a triggering point. And that was the idea of the Crossrail innovation project strategy together objective was different. Now we come to the public sector, RTA innovation strategy is totally different idea. The one of their objectives was they want to show the continuous innovation, they want to show the countries and they want to become the number one in certain services. They want to become the most attractive place, the world tourist to place and make it, you know make the way as a tourist attraction. So their objectives were totally different. They wanted to bring new services, innovative services and the new ideas and, and make things totally look different. So their strategy was, there were three pillars, so they wanted to lead, they wanted to Excel and they wanted to showcase that we are the transport service, which is benchmark across the world.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:18:55]:

Because they were tired of benchmarking, you know Hong Kong and Singapore and London and the Los Angeles. So that was the whole objective of the strategy, and of course considering that this strategy came out of Dubai Ruler – Sheikh Mohammed strategy, the wise strategy yeah. By 2050 becoming Dubai as the most innovative city in the world. So they were all the public sector departments have to roll up to that. And by the way, they didn’t stop there. There was a 2071 vision, they will complete the hundred years of the independence. They want the vision for that. Very interesting thing to share with you when you do such a long vision, your forecasting method don’t work.

Jaspal Singh [01:19:55]:

Oh yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:19:57]:

Because this is not linear exploration.

Jaspal Singh [01:19:59]:

That’s what I tell people. Innovation is never a linear.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:20:02]:

Yeah. So, we call it a fore sighting. So start there at the top and then you just then work backwards. Right. So one of my prediction, one of my foresight was at that point was, you know what, the, currently you have a road condition problem in 2071, this road traffic would reduce to half.

Jaspal Singh [01:20:27]:

Okay.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:20:29]:

So I was challenged that how come this will happen? I said, let me tell you, you have to go back to the humans’ fundamental needs, you know, a Clayton Christian word called Job to be Done.

Jaspal Singh [01:20:43]:

Jobs to be Done.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:20:44]:

So if you think of it, why do we move? Why do we travel every day in the morning? Because we have to go to the work, we have to interact considering the, all these new technologies and what pandemic has shown us, the accelerated, the virtual meetings and everything, and the work from home culture, why would we go travel? Why do I need to go right at the peak hours? I will go when I see, there’s no traffic. Only way we need humans. We need a physical interaction in some form or other in face to face. So if you think of that, and then you take it to 71, even I’m saying half, it might go back to, it might go back to the one. Right? Can I share one very interesting thing, which I did for a consultant.

Jaspal Singh [01:21:37]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:21:38]:

The US airports, their 40% revenue comes from the parking

Jaspal Singh [01:21:47]:

40%. That’s huge number.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:21:49]:

There are 40% revenue in the US airports come from parking right, now with the autonomous parking revenue you go away. Right. So I did it for, without naming the, the organization, there is a design engineering firm for which I did the innovation strategy, particularly in the transport sector, it was made it very clear. So every single future project, which is being designed in the US, it designed to consider the autonomous vehicles.

Jaspal Singh [01:22:24]:

Very interesting.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:22:28]:

At the end of the day, it’s not going away. It’s the change, right? Because these autonomous vehicles to go and park somewhere, they need a home somewhere. And that people will not own it. Or I own my autonomous vehicles when I can order it and arrive. And I just use it, finish it. Right.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:22:49]:

So I mean, the other industries, I also have experience, but I’m saying that’s now.

Jaspal Singh [01:23:03]:

That’s huge

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:23:04]:

This is example of the innovation strategy for a design engineering firm. How should they go and tell and how should they do work with them?

Jaspal Singh [01:23:14]:

You share some very interesting point. One is the future traffic projection. You can’t just have a linear approach and think, right now we have 50 people, 50 on the road tomorrow it’ll be 60. And then after 10 year, it’ll be 80. Probably it’ll be 20. Like what happened after pandemic? What you predicted for 2070 I think is becoming true in 2022 because not many people are traveling. People are reducing their travel for work and they’re going on their own time.

In Europe, there are more traveler in the public transport during weekend than on weekdays because people love to go on leisure trip than, than on work trips. So we are seeing already seeing those changes. In fact, Uber release their quarter 2 earning. And one of the interesting factors, their ridehail trips increased by 55% over the year.

Jaspal Singh [01:24:09]:

But their delivery trips also increased by 7%. So there is no correlation that that the ridehailing will increase and the delivery will stop. Like it’s not that people will stop ordering food online. So both will grow, but some will be more pace and some will be lower.

So I think what you’re predicting for 2070 is true. Probably you don’t need wider road, probably you need other kind of infrastructure. And, and that’s sharing that facts about, I think for public transport also, it’s not only for the airport it’s for public transport of nation. Also, it’s important to understand there will be a fair revenue and there’ll be an unfair revenue, and they have to think about those alternative method.

I can now connect with your idea of super app because you feel that’s a way to grow. You become a FinTech company rather than just become a mobility company and just provide buses. But you provide end to end services to people, whether it’s paying their parking bill, paying for their grocery, paying for movie tickets and all, and do everything in one service. So thank you for sharing that. It’s quite interesting as a consultant, I can see how to bring together all these pieces.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:25:17]:

Great.

Jaspal Singh [01:25:18]:

So now I actually want to talk something which is very close to your heart. Startup startups are important for fostering innovation in the mobility sector. However, it’s not an easy space to work. As you have to deal with policymakers, and city officials, you have to work with public sector organization especially in the mobility world. You were a startup founder yourself and launch Arnab Mobility to operate micro mobility and escooter operation in UAE. And you have a firsthand experience of entrepreneurial life, which I’m sure it was not easy during that time, but now you’re on the other side of the spectrum and you’re a CEO of a transport company. And you must be meeting a lot of startup founders who are coming to you to do pilots or projects and exploring some project opportunity, paid project opportunity with you. So, any lesson would you like to share with both founders and the public transport operators being on both side. How do you promote innovation at City Group? Do you have a special program to engage with startup? Do you mentor these people are, how do you work with this startup in the company?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:26:26]:

I mean, this is one of the questions, which I always love to share my experience with the founders and the entrepreneurs. So let me start with the first part of it, which is about the policy makers and how difficult is the life you know, getting the policy authorities approvals and, and getting the policies done. So, one of the things, if you look at the, the startups, look at the startups like Uber or startups, the electric scooters, one of the great examples, the startup autonomous vehicles, you know, one of the test for a real innovation is basically if there is no regulation exists, that means you are on the right path, right? If you have a regulation means this is not innovation, this is already existing, right? This is just a, you’re doing an incremental improvement. You’re not innovating something. So considering that in mind when I was working with this start, this startup, you mean the previous startups. And in my experience, I developed a very interesting model. I call it eight layer model.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:27:29]:

Any entrepreneur, any startup company or any startup entrepreneur has to go through these eight layers and at test your idea against these. Let me explain what are these eight layers? There are a couple of layers, which is talk about the demo, right. That who needs it, what’s the use cases for it and how they’re going to, what’s the problem statement of it, right? The second couple of layers are all about the supply. How you going to do it? What is the mode of it is a technology platform or it’s a physical platform, or it is going through your supply channels. How you going to do the supply for it?

Jaspal Singh [01:28:09]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:28:10]:

And so leaving the middle layer out, then the next comes is infrastructure. Part of it. The bottom, the layer is about infrastructure. Part of it, the infrastructure part is important because that’s where, you’d say where the funding is coming from. You know, what platforms you need and other things there’s, of course there is a layer which talks about the technology platform as well, but the most important thing, which most entrepreneurs do not think, and they ignore that and they never budgeted for it as well. It’s the legal advocacy, the policy authority layer.

Jaspal Singh [01:28:45]:

Yeah. Right.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:28:46]:

You have to budget it have to help the person who is helping you in opening it up. You have to about working with the regulators and makers, whichever have that. And it comes with the cost. Yeah. So when you’re going for funding, or we are allocate, developing, building your budget, you have to have that, right. Give an example, very simple example of the, when you are doing this mobility, right? You just go for a bid. They need, when you, when they go for, we work with the RTA and the Abu Dhabi authority, you go there and you talk to them when they finally, after that, they decided to bid for it. Now, when you’re bidding for it to get the location, you have to have a bid born, you have to performance, and funding, right. And then they said, for the scooters when you’re running it you need to have a number plate license plate, and you have to pay plate. Right. You never thought.

Jaspal Singh [01:29:49]:

Never budget those things.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:29:51]:

And sometimes to you legal best layer, which is, I call it a fundamental second last layer, which is mostly ignored by the entrepreneurs. Right? So that model is a very good test for any entrepreneur to test whether this idea is on the right path or not. And once you’ve done it, then helps you build your own business plan, your operations plan and everything, right. Marketing plan. And how do you go to market strategy, your customer market. So that’s the one part. And then second part, as you, as you said, what I learned, I mean, what as a CEO, what I’ve learned and where that the mature businesses should look for these startups and how they support them. So let me tell you that the thing is that right now, the way we are in a technology acceleration phase to me, every business is somewhere or other is on a startup phase. The businesses is like a software platform, right?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:31:03]:

Just like I give this example. So when I say, show them that, look, you have this card. When I show you test, what do you see? That’s not, there’s every time you upgrade the software, the functionality changes. It’s changes completely. It’s a new product altogether, right? We are in the same, right. In the mobility sector today, you see where the mobility is today is right in the middle of many things. You’re talking EV, you’re talking hydrogen, you’re talk fuel cell, you’re talking digital, the mass mobility. You’re talking autonomous. You talk, I don’t know. All sorts of things, right?

Jaspal Singh [01:31:41]:

Yeah.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:31:42]:

So there are we in the mobility space, we are in a start phase, right? You’re in the start phase, people are talking, you can do the fleet management this way. You can do the planning this way. So to me, and then the customer’s behavior is such it, because the customers are saying, but if I can get my food ordered through a Uber Eat or something through my mobile phone, why can’t I get my the mobility solution on that? Why can’t get my right. Do that. Right. So the people, they got so much exposed to these technologies. So we are all in a startup mode. So there is no way, we can stand still, no way we can, we cannot survive without doing that. Right. So to me, the way I look at it, the way as a company, we look at it for the startups is we, we don’t wait for companies, come have a program.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:32:33]:

We comes and to have a part of the section in our team who constantly looking for the ideas and, you know, anybody who comes through our social media platforms, anything just them OK. For us, every idea is a great idea. We do not throw any idea. It’s just that what is about priority. Yeah. Where we want to go, where it fits in strategy. That’s how we look at the ideas. But more than that, we also take a very active role in it. We scout for the new technologies because we know we know what we need. And we also continuously scout, we reach out to the entrepreneurs and we are open and we have created in our budgets, a fund for developing the IPs, developing the technologies further and implementing for our needs.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:33:27]:

So as a City Group we are always looking for technology and we are currently working with couple, you know, the new startup, new partners and helping them develop and working very closely with startups, giving them the platform to prototype recently. And for like a startup, they wanted to experiment the bio diesel. Well, the diesel is plenty in the country, but bio is not enough, but still the people love KFC. Right. There’s enough bio-oil. So the university did research and then, there’s a company which is trying to produce the biodiesel out of the used cooking oil. We openly help them, gave them our buses, our platform, and tested these biodiesels. You know, if you know the chemistry, we just, based on the chemistry, we said, well, let’s go do it.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:34:27]:

The good news is that we were succeeded in that we could run our vehicles and is also very encouraging. That’s great. So, you know that way we are very open to it. And I think this is my advice to every single operator or company in the mobility sector, because mobility sector, I think in the next, at least in next two years has to go through a tremendous number of changes. Technology and all our technology changes, whether it’s a technology in the pure sense, not just the computer technology or telecom technology, I’m talking about technology.

Jaspal Singh [01:35:04]:

Oh, yeah.

 

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:35:04]:

In terms of the hydrogen fuel and everything. So in the next two years going to be very exciting and, you know, lot of the new startups have to come and a lot of new ideas have to be in that space. I call it as a people used to call golden era. I call it platinum era for the mobility sector right now.

Jaspal Singh [01:35:27]:

I love your answer – platinum era for mobility sector. And, I think what you said is absolutely right. Every company need to be in a startup mode because the way we are seeing transformation happening in the mobility sector, I mean, next two year, we will see a major push. And like you said, technology, a lot of people think it’s just a software and a device, but technology mean everything. You know, your engine technology, your operation. It’s also mean how you are managing your fleet and running your depots and providing services to people, and for startup that’s the biggest test. If there is no regulation, if policymaker has no clue, it’s innovation or is something new. If they already have a regulation for you, then it’s not a innovation.

Jaspal Singh [01:36:16]:

For example, Urban Air Mobility. Now, every city is thinking about how should they regulate. There is a, there is a regulation for airplanes and helicopters and drone, but now urban air mobility, nobody has any regulations. So they are now thinking about it now, thanks for sharing this. And I really love your perspective. It clear to check whether that idea fit into innovation or not.

Now my last question is about the startup’s ecosystem in middle east.

We all are very surprised to see how the startup ecosystem has evolved in middle east in last decade. I would say in for five years after seeing Careem as first company coming out of it, but now you’re seeing more and more company coming from the middle east, especially from Dubai, which is emerging as a crypto hub and Riyadh which is emerging as a startup hub as well for middle east, as well as for the world.

Jaspal Singh [01:37:09]:

Now we see company like SWVL from Egypt, which is global. They are serving clients everywhere around the world. So how do you see this? The startup ecosystem will evolve in next decade in middle east. What are the area where we see major thing happening and any advice you would like to share with the founder who are building company in the middle east, or who are looking to enter into the middle east because you, you work in that region for so long. So you know, how the system work how are things changing? So what is your advice?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:37:44]:

Great question. I mean, I think the, interestingly the way the shift is happening, the shift from you know, when about a decade ago, when we thought about the startup ecosystem, it was the Silicon valley, that’s it. Right. And then how others have started picking up, and trying to build the ecosystem and trying to double up the same. They’ve started seeing that, how startups can add the big value in a very short period of time. You know, they reach to the growth and very quickly on the growth curve, if they’re the good ideas. The one fundamental call concept. Let me tell you the way that the things are interestingly happening. So few years ago, RTA had innovation index for comparing the cities’ competitiveness in terms of the innovation, and we compared and we did it particularly for the Dubai and this project actually won the Dubai excellence award from the Dubai government, and one that world chamber Congress award.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:38:50]:

The interesting piece was that, that every country, every city is good at something. And then we had a scoring mechanism to put at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ranks among the top 30 cities. Then you can compare in each element who’s doing what and which, so the idea was that Dubai look at what, in this particular area who’s doing better and you’re not doing it. So you developed your policies to go to that, right? So let me tell you scientifically, it was great. But if I summarize that the way innovation index, we did almost five editions of this, right? The way going up and down, every city going up and down and pandemic has another effect. In essence, there are only two things on which two, the cities compete in world in terms of the innovation it’s FDI Foreign Direct Investment, and the talent.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:39:45]:

And it’s a vicious circle. If the city has the foreign investment, you have the talent. If you have a talent, you have a foreign direct investment. In summary, if I summarize you, if there are only two things, these are only two things, there’s nothing called third thing in it. And this is what exactly what is happening. Wherever you have a funding, you get top talent comes with that. Now the challenge, it’s not just the middle east, it’s every other part of the world. Every good city is trying to build this and you know what, maybe the funding is not the problem, but the talent. Not every part of the world has the right talent, what you needed. The third element I’ll come back to you is about IPs as well. The IPs regulations, generation, creating the value IP value and making it, allowing monetizing the IPs.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:40:40]:

That that’s something important. That’s the third thing. But it’s output of it, not part of these two. Now, if you look at the, the places like why the Silicon valley part successful is very clear, right? The numbers of university and education system, and old education system, looking at the incubators in Cambridge and Oxford, you know, the age of the Cambridge in Oxford, Oxford is 900 years old. Cambridge is 800 years old. So, this whole, the talent and the sustained talent building of that, it takes time. It takes effort. It takes a longer time, right? There is no shortcut to it. There’s absolutely no shortcut to it. Right? So this challenge will remain with the developing economies, which are trying to develop these new innovation ecosystems, like at Riyadh or Saudi Arabia or any other part in the middle east, they will always struggle with that.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:41:38]:

They will always have to be the conscious that they have in order to build this ecosystem, this higher education research ecosystem. Yeah, and I think there is focus on it, but there are certain things you cannot buy. Talent is one of them. You cannot, even if you can attract the talent when the next comes retaining the yeah and that challenge will remain these countries. So, they’re doing great. They’re doing great. They’re supporting it. They’re making it easy. They’re providing all the support what is needed, and you know, how long they become sustainable is always remaining question mark, but I wish them all good luck all the best right. Another thing is if you don’t make efforts, you don’t get it.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:42:35]:

So, I really appreciate this effort that what the efforts be made to create these startups and that creating these ecosystems. But a lot of work is needed. A lot of work is needed to compete and build this as a sustainable ecosystem. Right? So, if the advice to the founders to coming to the middle east and everything. It’s a great part. It’s a great platform, but you know, most important part is, as I said about IPs, focus on your IPs and focus on developing a global IPs, not just the local IPs or making sure that IPs are protected. IPs are properly developed and not necessarily go for the patent ordinance, go for the global patents and things like that. But it’s an IPs which you have focus on because then IPs is transferable. IPs are right. You can take IPs, you can go any part of the, you can do that.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:43:38]:

In order to select the market considering the middle east is a great place to go to test your idea and do that because they’re more flexi in terms of the helping you develop or getting you the policies and the regulations around it. So getting the regulations sorted out takes a lot longer, then it’s easier to get it done in the countries, which are developing and aspire to the way it was the probably the first UAE. I would say the first country where you had the Minister of Artificial Intelligence, right? Yeah. It’s that. So if you have IPs, which is your IPs, these markets are great platform and great platform to launch your the products, and test and prototypes. Markets are not big. That’s true. But they, you have to go look for the bigger markets where you have the scale, but for testing everything, these platforms are good and they have double of the good right ecosystem.

Jaspal Singh [01:44:48]:

And that’s a great answer. And I love what you mentioned is that there is no shortcut to success. So it’ll take time for these countries or city to build ecosystem. Not every city can be Silicon Valley, but at the same time, there are seeing these green shoots of innovation happening in some of these places. The funding is coming. The VCs are setting up base in middle east, and now things ruling out and the talent is important thing. And if you look at country like Singapore, that’s what they have. They have a great amount of talent, and then it attract FDI. And then the virtual cycle starts the talent lead to more investment and investment lead to more talent coming to the country. And I think middle east also is on the right path.

Jaspal Singh [01:45:30]:

A lot of people are going back now after studying outside in states and in UK, they are going back and setting up base there. But I like your advice. It’s a great place to work. Just be, make sure about your IPs and then regulation. You can get it done, not very easily, but at the same time, people listen to you and probably they can create. And Dubai, especially they are the first one to create regulation for Urban Air Mobility or Drone, which is remarkable because they start thought thinking about these things. I remember it’s like three-years back, when nobody was even thinking about it. So they start early. These are good place to work.

So thank you, I love our conversation. We discuss about transit. We discuss about technology. We discuss about latest trend in innovation, but now it’s time for a rapid-fire question round. And I’ll ask you five question and you need to answer them quickly.

The idea is to know more about your personal site rather than just your professional journey. So if you’re ready, I’ll start my questions.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:46:32]:

Yep. Please fire. I’m ready.

Jaspal Singh [01:46:34]:

Okay. Always ready. So if you are not in academy innovation or consulting sector, what other profession you would’ve selected?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:46:42]:

Well, professional golfer.

Jaspal Singh [01:46:44]:

Yeah,

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:46:45]:

But that’s what I would’ve selected. I would love to be, cause that’s the game I love. And if we done astronaut, cause that’s my passion. I love to go and explore.

Jaspal Singh [01:46:58]:

Yeah, I think you are one of the future candidates for this Blue Origin or Virgin Atlantic flight. So probably going to the space very soon and experience that gravity and weightlessness.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:47:12]:

Absolutely. just waiting for the few more successful.

Jaspal Singh [01:47:19]:

Not to be an early risk taker in that’s against now you have travel. In fact, you not only travel, you lived in different part of the world. So my next question is, which is your favorite city in the world?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:47:35]:

It’s London. And I love for the reason that it’s a very cosmopolitan, it’s a city where you can be me by yourself. Nobody ask you who you are. And it’s just, you know, is vibrant. It’s just a fantastic place to live.

Jaspal Singh [01:47:55]:

Yeah, I think that’s

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:47:58]:

So my home is just outside the London, but I like to be in Lebanon all the time.

Jaspal Singh [01:48:06]:

No, it’s a great city. And like you mentioned, it’s a cosmopolitan, nobody ask you, where are you from? And other good point of these cities that you can experience and taste different culture, different food, and meet different people around the world in a same place. So it’s like a mini world in a one small city. Now you love transit. You use public transport, you’re working in this sector. So you must be using public transport in whichever city you’re visiting. So which city has the best transit network in the world?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:48:36]:

Well there’s no one west, but I have to the London for the accessibility and approachability. And it’s ease of getting the public transport, but Singapore is comparable. And it’s probably the same level. But in terms of the quality, I would say the Singapore is the quality of the public transport, the need and clean, and the nice, the public transport services that.

Jaspal Singh [01:49:06]:

Yes, and it’s new. Singapore is new and London is a little bit old. So that’s also reason it make a little bit different, but London is more interconnected, and Singapore is like you mentioned, it’s better managed and clean. And so it make it a little different, but both our amazing system, I’ve been to both side of the world. So I’ve seen both the system. It’s amazing. Now my next question is which is your favorite in the sector?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:49:38]:

Me in mobility sector – Uber. I would give all credit Uber. They were the pioneer; they were the first one to transform into the shared mobility and the digitalization and all that. So I would give a lot of credit to them.

Jaspal Singh [01:49:51]:

It’s my past employer. I worked with Uber for one year. So love that answer. And, I think Uber, one thing they did is they start this whole concept of on demand economy and sharing economy, which was not there. But after that, we see a lot of innovation in that space and a lot of work happened in that space. So, I like your answer.

Now, my last question, if you can change one thing in the life, what would it be?

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:50:17]:

Well, being a transport sector and person, I would say remove, I will delete all the cars from that.

Jaspal Singh [01:50:25]:

All the cars.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:50:27]:

Yeah. So the car free world is that’s what my dream is.

Jaspal Singh [01:50:31]:

Yeah. I think in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. They are building this new, which is 170 miles long city with no roads and no car. So it’ll be very interesting to see that experiment, how people will accept that change because we born seeing the road and connectivity and cars. So once you remove the road and the car from the life, how the life will look like, so we will see that. Great. I loved your answer.

Thank you so much, Dheeraj for your great insight. I really loved our conversation and learned a lot from your experience. You have such a rich experience in consulting and innovation in transport and construction. I love something really new about construction as well. So thank you for sharing your time and thoughts with us.

Dheeraj Bhardwaj [01:51:17]:

Thanks for giving to share of this stage in my career that my past knowledge, and I love that. Thank you very much.