Unlocking the Potential of Smart African Cities 
Smart, Sustainable, Inclusive and Prosperous 

​In the for the African cities covered in this book, Cape Town, Nairobi, Dakar and Lagos, a smart city is viewed as a sustainable, inclusive and prosperous city that promotes a people-centric approach. Read more.
The book Smart Economy in Smart Cities is  the product of in depth city research case studies in 13 cities to explain how a smart economy changes the urban spatial system and vice versa. Read more.
AUDI & GORA CORP  LINK RESEARCH  TO  POLICIES 
AUDI & GORA Corp address the urgent need to improve the Arab cities base of knowledge by supporting people,  national governments, local authorities, international organizations, NGOs and other stakeholders to develop and implement people-centered policies. This is effected through the organization's open platform - Smart Urban Observatory for Smart Arab Cities
Why Smart Urban Observatory?
Cities are dynamic living organisms that are constantly evolving. ICT has begun to turn numerous places into real-time cities. Social media itself is an example with billion of people using either Facebook, Linkedin, WhatsApp, Messenger or other digital platforms for social interactions as well as economic and financial transactions and services. This rapidly changing society makes the assessment and anticipation of future needs of city dwellers in terms of services, including transport, water, energy, employment, education and health, even more problematic. Addressing the complex problems of city planning it is not sufficient just to be concerned with the physical structure of the city; the interplay of intangible economic, social and environmental factors needs to be considered as well. This cannot be captured with the classical urban observatory that provides information from household surveys, censuses, administrative report that often dated back two-five years. This calls for a smart real-time monitoring which is the mission of the smart urban observatory. This is the context where AUDI and GORA Corp are introducing the concept of Smart Urban Observatory for Smart Arab Cities and Human Settlements to unlock the potential of Arab cities to be sustainable, inclusive, resilient and prosperous.
The Digital Urbanization
From big cities to digitally served towns and villages
Chapter 33 of Smart Economy in Smart Cities and Contribution to the Future Earth Project , September 2016. 
The President of GORA Corp at the Annual Conference of the World Bank-IMF Senegalese Association in collaboration with the Senegal Embassy in Washington DC and the General Delegation of the Urban Pole. Listen to the speakers.
Heritage and Culture for
Smart, Safe and Vibrant Cities
Heritage & culture play a key role on smart , safe & vibrant cities, but they are often overlooked components of urban living.

Land and Housing: The Hidden Assets
​Land and housing assets constitute more than half of people’s wealth. With functioning institutions and laws providing legal propriety rights, revenues from land and housing can contribute to the planning, management and provision of services in settlements. read more

Gora Corp takes the People Agenda to the New Urban Agenda at Habitat III

After two years of working together, UN-Habitat and GORA Corp have decided to strengthen their collaboration through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed on 19 October in Quito. This has happened in Quito where the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III was being agreed by the United Nations Member States for another 20 years.  Our two institutions have agreed to work together for the dissemination and the use of the concept “Smart Economy in Smart Cities” in the Africa region. UN-Habitat and GORA Corp recognize that the rapid development of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructures has eased the creation of smart economy in digitally served cities and towns through smart urban planning, smart infrastructures, smart land tenure and smart urban policies.​
On 16 April GORA Corp launches a Regional Programme for Africa during the PrepCom2 of Habitat3 and the 25th session of the Governing Council of UN-Habitat. Read more.
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​GORA Corp  at the third session of the Preparatory Committee of Habitat III (PrepCom3) in Surabaya, Indonesia, on 25-27 July 2016.  The draft of the New Urban Agenda of 10 September 2016 i will be presentated for adoption  at the Habitat III Conference in Quito, Ecuador, on 15-20 October 2016.  Read more
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A new generation of global settlement measurements and products will be developed by GORA Corp and partners to support national and global agendas including the UN Third Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III, 2016), the Sustainable Development Goals, the COP21 and other global agendas. Statement.
Urban Health: WHO and UN-Habitat
The President of GORA Corp was  member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Global Report on Urban Health: equitable, Healthier Cities for Sustainable Development, a publication of WHO and UN-Habitat, 2016. Read more.

Gora Corp links Research to Actions at the Local Level

Smart Cities Programme in the Guinea Republic
GORA Corp and the Government of Guinea initiate collaboration on Smart Cities, which are Sustainable, Inclusive and Prosperous. Starting with the city of Conakry, the Guinea Smart City Programme will focus on Smart City Foundation, Smart Basic Infrastructure and Smart Institutions on Laws. Making City digitally served creates Smart Economy through the development of Information, Technology and Communication infrastructures (ICTs).

The Smart City Programme is aimed to create low carbon cities in Guinea.
Senegal Sustainable Cities Initiative as part of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF)"s Sustainable Cities Programme. In Collaboration with the World Bank and UNIDO, the President of GORA Corp coordinates the Integration of Climate Change in Urban Planning Design and Management of Senegal Coastal cities. Read more 
In May 2015, GORA Corp collaborated with UN-Habitat to set up the Urban Observatory programme in Kogi State, Nigeria. Read more. 
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​in February 2015 GORA Corp signed an MoU with the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) of the Ministry of Urban Development, India, for the establishment of observatories to assist Indian cities on the move to be smart. Read More.
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​In July 2015, GORA Corp signed an MOU with the City of Louga  and  met 16 other municipalities of the department of Louga (Senegal) to build partnership for the establishment of Observatory linking Research to Action (ORA) to support a Sustainable, Inclusive & Prosperous City (SIPC). Read more

Our Work - Linking Research to Action for the People Agenda
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Setting up observatories (ORAs)

ORAs are open platform of Big Data for development of indicators from classical sources of information (population and housing censuses and household surveys) as well as GIS and social media to promote an agenda by the people for the people. .
Advocacy & Communication
​Knowledge Sharing

ORA's key findings are shared with people and institutions through user friendly open platform of advocacy and communication . ORAs promote Open data through data visualization and revolution technology including social media, open portal, workshops and conferences.
Policies/Actions​
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The ORA policy/action toolkit combines research analysis, impact assessment and learning practices and policies to assist for policy formulation and action plan development for a people agenda.
Training & Capacity Development
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A major weak link between research and action is in the difficulty of people,government employees and other stakeholders to access and use indicators for policy formulation. GORA's training and capacity development tools  link research to action

Our Indices for the People Agenda

In 2014, GORA Corp introduced three revolutionary indices, a) the sustainable, inclusive and prosperous cities index, b) the sustainable city foundation, and c) the multiple slum index, which address the entire human settlements continuum, integrating the social, spatial, economic, environmental and political components of growth. Over the next 15 years, these indices will not only be key in monitoring sustainable development, but will also promote inclusive prosperity across all sectors, and on all forms of human settlements. 
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Milestones in GORA Corp's Management and Governance

​July 2014: GORA Corp was established as a not-for-profit organization in New York, 
September 2014: GORA Corp was officially launched in New York as a pre-event to the United Nations General Assembly.
March 2015: Determination of GORA Corp as tax-exempt from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
April 2015: GORA Corp launched its first regional programme in Nairobi, Kenya for the Africa region
September 2015:  Accreditation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit