City

Doha: a fabulous city with a bad reputation

Almost every sport lover raises his eyebrows significantly when he says Doha. Ah, this is an incredibly rich city in the Gulf that wins the prize to organize one glorious championship after another without having a sufficient fan base or climatic conditions to hold them. This is the city in which when the Czech national football team comes, the cameras capture an absolutely empty auditorium with only fifty bored men in headscarves and probably the only known Czech who lives here, the advertising magician and political commentator Martin Jaroš? It is the metropolis that hosted the last athletic championship with half-empty stands. Here will be the next football world cup with Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar or Harry Kane.

Sport here does not make much sense. The Arab countries undoubtedly deserve sports attention, but Qatar is not Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Iran with a decent sporting history, but above all it is a truly miniature state – with only two and a half million people, more than half of whom live in Doha. Yet native Qataris make up only about one fifth of the total population.

But it was television broadcasts from the last athletic championship that best showed what a tiny earth could offer to the world – and that was cutting-edge use of modern technology. Repeated shots were full of emotions from the most sophisticated cameras, the performances of the individual competitors took place on extraordinary LED screens, and the entire stadium was shrouded in the darkness before the start of each race to give a generous video mapping chance.

Heat, money, sustainability and smart technology

While in the Czech Republic smart technology is still taken for something exotic and the word “smart” is more rustling with clerical papers rather than taking place in practice, in Qatar you will see it immediately upon arrival. Welcome to the ultra-modern building that is perfectly automated. Whether you want to check-in, have your luggage checked, go through the gates or find out about flights, you practically don’t meet a man. Everything is solved by machines that are also equipped with biometric readers. In Doha itself you can see electric buses, smart stops, water taxi; Wi-Fi is always with you because it is in most street lamps. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, because smart is also in Qatar farming, fishing, police or construction!

“For us who are engaged in the production or development of intelligent devices for homes, offices, industrial buildings or entire cities, Doha is an endless source of inspiration. What we are used to talking about here, it has been working long ago in practice and it really simplifies people’s lives. I am all the more pleased that we have reached the elite group of companies that come here not only to admire smart technologies, but also to implement them. It is a sign that we can be compared with the best in the world because the locals have incredible choice,” says Jiří Konečný, owner of ELKO EP, whose iNELS system appears in two five-star hotels in downtown Qatar – Marriott Marquis and Merweb.

Specifically, they use the iNELS RF Control wireless system together with the central control function. “In the selection process, we chose an extremely comfortable installation, which takes no more than 25 minutes in each room. Therefore, none of the rooms were closed due to renovation and everything was in full operation. Thus, the increased comfort of the guests did not cost the operator or the loss of a dollar because of vacancy’’, adds Jiří Konečný.

As a big fan of football (ELKO EP is the main partner of the league club in Zlín) he adds that there is reason to look forward to the Qatar World Cup. “The fans are waiting for a completely different kind of experience than just football. Qataris will make the first and last turn of the championship into a showcase of technology that we can’t even dream of. It will be a futuristic experience full of comfort, visual experience and maximum effort to use renewable resources. I am convinced that top-class football will be served with a truly luxurious menu full of original sensations and I am very curious about it”, concludes Jiří Konečný.