DISTP Director Profile

Ahmad Gamal is affiliated with Universitas Indonesia, where he serves as an assistant professor at the Department of Architecture, Director of Innovation and Science Techno Park, and an advisor to the Smart City Research Center. He received his PhD in Regional Planning (2016) and Master of Urban Planning (2010) both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His work and research interests revolved around the economic impact evaluation of physical development; the relationship between urban development and poverty alleviation; and the application of technology for regional growth monitoring and control. He can be reached through email (a.gamal@ui.ac.id). More about his research can be discovered through Smart City Research Center’s website, www.smartcity.ui.ac.id.

Gamal is a prolific urban planner in the field, having written robust policy reviews for the Ministry of National Planning and Development (BAPPENAS) in the past. It is then where he began to encourage the need for in-depth economic impact evaluation to quantify physical development, vis-à-vis its consequences to poverty alleviation. He also conducted several pieces of research beyond poverty alleviation such as investigating the value capture mechanism on Jakarta gated community housing (2020); producing 3-D semantic segmentation method for urban growth detection (2019); evaluating the impact of property technology in property development (2019); observing the process of residential land-use change and its impending consequences (2019); investigating the relationship between community-labour coalitions and wage theft legislation (2015) to name a few. Apart from publications, he has presented his work widely including national television (CNN Indonesia, Metro TV, Channel News Asia, Berita Satu), radio programs (KBR Prime, Radio Idola), newspapers (Harian Wawasan dan Tribun, Republika, Media Indonesia) and industry (Business Sweden).