The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) announced the winners of its first Arabic Digital Content Competition in Dubai yesterday as the UN body sought to encourage the region’s governments and private sector to support the growth of content creation.
The winners – Mohamed Imad, the founder of Shogly, an online marketplace for digital products and Muhammad Zidat, the founder of the weather-based mobile travel app Rahal, both from the Palestinian Territories; and Egypt’s Chehab Mustafa Helmy, the founder of Netknowlogy, a directory for the best of the web for beginners – were commended at the World Telecommunications Development Conference taking place in Dubai this week.
The competition was open to anyone between 18 and 30 living in the Middle East and North Africa.
“This is the first Arab digital content competition,” said Brahima Sanou, the director of the ITU’s development bureau. “Arabic content online accounts for 3 per cent of all content on the internet, yet 16 per cent of the population of the world speaks Arabic. So there is a gap here.”
The disparity is further highlighted by the fact that the portion of digital natives, or those born in the era of the internet, is far higher in the Mena region than most others in the world.
“We have a lot of young people and we need to give them room to blossom, to make them produce and contribute to the digital economy,” said Mr Sanou. “The competition is one way to serve the information society in the Arab region. The winners of this competition show us there is untapped talent in the region that needs to be valued.”
The ITU is now encouraging investment and support initiatives that encourage the development of digital content.
“This is a regional initiative to encourage the use of and increase [the amount of] Arabic content. Of course, the ITU cannot do it by itself. Other entities are needed,” said Ebrahim Al Haddad, the regional director of ITU’s office for the Arab Region. “We are seeking out support and partners to work with us.”
There will be another ITU competition next month in Muscat.
“There’s tremendous demand in Mena for high-quality Arabic content,” said Omar Christidis, the founder of Arabnet, one of the partners of the competition. “We can see this from the huge following that Saudi is leading with YouTube channels like UTurn and Telfaz11. We’re excited to see the telecom sector getting involved in digital media and believe that this can be a serious growth engine for the sector.”
thamid@thenational.ae
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