Ibda'a awards 'will enhance talent base'

The Ibda'a Media Student Awards are an excellent initiative to enhance the media talent base in the region and promote interaction between the industry and the student community, according to members of the judging panel.

"The Ibda'a Awards reflect the extraordinary vision of His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister," said Yasser Al Dabbagh, Delegate Board Member of the Saudi Research and Publishing Company (SRPC) and Chairman of the Judging Panel.

"It shows that Dubai and Dubai Media City are really concerned about the future of their society and the importance of nurturing young talent," he added.

"There is a gold mine of talent in the region and Ibda'a is helping the industry dig for it. We need to give young people in the region the chance to showcase their talent and recognise the best among them."

The judges said the entries for the Awards revealed a high level of creativity. "All the finalists displayed good ideas and creativity," said Marwan Rahbani, of Rahbani Productions, a leading production house in Dubai. "Entries in some categories demonstrated a high level of professional skills. I would definitely like to hire some of them for my production house."

Hosam Sokkari, Head of BBCarabic.com, said: "I was extremely impressed with some of the entries. In fact some of finalists are already good enough for a successful career in the industry."

The judges also felt that the Ibda'a Awards are an excellent forum for facilitating interaction between the student community and the media industry.

The Ibda'a Awards have created a forum for discussion and interaction between media students and media professionals, said Cherif Wehbe, Director of Public Relations, Memac Ogilvy.

"The Awards have brought together media students from a vast region that includes India and South Africa, countries which are represented in the media community in the UAE. This has vastly expanded the scope of the Awards.

"The media industry in the region is hungry for talent and we don't have access to as much quality talent as we would like. This, coupled with the rapid expansion of the media industry, makes the availability of talent a critical issue. We have to invest in initiatives like Ibda'a to provide the media industry with a steady source of high quality talent," said Sokkari.

"Ibda'a is helping us address the long-term development of the media industry. To ensure sustainable growth in the media industry we have to focus not just on making money or boosting revenues but also on investing in the future and our society," added Sokkari.

For the judges, the Awards provided a challenging and rich experience of viewing and evaluating a wide diversity of media projects from a range of cultures.

"The evaluation process presented several difficult choices for us because the quality of the shortlisted entries was uniformly high," said Dabbagh.

"Rating each entry involved a lot of discussion and debate among us. There was a scientific scoring system, which helped us make our decisions. But as far as we are concerned all the finalists are winners."

The judging panel included representatives of Saudi Research and Publishing Company, BBC Arabic Services, Dubai Press Club, Emirates Media, Film Festival/Three World Films, Motivate Publishing, Memac Ogilvy, 02 Communications, Pepsi, Rahbani Productions, Team Young and Rubicam and Gulf News.

The International Advertising Association (IAA) has contributed to the success of the Ibda'a Awards by assisting Dubai Media City with the judging process. They were closely involved in supervising the final selection process of the Awards.