From Ideas to Action
By Diana El Azar*
When the CEO of Tartek Games in Jordan, Ghaith Kawar, stood up and pledged his support to the four young students of the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts (RSICA), committing to integrate their PSA message into the games his company creates, it hit me that we had achieved something.
Over the last 18 months, committed members of the Global Agenda Council (GAC) of Media, Entertainment and Information had been working from Los Angeles, New York, and London (and other cities) to demonstrate how media can actually have a positive effect on people. By choosing the MENA region as pilot, and the issue of “safe driving”, members of the GAC mobilised their resources and contacts to get the project off the ground. Elizabeth Daley, from USC, made the connection with RSICA, Peggy Conlon contributed the model and expertise of the organisation she heads, the US Ad Council, and David Gallagher from Ketchum and David Kenny from Akamai asked their colleagues and contacts in the MENA region from ad agencies to provide mentorship for the students. I also then reached out to Yahoo!, an Industry Partner of the Forum, to solicit their help.
With very little financial resources, and a lot of belief and goodwill, I watched the project unfold. I would be lying if I did not admit that sometimes I felt that it will all fall through the cracks. After all, I had not met anyone at the RSICA, all the GAC members were incredibly busy business executives and the students had absolutely no resources.
Yet, last week, at the World Economic Forum in the Dead Sea, as the students presented their creative concepts on how to address the issue of texting and driving, and the issue of not equipping cars with child seats (both major causes of road deaths), and as the CEO of Tartek Games and of Umniah mobile company expressed their support for distributing the campaigns, it hit me that a small group of committed individuals from across the world might have started some change (for good) in this little corner of the Middle East. And it made me proud.
* Diana El Azar is Director, Head of Media, Entertainment and Information Industries at the World Economic Forum.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.