How ideas are born – road safety campaigning in the Middle East

Watch how the World Economic Forum, dedicated Red Sea cinema students and Yahoo! Maktoob all came together in a bid to make Middle East streets safe. 

By Dina Abdul Majeed*, Team Leader Yahoo! Maktoob

I was invited to the “Road Safety session” at the World Economic Forum Special Meeting on Economic Growth and Job Creation, to talk about my mentoring experience with students from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts.

Yahoo! Maktoob’s involvement with the students included a full day of educational talk about digital media in addition to brainstorming sessions in order to help the students translate their ideas into creative original online solutions. During the session the students presented their work in progress, and explained fresh concepts in an original way.

It was also a great opportunity to be in a room with so many interesting and inspiring people from different professional backgrounds, including cinematic arts, economics, gaming industry, and digital media. Having this circle of different professionals along with the students triggered quite interesting conversations.

I’m looking forward to more future collaborations that aim to help the community.

Yahoo! is an Industry Partner of the Forum’s Media, Entertainment and Information (MEI).  As part of that, we took part in mentoring students from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts (RSICA) as they were developing a campaign on safe driving.  Being a global digital media company, this project was something that was a great fit for us at Yahoo! because it focused on communication and creativity, and highlighted an important message for the benefit of the wider community.

The students visited us at our Yahoo! offices in Amman, and shared their campaign that focused on “texting and driving” using an emotional story approach that shows the consequences that texting while driving can have on other people’s lives and safety.  We brainstormed with the students and spoke to them about the different ways they can translate their ideas into creative and original online solutions, and the many possibilities that online advertising can provide.

It was a fantastic experience for us as a team at Yahoo! to see the level of enthusiasm and creativity that the students had.  And it was especially delightful to see their reaction when we told them that we will be running their final campaign on Yahoo! Maktoob as a reward!  It was also an incredible opportunity for me to be able to share this experience at the WEF meeting at the Dead Sea, and be around so many interesting and inspiring people from different professional backgrounds, including cinematic arts, economics, gaming industry, and digital media.

The success of this project has been very inspiring, and we at Yahoo! look forward to further collaboration in the future.

Dina Abdul Majeed* is team leader at Yahoo! Maktoob.