As the UAE celebrates its inaugural Innovation Week, we talk to campus partners at Abu Dhabi’s media zone, twofour54, about the campus environment that is enabling creativity and innovation in the region’s media industry. twofour54 is now home to 380 companies that are achieving far-reaching successes across a variety of sectors such as gaming, e-learning, and mobile content development.
twofour54’s campus partners share a vision of becoming unique service and product providers in their respective media sectors, and many of them have found the needed ingredients to make that vision a reality at twofour54. An example of this is Lamsa World, an edutainment mobile app developer that combines education and entertainment in Arabic-language games and stories that reflect the region’s cultural values and emphasise the importance of the Arabic language.
Badr Ward, CEO of Lamsa World, commented on his experience with twofour54: “Ideas turn into magic at twofour54. Our goal is to make education, reading, and acquiring knowledge a fun thing for children to do. twofour54 has extended full support and personalised attention to ensure that Lamsa is enabled to fulfil the commonly defined objective of serving the future generation of Arab children in the UAE, across the region, and globally. The collaboration and partnership spirit is very noticeable at twofour54 and this environment has helped us succeed in launching Iftah Ya Simsim’s interactive books and games as part of our strategic partnership with Bidaya Media, another twofour54 based company. This is what makes twofour54 the place to be.”
Lamsa’s readership reached more than 200 million around the globe due to its innovative strategy of creating a platform that is the first of its kind for anyone interested in addressing Arabic speaking children in the digital world. Lamsa’s platform connects them with partners across all sectors including telecommunication, media, publishing, education, governments, NGOs, and retailers.
With support from twofour54 partner and start-up accelerator, Flat6Labs, an innovative activity tracker for skateboards and longboards was created here in Abu Dhabi. The tracker, named RideBlock, enables skaters to quantify their activity, improve performance, and compete with other players around the world.
Jibin Jose, CEO and Co-founder of Flip Technologies, commented: “Our decision to setup our business in Abu Dhabi through twofour54 and Flat6Labs was a result of our need to get global exposure, test our product in a diverse market and be a part of a rich and growing ecosystem, and twofour54 was an ideal fit for our needs. twofour54 has been a valuable partner from day one. The collaborative nature of the companies within twofour54 supported us in finalising our design and creative needs.”
Flip Technologies has a dedicated team of engineers who are also skateboarders and very well versed in the industry. The business team is currently based in Los Angeles, the epicentre of surfing and skateboarding, which gives the company an edge over others in the industry.
From twofour54 to the world, multinational video game developer and publisher, Ubisoft, conceptualised, developed and operates CSI: Hidden Crimes Investigation which has registered more than 25 million downloads worldwide to-date. CSI: Hidden Crimes Investigation was the product of collaborative efforts between a hard-working Abu Dhabi based team and a few international members including Jack Gutowitz, a writer for the TV show CSI: Las Vegas to ensure the game app stays as close to reality as possible.
twofour54’s CEO, Noura Al Kaabi, said: “Our efforts to create a collaborative campus environment that inspires innovation and supports companies in developing new products and services to meet market needs have been of great value to our partners and we are proud of the successes they have achieved thus far through their work at twofour54. This is testament to our commitment to bolster Abu Dhabi’s media industry with an ecosystem in which companies can thrive and prosper. The inauguration of the UAE’s Innovation Week instils a culture that embraces innovation across our nation and we would like to thank our leadership for reinforcing the substantial role innovation and creativity play in our economy.”