The UAE’s cultural sector is among the many industries being affected by the coronavirus pandemic spreading throughout the globe. In addition to the threat to public health, the economic and social disruption brought on by the infectious disease threatens the long-term livelihoods and wellbeing of the hundreds of SMEs and freelancers that make up a vast portion of the country’s cultural and creative sectors.

With this in mind, the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority teamed up with the Art Dubai Group, to launch #DubaiIDEATHON, a call for collective action to ideate possible solutions to support the cultural industries in response to the coronavirus crisis.

How it works is, after reading the open call, the public is invited to submit their ideas to address challenges relating to key issues such as financial stability and employee protection, propose solutions to tackle these challenges and explore new possibilities via an online workshops.

Six ideation sessions with the participants of the Open Call will be organized based on the common challenges, and facilitated by specialized design-thinking experts, concluding in ready-to-implement proposals that will be shared with relevant public, private and non-profit stakeholders. Finally, proposed solutions will be put to industry experts to help devise implementation strategies.

Organizers have identified six challenges for participants to respond to: What solutions could be created to protect jobs and employees during crisis?; How can the creative community self-organize? And what kind of public-private collaborations can we explore?; How can companies start reducing their fixed costs?; How can we improve company-client relationships and collaborations?; How can we maintain the flow of the supply chains? And, finally, are businesses able to generate revenue from digital shifts?

The Dubai Ideathon, which will be facilitated by design agency Atolye’s Onat Vural and Leen Sadder, opens for receiving ideas on April 2.

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