This is probably the last media column for Tempo I’ll be writing in the UAE. My work contract expired on the last day of February, and I’m looking forward to moving back to the US this month. After almost eight years living in Abu Dhabi and the past three working in Dubai, it’s time for a change.
Having made the decision, I talked to my good friend Sana Bagersh who edits and publishes Tempo and offered to stop writing this column once I was out of the country. It would be hard to stop because I enjoy the opportunity to look at media subjects and to express my opinions about them.
If she wanted me to continue, I said, I could focus on parallels between the UAE and the USA and write about media only when it made sense. As always, Sana was accommodating and said it was up to me what I wrote about although she hoped that the UAE would be included as much as possible.
So that’s what I’ll be doing. When I reach Miami where I hope to be living for the next few years, I’ll continue to write about media and draw on my experiences in coming back to Florida where I had lived near Orlando before moving to Abu Dhabi in 2005.
Miami is a much bigger city than Orlando and not solely a destination for tourists coming to Disney World, SeaWorld Orlando, and Universal Orlando. Miami is the business center for Latin Americans trying to invest in the US or attract American clients to their own country. It has a major international airport with links to leading cities in Europe and Latin America – Etihad and Emirates, please note no airline from the Middle East has direct flights.
I’m hoping to find writing and lecturing assignments in journalism, public relations, business, and other areas and will write about how that works in future columns. Meanwhile, last week in Abu Dhabi, I attended the first day of the Ankabut Users Conference at Paris-Sorbonne and conducted a presentation with my former colleague Dr. Hind Zantout. The topic was Campaigning for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics): The Role of the Media.
Hind and I have been working in this area for the past year. Separately, we had considered ways to bring STEM closer to normal people. Four years ago I spoke to an auditorium full of scientists in Istanbul about the need for communicating what they were doing to the general public, not only to experts. The subject remains alive in the UAE and around the world as Hind pointed out.
Although we have yet to see major television programs about science or experts from an area of STEM being interviewed on local talk shows as Hind showed is the case in the UK, some signs of changing mentality can be seen.
TDIC published the first issue of the quarterly Abu Dhabi Science, Technology and Innovation Guide in January, listing many STEM-related events for adults and children. Surprisingly, the IDEX show was left out of the schedule, but anyone trying to get an idea of what was available had the information in an A5 pamphlet.
During my presentation I referred to the African declaration on science writing announced at a conference in Nairobi last September. The declaration called on “journalists, communicators, universities, civil society, donors and researchers to improve science writing in the continent. “ I suggested that something similar might be done in the Middle East because without improved communication of science in the media, it would be difficult to attract more young people to science careers, secure funding for scientific projects, and make serious progress in innovation.
By Alma Kadragic
