The third International Congress of Arabic Publishing and Creative Industries (Congress PCI), part of the 33rd Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF 2024), called for investing in innovation, providing quality grants for youth and creatives, and creating job opportunities in diverse cultural sectors to improve their contribution to national GDP growth.
The Book Fair kicked off today (Monday, 29 April 2024) and will continue until 5 May at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC).
The Congress emphasised the urgent need to develop the Arab publishing sector by opening up to creative industries and exploring their vast potential, including transitioning from merely focusing on traditional publishing to integrating innovative strategies that open up the sector’s horizons, while expanding youth education to include creative and critical thinking, preparing them to adapt to a rapidly changing world.
The event stressed the necessity of adapting content rather than directly translating it to ensure optimal local impact, while maintaining its global appeal, which requires a deep understanding of the target culture. The Congress highlighted the significance of storytelling as the foundation of film, underlining the importance of successful adaptations by crafting stories that connect the original work with the target audience. This underscores the need for texts that can transcend cultural boundaries.
The third Congress PCI urged publishers to focus on maintaining high standards of quality rather than quantity in order to build trust and credibility among both audiences and producers, as well as to benefit from intellectual property protection to encourage creative ideas, which leads to creating job opportunities and exporting cultural works. This approach aims to strike a balance between the need for economic growth, experimentation, and excellence in creative sectors.
Regarding artificial intelligence (AI), the Congress highlighted the importance of using AI to create local content that preserves cultural identity while achieving global reach. It also explored the integration of AI tools in education to enhance critical thinking and adapt teaching methods to prepare students for a future that seamlessly integrates technology into learning environments.
A key takeaway from the Congress was a call for exploring new models for content creation and consumption that align with the changing preferences of consumers, especially the youth. This involves investing in their minds to encourage them to express their ideas and work collaboratively to deliver creative content, making use of the era of artificial intelligence and big data.
Furthermore, the Congress asserted that the role of creators extends beyond producing creative works, as they should be able to embody values and utilise creative production to express them, whether through translation, original intellectual property, or both, along with being prepared to produce content using diverse techniques to address the shortage in Arabic content.
