The Digital Arabia Network (DAN) in collaboration with the Barenboim-Said Academy and the Macromedia University of Applied Science are happy to announce the new project “Arabic Future Tense – What is the Future?”
The project is an open call for essays inviting artists, professionals, experts and activists from the Arab region and Diaspora to creatively explore how the future for the Arab countries can be re- imagined in times of technological change.
Why?
We live in a time of radical shifting: The future is unfolding as a challenge and an opportunity. To be living in these times means to be witnesses of unique scenarios. We are called to engage daily with the effects of disruptive phenomena: climate emergency, a global pandemic, digital transformation, socio-cultural and economic changes.
While this is affecting our society on a global scale, the Arab World and the Arab Diaspora Community are certainly confronted by these phenomena to a specific, perhaps higher degree than other geographical or cultural areas. What is the Future? How can we make sure that all of us are going to experience it? What needs to be done to achieve this goal?
An unprecedented today can only mean new ways to foresee the Arab tomorrow.
Today, more than ever, we are looking toward the future, trying to understand how today's events and technologies may evolve tomorrow, and exploring new, perhaps greater questions about what awaits us beyond the immediate of what we are experiencing. While we experience the present, we are already writing the future. We believe that collective storytelling is a powerful way to untangle a complex reality.
What is ahead of us? How can we imagine the future? How can we use technologies to shape this future? What anticipatory characters can we intercept in the present, and what do these suggest about the possibility of approaching new and global scenarios tomorrow?
DAN wants to investigate these questions collectively, engaging its community in an Open Call for essays aiming to bring together the plurality of views, perspectives, ideas, concepts around the topic of the future and how this can be re-imagined.
We are inviting practitioners, artists, experts, and activists from the Arab region and the Arab Diaspora in Europe to submit their views, ambitions and ideas in the form of brief essays.The goal of the contest is to create an anthology with 25 selected essays as evaluated by the jury and publish them with Gorgias Press in the USA.
Who Can Submit?
Arab artists, creatives, entrepreneurs in creative and innovative fields, practitioners, experts, people identifying as part of the Arab Diaspora community, researchers in the field.
Format, Style & Topics
We invite candidates to submit papers presenting fresh, creative, surprising, innovative, even counterintuitive points of view about the world to come that could focus on the development of the region as a whole or specific areas within MENA.The submissions should match two important criteria:
- Making the distant future tangible today;
- Showing a strong focus on the usage of technologies to describe the future scenarios.
Other Format & Topics Guidelines:
- Topics can cover a wide range of different interests impacted by technology: education, civil society, culture, journalism, community management.
- They can also focus on specific projects of digitization e.g., mobility, virtual museums, smart cities, or many related topics.
- Texts can be accompanied by visualizations and videos of concepts and ideas.
- The papers can be submitted in Arabic or English through this form.
- Length of the essay should be around 5-6 pages or 8.000-10.000 characters including spaces. Citations of sources are encouraged.
How to Submit
The essay and project proposals can be submitted through this application form. For any questions regarding the submission, please reach out to: info@digitalarabia.network
Process, Prize & Timelines
The call for essay and project proposals is open until November 11th – by 23.59 CET
The three best essays will receive an award linked to a monetary prize of EUR 1500, 1000 and 500 respectively.
The best 25 essays will be translated, edited and published in the anthology. Papers will also be published online.
All submissions will be evaluated by an international jury composed of public personalities from the Region and Europe.
The book would be complemented with additional 1-3 articles by the editors/members of the jury about the role of Futurism for development in general and in the Arab world in particular.
