Abdee' Award Celebrates Exciting Media Talent Among Sharjah's University Students

The Organising Committee of the Abdee’ Award for the best visual news report recently conducted a series of workshops to introduce Sharjah’s university students to the unique initiative. The award was launched by Sharjah Media Corporation (SMC) to develop the students’ creative talents, encourage their spirit of competition and enhance their methods of visual reporting production, both technically and artistically.

SMC allotted AED 150,000 for the winners of the award, which has categories and cash prizes for Best Idea, Best Performance, Best Introduction, Best Videography and Best Direction, with the winners in each of the five categories receiving a prize of AED 10,000. The winner of the Most Integrated Artwork Award will be given a cash prize of AED 50,000, with the runner-up awarded AED 30,000, and third-place, AED 20,000.

The Abdee' Award committee organised the first introductory workshops for students at the University of Sharjah in Al Dhaid (Females), and two more workshops in the University of Sharjah in Kalba and in Khorfakkan, in the presence of a number of the award's officials. They included Najm Al Deen Hashem, President of the Abdee' Award; Emirati TV Production Director Ebtisam Al Shayeb, member of the Abdee' Award jury, and Fatima Bin Sandal, Marketing & Communication Manager at SMC.

The workshops were attended by Dr. Essam Al Nimr, Vice Dean of the College of Mass Communications at University of Sharjah; Dr. Mamdouh Al Meshmishi, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mass Communication, Dr. Alaa Makki, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mass Communication, Dr. Angie Khalil, Assistant Professor at the Department of Public Relations, in addition to official representatives from the University of Sharjah in Kalba, and the University of Sharjah in Khorfakkan.

Dr. Ali Qassim Al Shuaibi, Chairman of the Judging Panel of the Abdee' Award for the best visual news report, said: "The award for visual media plays a pivotal role in both discovering and developing young talents that have a promising future in this field. It is open to all students at Sharjah's universities and educational institutes and will inspire, nurture and foster a love of creativity among all people in the emirate – not just for those who win, but for all those who enter.”

Al Shuaibi added: "It is imperative to have an incubator for creative students and we saw from our visits that there is an enormous desire to learn and to create. This is clear evidence of the importance of the award."

Dr. Essam Al Nimr, Vice Dean of the College of Mass Communication at University of Sharjah, said: "We highly appreciate the Sharjah Media Corporation's initiative of launching this award for university students. It is an ideal opportunity for them to showcase their creative skills in preparing the report.

"We are totally confident that our students will submit the outstanding quality of work which demonstrates their fine artistic abilities,” he said, adding that the College of Mass Communication is committed to providing all forms of technical and logistic support to all students wishing to participate in the award.

TV Production Director Ebtisam Al Shayeb, member of the award jury, said: "The workshops come as part of a series of introductory meetings and tours at Sharjah's universities. We aim through these visits to introduce university students to the importance of the award and encourage them to take part in an initiative that offers them a precious opportunity to enter the world of media."

She added: "This is an exceptional award that is open to university students from all nationalities, who have a creative flair in news report production and direction. It targets students from all degree courses and is not confined only to students studying media."

A workshop, presented by award jury member, Ibtisam Al Shayeb and  Najm Al Deen Hashem, President of the Abdee' Award, was held at Al Qasimia University, where students from various degree programmes met with Dr. Rashad Salem, Director of the university.

During the meeting, Dr. Salem said: “The Abdee' Award is a great opportunity to really test the creative talents of university students, support their capacity and develop their skills. It has many aspects, from fostering the concept of competitiveness to increasing their ambitions and igniting their passion to challenge.

"Today, we have students from more than 60 nationalities at Al Qasimia University competing to win the award. They truly have a complete set of skills that can contribute to enriching the Arab media and encourage new generations to embrace media arts," Dr. Salem added.  

During the workshops, a video was shown featuring the award's categories, its entry criteria, details about students' participation, terms and conditions of preparing the visual report and the award's goals. The video also showed the benefits that will be gained by the winning students, including the cash prizes.

The Abdee’ Award criteria include that the entrant must be a student at one of Sharjah’s universities or educational institutions, the report should not exceed more than three minutes and should be Full-HD and 24 Bit-Rate for sound. Students entering the award are not permitted to participate in more than one report.

Other conditions are that the visual reports should not have been submitted for other previous award schemes and that entrants should write the names of all participants preparing the report; including writers, videographers and producers. All team members involved in compiling the report are required to be full-time students and should not cooperate with outside art production companies or third party experts in its preparation.

Interested students can submit their entries to the Abdee’ Award online by filling the application form via: www.smc.ae/abde3 , which was launched by SMC exclusively for the award. Students can upload videos directly to the site using MOV or MP4 formats.