Hi.
My name is Hisham Elzubair.
I'll give you a brief about myself.
I lived in various countries like I said,
and I moved to Sudan about two years ago.
After about one year of being in Sudan
I felt very frustrated seeing this country so rich with so many things,
yet, things used to be standing still.
So I thought, let me put my talents and the talents of others,
and let's do something positive for the country.
Keep your mind that finding people is relatively easy.
We began the hunt looking for media specialists,
and creators in the various fields.
The process first began by a portion of people I knew personally.
And they knew people, who were also talented,
and utilizing social networks,
we were able to locate a lot more people,
and those people knew people in their circles
were able to reffer them to us.
About 80% of those people who we approached,
joined the project on voluntary basis.
They didn't join for the money,
they joined for what the spirit of the project is all about:
for the betterment of Sudan.
That's the actual glue that bonds all of us together.
Now, in terms of: Why does it work?
Or, how does it work?
There are number of systems we impelment to help us to ensure this.
First, each with their own setup.
We don't have capital, we don't have money,
we don't have an office.
So, everyone uses their own equipment at home to produce the work.
We also utilize communication. Communication is key:
phones, SMS, chats, e-mails,
every form of communication available as possible is used.
We also host specialized meetings,
meetings for scenario guys, meetings for the website guys,
meetings for the marketing guys to get the work coordinated.
Most of the work is done in solitude,
at one's home, and then they email the other members
or relevant members of the project that work has been done.
We also have a virtual office,
we have shared calendars, shared to-do lists,
shared files, shared contact sheets,
so we are able to integrate the work together.
We operate on total transparency,
and we believe that transparency itself is a vehicle
that enables this work to proceed further.
We also operate on a shared goal driven coordination system.
It's the goal of the whole project that actually makes us work together.
Now, why [does] it work?
A lot of people ask me this question.
Well, like I said, the overall goal the betterment of Sudan,
to improve Sudan's image, is a goal that we share together.
So, it's something that moves and drives us together.
It also provides an opportunity to create a very high quality
in something we all aspire to.
Sudan is very --
you don't see this very often in Sudan, so it's something that moves us.
It's an addition to one's CV.
We believe the work we do in Almawja is so valuable
that it can be a good addition to one's CV.
It also provides opportunity for one to work with complementary talents,
to produce a more complete media product or unit.
It provides the opportunity for one to start his own project,
or her own project,
and we lend a hand and share to make sure
that the project is realized, supervised for project ownership.
Finally, revenue generation.
Money is the least of the priorities,
for money [goes] for marketing
[and] exceptional costs before we actually enjoy the fruits.
Now, we do suffer a lot of setbacks.
This is natural, I guess.
One of the setbacks we suffer
is the priorities given to the actual jobs,
so the amount of time allocated to Almawja is significantly reduced.
That's something [that] has a quite impact on us.
Also social obligations, specially in Sudan,
I'm sure you guys are familiar,
takes a quite a toll also on the time allocate to Almawja.
Anther issue is general laziness,
and time culture issues in Sudan,
so the time allocated to Almawja again is reduced further.
There are other issues we experience, such as
lack of equipment.
Again, we don't have a capital,
so the equipment we have is rather minimal.
We hope this will change in the future.
Also hardware issues,
for the hardware issue we can't solve it as easy as corporation can.
So this is an issue that sets us back quite a bit.
Finally, we learn as we go.
So, sometimes we make mistakes,
and we have to go back and fix the mistakes.
This sets us back, but as well
it gives us the strength to move forward in a better fashion.
In terms of what we do as a group,
we work on documentaries.
One of them is the ancient history of Sudan,
which we're very proud of, just completed.
We're also working on 3D cartoon series,
such as: (Arabic) Yawmiyat Balad,
it's a cartoon that's in progress right now,
should be released in about a year.
We're also engaged in photo campaigns,
where we collect various artistic photos of Sudan,
by various photographers, so we can show the world.
We're hoping to start in training enthusiasts
in different various specialties very soon
to provide more recruits.
Other parts we're working on include music video clips.
We're working on a video clip right now,
for a Sudanese band, a song that is really beautiful.
We're working on TV series, that should be coming soon.
And we're also working on short films.
We're soon to expand to creating movies,
but we want to start slow and surely,
we'll make sure that we do the right way,
we don't move too fast.
The shared principles that we have,
are the cohesive glue that binds us altogether.
One of the things is shifting perception,
we want to shift the perception of Sudan to a more positive and more real image
than what is out there in the media right now.
We want to be a vehicle of overall promotion of art and culture,
by promoting all talents and creativity in the country
as something we all believe in.
We want to create a platform for ourselves and others to showcase our talents.
Sudan is full of talents. I believe they need to be showcased.
We believe entertainment brings relief,
and relief is an important component for change to take place,
which we're really after.
We are also [in] education, particularly in terms of raising awareness,
we want to raise awareness of what is negative around and about us,
as well as of what we should be proud of
through our documentaries for instance.
We would like to create a market.
We believe that Sudan has a lot of talents
that can provide all the country's media needs,
at comparative pricing and a better quality that worths outsource to.
We would like to expand, we a have open board philosophy,
the more the merrier.
And finally, we'd like to be an inspiration.
We let this model to be used by others,
where you can create something great, out of absolutely nothing.
Thank you.
(Applause)