Arabs & Arabian Records Aggregator. Chronicler. Milestones of the 25 Countries of the Arabic Speaking World (official / co-official). AGCC. MENA. Global. Ist's to Top 10's. Records. Read & Enjoy./ www.arabianrecords.org
Moroccan-Spanish model Sarah Loinaz was crowned Miss Universe Spain 2021 at the Los Olivos Beach Resort in Costa Adeje, Tenerife, Canary Islands, on October 16.
The gala was hosted by Sofia del Prado, the former crowned Miss Universe Spain in 2017, and finalist of Miss Universe 2017.
Sarah Loinaz will compete at the Miss Universe 2021 pageant, which will be held in Israel, in December 2021.
The Moroccan-Spanish model made her runway debut for a fashion show for VIDDA in April 2019 in Las Palmas, Spain.
In 2017, she represented Spain at the Miss Universe Spain 2017 competition where she placed second behind model Sofia del Prado.
The CineGouna projects awarded cash and other prizes this year were 13 projects in development, 6 films in post-production, in addition to one guest film in post-production.
The CineGouna SpringBoard jury included Mohamed Soueid, the Lebanese producer and film critic; Nina Lath Gupta, former CEO of the NFDC; and Ismaël Ferroukhi, the Moroccan director and screenwriter.
The jury gave a special mention to Abo Zabaal 1989 (Egypt) by Bassam Mortada for its ability to create a home for memories and surpassing the filmmaker’s own understanding of his life’s events, which were portrayed from the perspectives of his parents.
A Quarter to Thursday in Algiers (France) by Sofia Djama won the Best Project in Development award with a cash prize of $15,000; a CineGouna Platform certificate; and US $2,000 worth of in-kind services from Clackett.
They Planted Strange Trees (Palestine) by Hind Shoufani won the Best Film in Post-Production award with a CineGouna Platform certificate; a cash prize of $15,000; and The Indie Deer’s cash grant of $10,000.
Fifty Meters (Egypt) by Yomna Khattab won multiple cash prizes: a $10,000 full film promotion package from The Cell Post Production; a $10,000 cash grant from Trend VFX; a $10,000 from Synergy Films; a US $15,000 cash grant for script development from Mariam Naoum and Sard Writing Room; a $5,000 worth of post-production services from BEE Media Productions; a $10,000 from Cult; a $1,000 for locations services from Clackett; and a $7,000 Master’s Degree US scholarship from Gemini Africa.
This project also won a chance from Arab Cinema Center to participate in Rotterdam Film Lab.
Haysh Maysh: False Drama (Morocco) by Hicham Lasri won $30,000 as a minimum guarantee on film distribution from MAD Solutions and Ergo Media Ventures as well as a $5,000 cash grant from Malmö Arab Film Festival.
Aisha Can’t Fly Away Anymore (Egypt) by Morad Mostafa won a $5,000 cash grant from Gemini Africa as well as EGP 50,000 from The Cell Post Production, and was selected for IEFTA’s Global Film Expression initiative.
Women of My Life (Iraq, Switzerland) by Zahraa Ghandour won a $10,000 cash grant from Maqam Production Films and was also selected for IEFTA’s Global Film Expression initiative.
Searching for Woody (Egypt) by Sara Shazli won a $5,000 cash grant from BEE Media Productions in addition to $2000 worth of services from Clackett.
The $50,000 cash grant per sale from OSN prize went to A Song for Summer and Winter (Syria, Denmark, Germany, United States) by Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh. The film also won $10,000 worth of a full DCP package from The Cell Post Production.
Hanging Gardens (Iraq, United Kingdom, Palestine) by Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji won a $30,000 worth of services and color-grading package from Mercury Visual Solutions, while Hyphen (Lebanon) by Reine Razzouk won a $10,000 cash grant from Clackett.
Happy Lovers (France, Morocco) by Hicham Lasri won a $10,000 cash grant from Rotana, while Arab Radio and Television Network (ART) gave its $10,000 cash grant to SINK (Jordan, Sweden, Canada, France) by Zain Duraie.
My Father’s Scent (Egypt) by Mohamed Siam won a $10,000 cash grant from New Black, while The Blind Ferryman – Al Baseer (Iraq, Switzerland) by Ali Al-Fatlawi won a $5,000 worth of post-production services by Hecat Studio.
Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem, today announced the outliers that rose to the challenges set by Hub71 corporate and government partners.
The first edition of Hub71’s The Outliers programme, an annual initiative that bridges entrepreneurs with corporate and government entities to promote innovation and address industry challenges, has gathered exceptional talent from more than 40 countries.
Each startup will benefit from up to AED 100,000 in cash grants to fund the development of their proof of concepts (POCs) that will solve challenges of leading major corporate and government partners in Abu Dhabi.
Hub71 launched The Outliers to facilitate better market access for entrepreneurs worldwide to address challenges set by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), Etihad Airways, Mashreq Bank, Mastercard and Thales. Each challenge is aimed at startups that have proven products with strong potential to commercialise and go-to-market.
Six challenges were set, and seven startups were selected to build and scale their POCs. Each startup will now work alongside their respective partners to develop their corresponding tech products at Hub71 and take them to market.
At GITEX Future Stars, Hub71 and its partners showcased the winning startups and their innovative solutions that will be developed to solve each challenge.
Jida Itani, Chief Operating Officer at Hub71, said, “We are actively seeking ways to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and the marketplace through our corporate partners and public sector alliances.”
Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI), ADCB set a challenge to develop an AI predictive engine that enhances recommendations for customers, based on their individual preferences. In response to the challenge, UAE-based, Genify, an AI-specialist for banks, developed a state-of-the-art transformer-based recommendation engine and wrote a detailed roll-out plan, which was selected by the bank.
DoH searched for human ingenuity and advanced technologies to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. The Department selected UAE-based, Alliance Care Technologies, which provides analytical and productivity tools to hospitals, physicians, and patients to improve quality, efficiency, and patient outcomes across the spectrum of care. The startup will deploy its S3 ACT solution comprising early warning pathogen detection, encrypted de-identified patient data extraction, pattern recognition and predicative analytics AI.
In aviation, the UAE’s national airline selected BridgerPay, a SaaS payments intelligence platform from Cyprus, focused on bridging merchants and payment providers with AI technology.
Meanwhile, Mashreq Bank selected two winners of its challenge to become a Value Added Services partner. The bank selected Zoko from India, which makes it easy for online merchants to conduct sales, marketing and customer support using WhatsApp. The startup has since joined Hub71 to benefit from its new flexible incentives. Mashreq Bank also selected Letswork, a startup dedicated to the future of co-working spaces.
Finally, Thales targeted the services of startups to develop a hands-free voice-activated chatbot to guide experts during radar maintenance procedures. The company selected AR Engineering, a UAE-based company that deploys interactive augmented reality (AR) virtual reality (VR), mixed reality and extended reality (XR) to improve the user experience and bring the physical world closer to a remote setting.
Dr. Sima Sami Bahous (aka) Sima Bahous. Diplomat. Leader.
Sima Bahous is one of the highest highest ranking officials from the Arab world in the UN system.
Secretary-General António Guterres described Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan, as “a champion for women and girls”, announcing on Monday her appointment to lead the UN’s gender equality and empowerment entity, UN Women.
Ms. Bahous brings to the job more than 35 years of leadership experience at the grassroots, national, regional and international level.
Most recently, Ms. Bahous served as Jordan’s UN ambassador in New York.
Prior to that, she was the Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) from 2012 to 2016 and Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the Social Development Sector at the League of Arab States, from 2008 to 2012.
The new UN Women chief has also served in two ministerial posts in Jordan as President of the Higher Media Council from 2005 to 2008 and as Adviser to King Abdullah II from 2003 to 2005.
She has also worked for UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, and with a number of UN and civil society organizations, as well as teaching development and communication studies at different universities in her native Jordan.
She is fluent in Arabic and English, and proficient in French.
source/content : www.news.un.org
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UN Photo/Manuel Elías UN Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan as Executive Director of UN-Women. / news.un.org
Lina Ghotmeh. Humanist Architect . Founder of Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture, France
French-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh recently received the “Tamayouz” prize, which rewards the excellence of women architects in the Middle East and North Africa.
An additional recognition for this architect, who has won several other international awards.
Dana Ballout, the Lebanese-American Emmy-nominated producer of “Trafficked with Mariana Zeller,” knows the exact moment she started paying attention to what was going on in the world. It was February 14, 2005.
Ballout was a senior in high school in Beirut, and as she sat in class that Valentine’s Day morning, a bomb went off just down the block, sending the building’s shatter-proof windows into convulsions. Lebanon’s recently-resigned prime minster, Rafic Hariri, had been assassinated.
She spent years covering the war in Syria as a reporter for outlets including The Wall Street Journal, but it was in podcasts and documentaries that she fully found her voice, allowing her to journey in depth into people’s lives in a way she never could before.
Ballout is a storyteller, but the stories she chooses to tell are ones that few are brave enough to tell. Often they can be harrowing, including the latest documentary she co-produced, “Groomed,” which follows a woman returning to her hometown in search of answers about the man who abused her as a child.
In “Trafficked,” recently renewed for a third season at National Geographic, Ballout and company travel across the world to profile the global underworld, sitting down with the titans of illegal industries such as scamming, steroids, counterfeiting and poaching.
source/content : arabnews.com
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Ballout had grown up in a household with a newspaper on the table every morning. (Supplied) / arabnews.com
Rawdah Mohamed. Somali Origin – Norwegian. Social media influencer, model, blogger, activist, healthcare professional.
Mohamed landed the role as Vogue Scandinavia’s Norway fashion editor earlier this year.
The magazine launched last week with Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg on the front cover.
At the beginning of her modeling career, Mohamed juggled the job with working with autistic people and people with different mental disabilities.
She continues to volunteer in mental health care to this day and has been working with patients at overstretched hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
source/content: arabnews.com
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Rawdah Mohamed is the first hijab-wearing editor of color at a western fashion magazine. (Ole Martin Halvorsen) / arabnews.com
Tunisia’s President named geologist Najla Bouden as the country’s first ever female prime minister-designate.
Ms Bouden is the first woman to hold the position in Tunisia’s history and the first female prime minister in the Arab world.
Born in 1958 in the central Kairouan governorate, Ms Bouden is a professor of higher education at the National Engineering School in Tunis, specialising in geosciences.
A political outsider, Ms Bouden will leave her current role of running a plan to carry out World Bank programmes at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Since 2011, she has served as director general in charge of quality at the Higher Education Ministry.
She also held the position of head of the Purpose Action Unit in the same ministry, and was assigned a task at the office of the then higher education minister, Shehab Boden, in 2015.
Ms Bouden will be Mr Saied’s fourth head of government since he took office in autumn 2019, and the third he appointed personally.
source/content: thenationalnews.com
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Tunisia’s president named Najla Bouden as the country’s first ever female prime minister. AFP / pix: thenationalnews.com
Jordan claim 2021 Arab Women’s Cup after late 1-0 win over Tunisia.
Jordan beat Tunisia in the final 1-0 to win the 2021 Arab Women’s Cup in Cairo, Egypt, the second edition of the competition that was first held in Alexandria in 2006.
Maysa Jbarah, who had scored twice in the semifinal win over Egypt, once again proved the hero, scoring the winning goal in stoppage time just when it looked like the teams would not be separated.
The Arab Women’s Cup is organised by the Union of Arab Football Associations (UAFA) that covers the Middle East and North Africa.
The 2021 edition saw seven teams compete – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan and Tunisia.
