UAEU professor Dr Yasser Elsheshtawy delivered a presentation, "Slow Space", at the A4 Space in Al Serkal Avenue today, describing the methodology of and data from his studies on the usage of urban spaces in the Middle East.
He began the Campus Art Dubai talk with an introduction of his earlier Cairo project and mentioned his Abu Dhabi project with FIND, but the bulk of the presentation was about his work on public space usage patterns in Dubai -- specifically, of a street in Hor al Anz and a square in Deira, both in "old Dubai".
I thought the long-ish time lapse videos were kind of unnecessary, but I liked his data maps, his descriptions of the process of acquiring the data, information about the histories and functions of the areas, and various anecdotes from the study, some of which were also revealed during the Q&A session that followed.
Dubai Internet City's in5 hosted an hour-long overview of finance, followed by a networking reception, this Tuesday evening. Apart from taking in some useful knowledge, it was also an opportunity to have a look at a part of Knowledge Village I had not seen before.
Genesis Institute's Binod Shankar delivered an adage-replete presentation, starting with a couple of lists and local real-life examples of good and bad financial practices, then briefly dissecting income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, before closing with a summary on ratios. Much of it was familiar to me from my B-school days, but it was nice to refresh on the topic after so many years.
Maraya Art Centre (pretty much the only reason I ever make the trip to Sharjah) hosted the 4th edition of the growing Sharjah PechaKucha this weekend.
The themes for presentations at the event ranged from inspirational to entrepreneurial to social, with speakers including hearing-disabled Emirati graphic designer Mariam Wissam, e-grocery app developer Ghadir El Ghafri, and crowd-sourced tourism promotion campaigner Yorgos Kleivokiotis.
There were also some rather entertaining, if strange, presentations by amateur comedians, including an awkward (self-referential, I'm guessing) presentation about awkwardness by Mohammed J Al Serkal, and a serious-sounding presentation about esoteric popcorn conspiracies by Rami Salame.
Farah Chamma and MC Yazen, local young stalwarts of spoken word currently promoting their upcoming North African crowd-funded tour, were also presenting that evening, and closed the event with a live performance of poetry and rap.
