• Arab digital book
  • ArabDigiBook
  • Arab digibook 2
  • Arab digital book
  • ArabDigiBook
  • Arab digibook 2
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Arabic Digital Book Expression Program

The Arabic Digital Book Expression Program comprised of five workshops carried out over four months in Fall 2013. This collaboration between Townhouse and International Media Network Services for Human Rights aimed to teach participants the know-how behind producing a digital book in Arabic. Mahmoud AboulFotoh, eCommerce Director & ICT for Development Consultant, was the main tutor for the program and available to the participants for technical support throughout.

Participants were looking to expand their knowledge of the possibilities involved in production, publishing and distribution, which fuelled constructive debates on self censorship in times of political struggle, social development through technology etc while developing their own projects. Discussions on rights management, content development, interactive reading and multimedia book curation arised, bringing to light the major developments the Arabic Digital Book requires to spread.

A few guest speakers working within the field(s) of editing, self publishing, ebook distribution, and media activism spoke to the participants to inspire thoughts on how to best produce and distribute their content via this tool they are learning to experiment with.

Guest speakers include: Erik Ingrid (R&D expert on ICT and co-founder of the IMNS), Omar el Zoghbi ("Daftar Tajreebi, an online publication that acts as a platform for visual expression for Arabs by Arabs", Jordan), Sharif Bakr (Al Arabi Publishing, Egypt) Laura Aletti (founder of exLibris, an ebook store dedicated to distributing books from the region + Mediterranean, Italy) Hani Morsi (PHD on digital activism, Brighton) and Hesham Al Fiqi (Editor).

The workshop ended with the participants left to develop and finalize their digital books; which will be published here on Townhouse’s website, featured in eXlibris online bookstore and included in the Digital Resource Library, an additional collection of readings in Townhouse's library space, on digital book production, publishing and readership. 

This project was generously supported by the International Media Network Services for Human Rights and the Swedish Institute, hosted by Townhouse and curated by Dina Kafafi.


English العربية