• Hala Badri: “We congratulate the three winners and affirm our commitment to providing support to entrepreneurs and attract innovators from all over the world.”
• The challenge has seen the best local, regional and global start-ups in technology and design.
• 10 shortlisted projects presented their innovative heritage preservation ideas at Dubai Culture’s stand in North Star Dubai.

Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) announced the winners of the ‘Creative Innovation Challenge’ competition, which was launched within the North Star Dubai event accompanying the largest technology event, GITEX Global 2022. The competition succeeded in attracting 50 projects from entrepreneurs in the creative sector at local, regional and international levels, and presented its innovative solutions for the preservation, dissemination and celebration of the UAE's cultural heritage using the latest technological means, at Dubai Culture’s stand in North Star Dubai.
As part of the event, Dubai Culture organised a ceremony to distribute awards to the winners, where first place was won by POPMII from France, who received a prize of $5,000, while in second place was LISAN AI, who received a cash reward of $3,000. CARROTPHANT INC came in third place and received $1,000. The three winning projects were selected after their respective owners presented their projects to a jury of experts in the field of heritage, virtual reality applications, artificial intelligence and Web 3.0.
‘A qualitative addition to the creative economy in Dubai’
Hala Badri, Director General of Dubai Culture, said “Today, in this global event, we celebrate creative entrepreneurs who have succeeded in presenting innovative projects and ideas that would constitute a qualitative addition to the creative economy in Dubai, which has always been and continues to be one of the best environments. The Creative Innovation Challenge is fully in line with our strategic goals to empower the cultural and creative sector in Dubai and make it a global centre for culture, an incubator for creativity and a thriving hub for talent as well as the global capital of the creative economy.”
Badri added: “We congratulate the winners of these innovative projects, and we affirm our commitment to providing all forms of support to creative entrepreneurs, whether citizens or residents, and to attracting creatives in various fields of arts and culture worldwide, to offer them rich benefits provided by the emirate, which would contribute to the growth and prosperity of their projects and ideas.”
Unique methods of preserving cultural heritage
The first edition of the ‘Creative Innovation Challenge’ has been a global initiative that has succeeded in attracting local, regional and international start-ups working in the cultural and creative industries to design unique methods through which to retrieve, re-imagine and develop ideas for preservation of cultural heritage. This is intended to encourage using modern digital technologies to access an interactive experience, so that stories and ideas are told effectively to contribute to the transfer of experiences and the exchange of knowledge.
The challenge also provided an opportunity for the top ten start-ups to be part of the investor programme, in addition to obtaining free entry passes to the event itself, including GITEX Global, as well as accessing the conference and exhibition areas. They also received invitations to attend the forum for innovative global start-ups that would help them build a distinguished business network.
Shortlisted projects
10 innovative projects out of 50 were selected to be on the shortlist, which was chosen by a specialised team to present their innovative ideas within Dubai Culture’s stand at the event in Zabeel Hall 6. The shortlisted projects included:
MOMI project
MOMI from Italy specialise in digital services and web applications for exhibitions. This solution is an interactive guide that documents each visitor's reaction to a piece of art or a collectible, allowing curators to enrich work with multimedia content. The artist or gallery owner will be able to get feedback from the audience with detailed real-time analysis.
POPMII project
Project Pompeii (POPMII) from France is a 3D content creation and management platform to help people easily build and launch a digital experience online. The idea of the project is to live a heritage experience in augmented reality.
Konglomerate Games
A joint venture from Dundee, Scotland that specialises in developing full-fledged video games and their models. The owner of the project, Jimmy Bankhead, states that electronic games are the best way to engage people in learning and culture as well as preserving heritage authentically. Games can create immersive experiences ideal for engaging audiences to tell a story and share history and culture. This project re-imagines a historical neighbourhood that has disappeared with time, living its details and wandering around it.
Lisan AI – Artificial Intelligence
From Dubai, this addressed the intangible heritage segment, creating a multilingual modern proof-reader, writing accelerator, teacher and content protector in one package. Arabic is a complex language rich in vocabulary, with many nuances of morphology and grammar, resulting in tens of thousands of common mistakes. Hence, it requires years of study to master. The role of Lisan is to be the integrated content platform that provides language proficiency solutions with artificial intelligence at the personal and professional level in an easy and smooth manner.
Kinome Project
Kinome FZ-LLC from Dubai addresses the challenge of youth groups visiting the UAE who lack local culture and heritage awareness. The project has created immersive experiences that enable users to experience the rich culture of the UAE from the comfort of their homes.
Cogry Project
Coding & Play Inc. Project (COGRY) from Seoul, South Korea created an educational application that enables school students to learn coding as part of their history courses. The idea of coding Korean history was tested by applying augmented reality to teach this to preschoolers based on 72 beginner textbooks of coding and play.
The arch3D Liner project
The arch3D Liner project from South Korea is inspired by the UNESCO adage that “preservation of cultural heritage is indispensable and is also the sacred duty of all citizens.” Their idea is automation technology with AI learning from 3D and graphic artifact data.
IMKI
IMKI from France aims to edit data to harness artificial intelligence for culture and provide immersive and interactive audience experiences.
KitmeK Information Technology
KitmeK Information Technology, from a Dubai-based team, is a global K-5 curriculum offering learning through play solutions.
The Metaverse Museum
This solution is from Dubai and specialises in designing a Metaverse museum experience.

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