MEA Q4 2018

20 MEA MARKETS / Q4 2018 , “Midwam provide services with global standers but with a local understanding of what the market truly needs. Midwam achieves this integration between local insights and global standard by collaborating with world class companies and subject matter experts to bring the most creative interactive experiences using latest technology in the field.” Midwam’s strategy is built upon strong foundation to assure best outcome and complete satisfaction from their clients. When discussing their strategy, Khalid AlMuawad highlights the highly-collaborative methodology that the team follows to ensure they achieve the best possible outcome for their clients. “Phase One: Discovery “The initial stage of any project is the discovery phase. We consider this as one of the most dynamic phases in the project. “At this phase, we establish the bases for the project and the foundation for the experience. The team then work collaboratively with our clients and stakeholders to define the objectives and goals, the scope, identify design principle, outline important details for the project, understand the target audience, define expectations, and key performance indicators. This stage allows us to understand in depth the needs of our clients and enables us to plan it strategically with attention to all details. “Phase Two: Design “At Midwam, we only accept the extortionary, we believe that an immersive experience has to have a long-lasting impact and effect, we believe that our concepts and experiences should be creative, novel, original, and change the way people perceive the projected scenario. Thus, we take the conceptualizing very seriously, we see it as complex cognitive processes and procedures. We align between the client objectives and key message of the experience and the nature of the target audience they want to engage. Thus, to achieve an extra-extortionary result; we go through an iterative process where we go back and forth between the different stages to come up with adequate ideas that meets our standards. We make sure to have an open communication line with our clients to assure complete alignment and satisfaction across all stages. “In our philosophy we design for human, who are more complex and more interesting than users or consumers. Thus, we create holistic experiences that consist of many parts starting with the human and powered by technology. “We believe that every mind stretched by an interactive experience will never go to its old dimensions. Thus, we design our experiences to ignite curiosity to experience, explore and learn more. We create immersive, interactive and limitless experiences customized to meet client objectives and business goals. Also, we understand that in order to create something truly ground-breaking, we must approach this opportunity holistically, considering all the factors surrounding the experience. Thus, we start experience design with deeply knowing and understanding all factors related to the experience. “Phase Three: Develop “Developing a unique, creative, immersive, and interactive experiences is one of our core strength and competencies at Midwam. Nevertheless, activating the experience is the most complex phase amongst the others, it requires numerous steps of development, scenes capturing, editing and iterations. The production is managed by a dedicated group of architects, graphic designers and software programmers who ensures optimum creativity and functionality improvement to any developed experience. This allows our interactive content to stand out and attract various types of users all the time.” Bringing the interview to a close, Khalid AlMuawad reflects on the last 12 months and notes on the most prevalent trends which have occurred within the industry and how the firm have adapted around these. “At Midwam, we noticed that the market is going through an ‘immersive reality revolution’. Immersive digital experiences are growing towards increased immersion as the next step for interactive entertainment, learning and development. At current time, the demand is moving towards immersive technologies that spans beyond headsets. “In Midwam, we have built a strong foundation across the year and launched some great experiences and content which has impacted multiple local industries and disciplines ranging from heritage experiences to educational experiences. In addition to this, we have ensured that our offerings are full of immersive experience that goes beyond the hardware medium and is not confined in a head set or a screen, but expands to immerse humans holistically.” Looking ahead to what the future holds, Khalid AlMuawad signs off by revealing the exciting plans which lie in the pipeline for the firm, especially following their recent success in MEA Markets 2018 MEA Excellence Awards, where they were awarded the accolade leading Experience Designer in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality 2018 – Saudi Arabia. “Midwam is creating unique interactive digital experiences that will change the way people explore and learn things. State of the art interactive technologies including AR and VR are transforming businesses, we are working to transform tomorrow by pushing our impact to reach multiple sectors and eventually elevate how the community are living their daily lives, allowing for better virtual meetings and playing a big role educational experiences. All adding up to a richer experience of the world around the user. Lastly, we are working to increase our spread nationally to include all areas of the kingdom.”