#MyDubai creating the world’s first autobiography of a city

About #MyDubai

Conceived with the aim of creating the world’s first autobiography of a city, #MyDubai was launched by Dubai’s Crown Prince, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, via Instagram on 5 January 2014. It is an initiative that encourages the people of Dubai – both the more than 200 different nationalities at home in the emirate and the throngs of visitors from overseas – to share compelling moments in their lives as well as the true culture and soul of the city via social media in the form of stories, images and videos.

Capturing the imagination, it was an instant success, and after a mere 12 hours #MyDubai had already seen more than 25,000 images and videos uploaded to Instagram using the memorable hashtag. Fast forward four months, and that figure had risen to 500,000 images. Things accelerated further, and less than six months since its launch, #MyDubai had hit one million hashtag uses, reflecting the extent to which the initiative had sparked people’s imaginations and moved them to showcase their experiences in the emirate.

Today, @MyDubai continues to gain followers on Instagram [http://instagram.com/mydubai] and more than one billion impressions on Twitter [https://twitter.com/MyDubai], and the initiative continues to gather momentum and inspire people, incorporating other social media channels including Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/MyDubaiOfficial] and YouTube [www.youtube.com/user/MyDubaiOfficial]. The resulting contributions are building a fascinating portrait of life in the emirate, and this content will be curated across different multimedia to inspire art instillations, films, books and other creative projects, which together create Dubai’s autobiography and reflect the vibrant, cosmopolitan city’s rich tapestry.

Click here to watch the #MyDubai video:

English version [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ER6_WRX4BY] and Arabic version [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJE587EyhAA].

DTCM and #MyDubai

Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), the governmental body responsible for promoting Dubai’s leisure and business tourism offering around the world, has joined the #MyDubai initiative in an effort to manage its platforms, develop spin-off projects aimed at providing further opportunities for people to share their stories, and in turn use this additional content to promote Dubai internationally. The Department regularly showcases the best, most striking photographs and videos on its social media channels and at exhibitions and roadshows. It also manages a special #MyDubai e-Museum, for which a selection of images hashtagged #MyDubai is chosen on a daily basis to represent life in Dubai on that day. These images are then shared in the e-Museum, which can be viewed on Instagram [www.instagram.com/mydubai].

“The best marketers of a city are the people who live in it,” said DTCM’s Director-General, H.E Helal Saeed Almarri. “And through DTCM’s involvement in #MyDubai, it is our intention to showcase the best of the city by curating images, videos and stories of residents experiencing the events, attractions, hotels, restaurants and other elements of our destination offering. We will launch a number of projects throughout the year under the #MyDubai banner, all of which will encourage residents to be tourists in their own city and highlight why Dubai is now the seventh most visited city in the world.”

Further engagement

In addition to personal images posted by Dubai residents and visitors, a number of top international brands, local organisations and government entities have also engaged with the #MyDubai initiative by using the hashtag across their social media platforms and through various events which highlight life in Dubai. A striking example of this is the Burj Al Arab hotel, which once a month rewards some of the most creative #MyDubai contributions by projecting five images onto its famous sail for all to see.

And there’s lots more. Dubai Culture launched a ‘Capture Creativity’ competition to support #MyDubai, which encouraged UAE residents and visitors to share photos and videos capturing their creative moments during Dubai’s art season. Other events, such as The Dubai World Cup, The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, The Desert Classic, Dubai Beach Polo and xCat, have also shown their support by projecting #MyDubai onto big screens to encourage visitors to capture their Dubai moments. Ski Dubai, too, was taken over by #MyDubai during its X-Men-themed Freestyle Night, which saw skiers and snowboarders tackle adrenaline-pumping stunts and jumps – dressed as superheroes.

In fact, keep your eyes open and you’ll notice #MyDubai throughout the city – and often in unexpected places. Dubai Police, for instance, is featuring the #MyDubai hashtag on its fleet of cars, most prominently on its latest convoy of Bugatti Veyron vehicles. Another supercar brand, Ferrari, supported #MyDubai during the unveiling of the California T by inviting Emirati artist Rashid Al Mulla and Dubai-based Jordanian artist Mohammed Hindash to create a piece of art recreating ‘their Dubai’ at the launch event. Not only that, but Audi Al Nabooda’s marketing fleet has also been branded with #MyDubai to attend events across the city.

You can even wear #MyDubai now that local designer Caliente Caps has launched an exclusive line of #MyDubai baseball caps, one of which has even been worn by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai. Also, other famous public figures have become involved, notably long-term Dubai resident Roger Federer, who, during the DDF Tennis Championships, shared his own #MyDubai story at an exclusive interview. He detailed his views on how Dubai has grown and developed over the years and shared some of his favoured pastimes in the city.

Marking a milestone

In recognition of one million #MyDubai hashtag uses in July 2014, and to showcase a selection of the photographs submitted to date, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Elevision Media donated space on the longest digital out-of-home space in the region. Known as the ‘DIFC Ticker’, the 96-metre-long LED screen in front of the DIFC Gate Building sequentially features images contributed on Instagram since the beginning of the year, rewarding the photographers’ artistry. Elevision Media has also donated more than 300 digital screens installed in over 75 buildings across the emirate, with each featuring #MyDubai photographs, stories and news on a daily basis.

Commenting on the milestone and DIFC and Elevision’s involvement, Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing, said: “The images of #MyDubai, when collectively viewed, create a fascinating portrait of life, each image chosen showing a human experience of our emirate. When His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, announced the initiative, he said that #MyDubai will provide the opportunity for each resident to share the exciting, diverse and remarkable lives they lead. We are delighted that DIFC and Elevision have joined #MyDubai, initiating the start of a citywide gallery which exhibits these submissions and will no doubt expand as other entities follow their lead.”

#MyDubai moving forward

DTCM’s involvement with the initiative will see a host of projects and engagements rolled out in the coming months, all aimed at providing both residents and visitors fun, interactive ways to share their #MyDubai stories. Look out for the following:

• #MyDubai street cars – In partnership with Virgin Radio, this yearlong initiative centres around two #MyDubai-branded vehicles touring the city over a period of 12 months, attending festivals and events, and engaging with residents and visitors to encourage them to share their #MyDubai stories on air and via social media.
• #MyDubai Trip – In collaboration with Peeta Planet, the award-winning TV-web travel show that follows the experiences of two UAE brothers, this innovative social travel series documents the journey of some of the most influential Instagrammers from around the world as they experience Dubai – the twist being that their itineraries are curated and crowd-sourced from several of Dubai’s renowned social media personalities. Each of the 12 most popular itineraries is then filmed as an episode of Peeta Planet’s “#MyDubai Trip” series.