From vision to production… projects "Arab Podcast Program 2026" She reaches her final stop just before the assessment

2026/07/26 5:40:52 PM

4 minutes read

Dubai, July 26 / WAM / The Dubai Press Club continued the work of the third edition of the “Arab Podcast Program 2026”, within its second week, which focused on the “technical production and implementation” stage, with the aim of enabling participants to transform the ideas and concepts that they worked on developing during the first week of the program into practical models that are more ready for production, through specialized workshops that addressed the artistic and technical aspects related to the production of audio and visual content.

Program members participated in a series of applied sessions and workshops that dealt with project presentation skills, audio engineering, professional processing, visual and cinematic direction, montage, intelligent preparation of texts, and production strategies supported by artificial intelligence techniques, all the way to field application and the making of the model episode.

The week’s work began with a project presentation session entitled “Project Presentation: Evaluation and Readiness Testing Platform,” in front of an evaluation committee composed of Jamal Al Shehhi, an Emirati writer, publisher, and founder of the “Creative Coffee” platform, Patrick Samaha, representative of the “Next Audio” platform, Abdullah Al Nuaimi, presenter of the “Monday Chair” podcast, and Maryam Al Mulla, director of the Dubai Press Club.

The members reviewed their initial projects and discussed the elements of their readiness in terms of clarity of idea, identification of the audience, and general identity, paving the way for the transition to more advanced stages of development and production.

Barry Kassab, Business Development Manager at Shure MEA, presented the “Professional Audio Engineering and Processing Techniques” workshop, which focused on the basics of sound quality, choosing appropriate recording tools, processing audio files, and improving the listening experience in line with professional production standards.

On the visual production side, Ahmed Eid Salem, Regional Training Leader, and Maurice Dekker, Director of Photography at Sony MEA, presented the “Arts of Visual and Cinematic Direction for Podcasts” workshop and reviewed the most important elements of building an image, employing lighting and photography angles, and managing the visual scene in a way that enhances the presence of the visual podcast and gives it a professional and attractive character.

The “Modern Podcast Editing Techniques” workshop, presented by Bilal Ahmed Habib, the first official trainer for “Blackmagic Design,” covered the mechanisms of editing episodes, building audio-visual rhythm, and using editing tools to arrange the material, improve the flow of content, and produce the episode in a coherent way that can be published across digital platforms.

Maryam Raji, Director of Strategic Partnerships at YouTube – Google Gemini, presented the “Smart Preparation: Engineering Commands and Building Podcast Scripts” workshop, which focused on employing artificial intelligence tools to develop ideas, formulate texts, and build topics and questions, while preserving the authenticity of the content and the voice of the podcast maker.

Within the topic of modern technologies, Amr Zaki, founder and presenter of the “Intelligence Not Artificial” podcast, presented the “AI Revolution: Strategies for Smart Podcast Production” workshop, which reviewed the opportunities for using artificial intelligence to improve workflow, accelerate the stages of research, planning and production, and raise the efficiency of content from idea to publication.

The second week of the Arab Podcast program concluded with the “Field Application and Model Episode Creation” workshop, which was presented by Alaa Nawar, Director of Business Development at “Media Cast,” and its participants worked on applying what they gained during the program in implementing practical models for their episodes, and testing the elements of text, audio, image, and the general identity of the project.

In turn, Maryam Al Mulla, Director of the Dubai Press Club, confirmed that the second week of the program was an important step in moving the participants from the stage of building the idea and identity to the stage of practical implementation, noting that focusing on the artistic and technical aspects enhances the ability of the participants to produce more professional and integrated content.

She said: “In its second week, the program enhanced the participants’ readiness to move their projects from conception to practical implementation, through specialized workshops that give them a deeper understanding of the requirements for audio and visual production, and help them develop their projects according to professional standards capable of competing and reaching the public.”

She added: “Through the Arab Podcast Program, we are keen to provide an integrated training experience that combines creativity, technology, and practical application, enabling members to test and develop their ideas and transform them into models that can be produced and published, and contribute to supporting the presence of qualitative Arabic content in the podcast industry.”

For her part, Widad Kahour, Head of the Media Talent Development Department at the Dubai Press Club, said: “The second phase was designed to be closer to the actual production environment, and we were keen to choose speakers with diverse experiences this week, allowing the participants to learn about the various aspects of the podcast industry from a practical perspective, and to benefit from the observations of specialists before moving on to the next phase of the program,” noting that the work of the Arab Podcast Program will focus within its third phase on aspects related to publishing and promotion, in preparation for presenting and evaluating the final projects. Before a committee of sector experts.

It is noteworthy that the Arab Podcast Program comes within the initiatives and projects of the Dubai Press Club aimed at refining the creative and professional skills of media professionals, and enabling them to keep pace with the development taking place in various channels of media work, especially the new media templates that have emerged as a result of the rapid technological progress that the world is witnessing, and the resulting new media forms with wide spread rates, the most important of which is audio and visual content, or “podcasts.”