DWGE: Interview with Wayne Borg, COO of twofour54

twofour54 is at the Dubai World Game Expo cementing Abu Dhabi’s intention to help make the capital a regional centre for content creation across all media platforms including film, broadcast, music, digital media, events, gaming and publishing. Its rather creative name matches its intentions – it’s named after the geographical co-ordinates of Abu Dhabi. Wayne Borg, Chief Operating Officer of twofour54 is on hand at the expo to help deliver the company’s message across to the gaming industry. We caught up with him to chat about Abu Dhabi’s plans for the gaming sector.

Wayne Borg, COO of twofour54

Tell us about TwoFour54 and its mission.

TwoFour54 came about looking at Abu Dhabi’s ambition to become a cultural centre for the future through a number of initiatives that are one the way like the Guggenheim, the Luvre, all sort of set on the Saadiyat Island precinct. What was recognized, was that all the great cultural centers around the world have one thing in common — a strong dynamic creative industry space, whether that’s in London, Tokyo and Berlin.

For this cultural position to have traction and credibility, it is recognized that a strong creative industry space is also required. And it’s also recognized that today, that doesn’t really exist in the region. That’s how twofour54 came into being. We’re a fully-backed government initiative and our vision is very much about establishing Abu Dhabi as a center of excellence for Arabic content creation. We believe it’s a huge opportunity and while there is content created in the region, most of it is facilities-driven. There isn’t a true base , a hub for the creative industry, across all formats of content, be it film, television,gaming, online, mobile or publishing. Our role is to facilitate the creative process and help establish the media and creative industry ecosystem for the region, centered in Abu Dhabi.

To go about that, for us, it’s three fundamental components to it. Firstly, it’s about developing skills. We’ve established twofour54 tadreeb, which is a training academy. It’s mainly vocation driven. There are three partner companies providing courses – BBC, Thomson Reuters and the Thomson Foundation. We’re going to continue to expand our course providers. Today, we have some 200 courses on offer. By the end of the year, we would have put 800 participants through training. That training is primarily vocational based, three to five day courses and the attendees and employee-sponsored. That doesn’t mean that you cannot attend as an individual but predominantly it’s about industry looking to upskill and reskill their people.

What kind of courses do you offer?

It covers a wide spectrum from technical areas such as camerawork and lighting, sound through to specialist journalism fields and disciplines to technology and convergence courses. For instance, as a journalist today, it’s not sufficient to just file a story. You have to file the story, you have to upload it to a website, you have to potentially film it, and you have engage in some amount of interactivity with your reader base. So, it’s about equipping the industry to a skills level and proficiency in both technical and technique terms of international standards. Longer term, our goal is to also start to develop school leavers and graduates ceding the idea of a career in the industry, that is a sophisticated career choice and prepare them for the workforce that is going to be required as organizations from the region further grow and new businesses get established.

Do you think this region lacks skilled creative professionals?

I think the way up in the proposition we’ve developed is unique as it brings together a training environment in an operational campus. You have some of the world’s best industry players providing training all in one location. We’ll be announcing shortly our expansion into animation and gaming. We’re expanding our curriculum to meet the industry needs. When you combine that with an operation environment, participants have access to industry leaders they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. We can form internship programs and cadetships. It’s an integrated approach of bringing a learning environment with an operational environment to meet industry needs. We don’t believe that’s happening anywhere else in the region.

Other than training, how do you help develop the creative industry?

The second component for us in terms of industry building is incubation. We have twofour54 ibtikar which is about providing media and entertainment industry funding to support young start ups from the Arab world producing Arabic content. We see as a great opportunity here given the size of the region on a pan Arab basis – there are some 320 million people and I believe there is a great opportunity for contemporary content that resonates among the majority of that demographic which is 25 years old and under, which represent 60% of that population. There should be many many pieces of IPs that are created in this region, for the region. That’s what we’re here to stimulate from an entrepreneurial perspective and provide young entrepreneurs the opportunity to access not only financing but industry knowledge and skills, creative teams as well as facilities.

The third area is the enablement of the creative process, particularly when it comes to the audio visual facilities. Three weeks ago we launched our production facilities. Five studios, all high definition, supported by 22 post-production suites with high definition combination of sound and graphics. There is the enablement there to create content for not just film and television but also for online and gaming.

Tell us about the costs involved with the courses that you offer.

It varies. Most courses are between three to five days right now. They’re geared towards people in the industry. It varies between Dhs7-9,000 per course.

We’re here at the DWGE. Tell us about your interest in gaming?

We see the gaming sector as a vital area to be developed in the region. Today there’s virtually no indigenous games coming from this region. We want to help young game creators to follow their passion and realize their ambitions through their projects and bring them to market. By having a presence here, we want to make potential gaming companies as well as individuals and start ups aware of what we offer and the vision of twofour54.

A lot of gaming companies in this region are focusing on simply localizing content rather than creating their own IPs. On the other hand very few companies, like Vertex Studios, are creating their own video games. Which of these types of companies are you supporting?

Clearly we want to create original content. It’s not really our belief that reversioning existing content is going to meet the needs of the market. We want to create original content that resonates the needs of the audiences from this region. From a commercial perspective there’s no reason why that can’t be achieved, particularly when we look at the size of the pan-Arab audience.

Are you working with anyone at the moment to develop video games in this region?

We’re in discussions with a number of people and I can’t elaborate on that at the moment as they’re not finalized at the moment.

Do you think a regional game development academy is needed to help develop a games industry in this region?

Absolutely! As part of our role as facilitators is that we put in place both the physical and intellectual infrastructure that can help support not only the gaming sector but also the key content sectors. We’re working on building a gaming academy to help refine those skills and a production studio as well, so that there is employment opportunities and the opportunity to further develop and enhance those skills with the ultimate goal of producing original content and games for the region.

That sounds fantastic. When can we expect to see a gaming academy in Abu Dhabi?

We’re hoping to make an announcement in the next month or so regarding a gaming academy and production studio. We should start with the actual process of building the academy some time next year.

How does your funding company ibtikar provide financial support? Does it provide grants or investment in return for equity?

It works at two levels. We have a creative lab which focuses on young people – school leavers and young graduates with fantastic creative ideas but not necessarily a full-fledged business proposition. In that instance, we provide a grant to help further develop that idea. We provide them access to our facilities and our creative team to hopefully shape that idea into a proper business proposition.

The more formal area of the ibtikar area is ventures. For example, you may have an entrepreneur with a great content business proposition but not necessarily a go to market strategy. We’ll take a majority equity stake in that business, ensure that they successfully launch into the market and after a period of time we’ll look to exit that business and sell our shares preferably back to the founders.

Finally, what do you think of the DWGE?

I think it’s important to have such events in the region. It’s important for the industry to come together and for creative people to showcase the fact that this is a serious industry and you can have a successful, fulfilling career in a fun industry.