Blink Studios Wins ‘Best Art Or Film’ At Augmented World Expo 2018 USA

Blink Studios, an award-winning animation studio based in Dubai, announced that it was awarded the ‘Best Art or Film’ ‘Auggie award’ for its animated short series ‘Karim & Noor’ during the 2018 Augmented World Expo (AWE), the most recognised industry AR & VR awards event in the world that takes place annually in Silicon Valley. This prestigious win marks a first for the Middle East and further solidifies the studio as one of the UAE’s finest, as well as adds another notch on Dubai’s mandate for global innovation and ingenuity.

Since launching in 2016, ‘Karim & Noor’ has captured the hearts of viewers from around the world by matching humour with inspiring morals of friendship, compassion and acceptance. Episodes are uploaded onto the show’s dedicated YouTube channel — youtube.com/karimandnoor — and feature the adventures of Karim, a seven-year-old boy, and his ‘lanbot’ — a robot lantern. The series uses a ‘short form’ video format, which is popular with online videos and builds massive viewership with young children.

Nathalie Habib, Executive Producer at Blink Studios, commented: “Blink Studios is honoured to be one of the first studios in the Middle East to receive international acclaim for its creative achievement in producing films utilising the latest advancements in storytelling technology. We thoroughly believe that being ahead of the game in our art as storytellers and film makers will keep our ideas, stories and products relevant to our audiences everywhere.”

AWE’s annual events bring together a mix of CEOs, CTOs, designers, developers, creative agencies, futurists, analysts, investors, and top press in a fantastic opportunity to learn, inspire, partner, and experience first-hand the most exciting industry of our times. This year’s submissions were voted on by a myriad of professionals in the realm of futuristic technologies, including Pearly Chen, Principal Group Program Manager at Microsoft, Mark Sage, Senior Product Manager at Google AR/VR, and Dr Hong Choi, Chief of Staff at HTC.

The Auggies offer critical exposure to new technologies, ideas and advancements, and this year AWE received the largest number yet of submissions from companies of all sizes and scale, locations and applications–generating fierce competition among each category for a winner. X Reality Experiences — technology-mediated experiences that combine virtual elements with reality — enjoyed $2 billion in investments during 2017. This value is estimated to grow to around $20 billion within the next five years and as a now-recognised global player that focuses much of its productions on this technology, Blink Studios is set to reap the benefits of this expanding and developing market.

Blink Studios operates in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles, and is a pioneer in the research and development of storytelling through this medium of content experience that is set to become mainstream in the future.