Ann-Maree Reaney, Dean of the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, was present at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with Ismael Touq, TechShop General Manager, during a signing ceremony held at TechShop Abu Dhabi.

Zayed University established a new partnership with TechShop Abu Dhabi. TechShop Abu Dhabi is the first facility in the GCC, initiated in partnership with the Innovator program; an initiative by Abu Dhabi Technology Development Committee (TDC). It is a ‘making’ space accessible to public, with grade equipment and staffed by professionals where tinkerers, crafters, and makers of every level can work and share inspiration. It offers access to fabrication machinery and prototyping technologies, as well as provides a communal learning environment where professionals and amateurs collaborate to turn their ideas into reality.

Design & Build TechShop (Innovator) class as an elective course in the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi

The focus of this course is to introduce 15 participant students from CACE to the concept of the ‘Maker-Culture’ and design. The course will ask students to identify problems within their communities or immediate environments, and will encourage the exploration of creative solutions; to deliver products and spatial proposals. This is in par with today’s global technological advancement and rapid paradigm shift toward self-sufficiency and personal digital fabrication.

For the first three weeks of the course, students will undergo induction sessions on machinery user, operation and safety procedures, followed by practical project implementations. The access and fabrication knowledge is expected to enable students to take their design to the next level; from design proposal to design prototypes.

The course is aimed at providing the enrolled female design students seven days a week supervised access to machinery currently unavailable on campus premises. This type of exposure is expected to raise standard of design output of our students, which will promote innovative use of materials and equipment, and will enable the students to realize their designs and turn them into quality prototype. These are important skills needed as the students prepare to become part of the workforce of the developing Creative Industries in the UAE.

The above have been facilitated by the kind support of CACE Dean’s office specially Dean Ann-Maree Reaney and Zayed University upper administration, and the generous sponsorship of TechShop management all agreed on a MOU between Zayed University and Techshop.