Airbnb is one of the first names that comes to mind when you think about design-led companies. Brian Chesky, the founder & CEO of Airbnb during one of his interviews had said that the Silicon Valley didn’t think that a designer could build a company. But he proved them wrong to turn a struggling startup into a $30-billion giant. Being design-centric is obviously not the only reason for their success but it’s definitely one of the biggest contributing factors. Their design-driven strategy has inspired a lot of other Silicon Valley stratups to follow their footsteps and keep design at the center of everything they do.
However, when it comes to MENA, design is not really a priority for most of startups and entrepreneurs. The design team at Careem wants to change that with their initiative called ‘Design Nights’. They want to build a community of designers in Dubai. With the regular sessions and events, ‘Design Nights’ aims to bring Product Designers from different tech startups and companies together to talk about all things design and to have a common ground where they can all share openly and learn from one another.
“Design nights will help elevate the status of design and design thinking within our community and will give you the tools to do so in your organization as well. Bringing design to the forefront of technology, business, and product decisions will in turn help bring the focus back to the people who we design for.”
Mohamed Imran, Careem’s Head of Design likes to think of ‘Design Nights’ more than just a meetup.
“Its more for building a community to learn, get inspired, and help elevate the value design can bring to an organization and the people it serves,” he told MENAbytes.
The initiative has full backing of Careem.
“Design nights is an initiative by the design team at Careem, but we have the full backing of Careem. One part of our two pronged mission at Careem is to build an institution that inspires and Careem empowers all its people in achieving that mission,” said Imran.
The first event will be held at Careem HQ in Shatha Tower (Dubai Media City) on 25th of October at 7 pm. It’s open to a limited number of people but anyone interested in Design Nights can sign up using this link.
