"Creative Ummah is an eLearning platform for Muslims to empower themselves and their communities with affordable online courses taught by the Ummah’s most exciting creative talent."

The Ummah has an incredibly rich and diverse wealth of creative expertise that spans a vast spectrum of traditional and contemporary disciplines. Much of this knowledge is not widely shared and only available upon face-to-face interaction.

This initiative aims to provide a world first in competitive online eLearning, by establishing a global platform for people to enrol in courses that are facilitated by industry professionals and global icons. This innovative approach to online education is aimed predominantly, but not exclusively, at the Muslim community to help foster positive growth, inter-community cohesion and a much needed up-skilling and professional development on a global scale.

CreativeUmmah.com will be an adaptive online eLearning platform for people to teach and share their expertise with people all over the world insha'Allah. The approach will use video tutorials, online lessons and an interactive social media learning environment. The intention is to:

 

 

Understanding the need:

Observation 1: We live in a very branded world. Many Muslims do not understand, let alone engage, professional creative services. This drastically limits their reach, appeal and impact on a global scale.

Solution: Offer quality online training for Muslims around the world to help them think like creative professionals. Up-skilling the Ummah in this way will address issues such as the importance of presentation, brand impact, being able to present and communicate efficiently and effectively and creating projects and campaigns that have a long term positive effect on the global community.

Observation 2: The world we live in is full of shallow consumer-driven advertising and promotion. The majority of people, including many Muslims, completely overvalue and follow many useless brands.

Solution: Encourage Muslims to develop beautiful, engaging brands and creative experiences that are not only commercially effective but also ultimately remind them of their Deen and their relationship with God.

Observation 3: There are currently no Muslim-oriented creative institutions that offer a wide range of courses exploring traditional and contemporary creative practices. At the same time, there is massive growth and a push forward with online training and teaching systems.

Solution: Combine the two by developing an easy to use online training platform with a spiritual intention, enabling individuals to flourish and creative communities to develop their potential, ultimately to drive positivity and impact around the world with creative skills.

 

 

Observation 4: Many incredibly talented creative Muslims are either ‘never heard of’ or hard to find due to language barriers, geography or just lack of global connectivity.

Solution: Incorporate a creative hub and online directory of the world’s creative Muslim talent into the Creative Ummah online training platform. This creative hub will also highlight emerging talent, giving them a global platform to showcase their portfolios and work on collaborative projects.

 

A closer look at our goals:

• Share knowledge and skills: Create an adaptive online eLearning platform for people to share their unique skills. To teach potentially thousands of people using video tutorials and lessons accompanied by electronic assignments for individuals and groups of students.
• Promote professionalism and global impact: Teach professionalism to creatives and up-skill the Ummah, in order to increase the reach of ideas and brands.
• Immerse the commercial in the spiritual: Encourage Muslims to create beautiful brands and creative experiences that are both commercially effective and ultimately remind them of their Deen and their relationship with God.
• Reach all creative Muslims: Be the first Muslim-oriented creative institution providing training in a range of traditional to contemporary creative practices, with an affordable and easily accessible online delivery.
• Connect and promote creatives: Break down the barriers to global connectivity by incorporating a creative hub and online directory of the world’s creative Muslim talent. Highlight emerging talent.
• Give back to the community: Enable Muslim-run initiatives, campaigns, events, brands, and projects to receive the professional creative services needed, and for Creative Ummah students to gain real-life experience.

Sharing knowledge:

The sky is the limit with the courses Creative Ummah can offer. Professional creative practice lends itself to many fields, but the wider aim is to foster innovative thinking across a vast spectrum of topics. For example, eventually we hope to offer courses in subject areas including:

• Graphic Design, Branding, Visual Arts, Painting, Calligraphy, Graffiti, Mosaic, Sculpture
• Poetry, Writing, Languages, Spoken Word, Performance, Music, Composition, Audio
• Event Design, Marketing, Illustration, Fashion, Interior Design, Printing
• Web Design, App Development, Programming, Game Design, Social Media
• Photography, Filmmaking, Video Production, Animation, 3D & Motion, Production
• Entreprenuership, Business Development, Project Management, Community Building
• Motivational, Self-Empowerment, Capacity Building, Personal & Life Coaching
• Cooking, Storytelling, Architecture, Journalism, Fitness & much more insha'Allah!

The intention is to launch a pilot version of CreativeUmmah.com in late 2014 with some sample courses. The full set of subjects will be added gradually from 2015 insha'Allah.

Creative Ummah actively welcomes anyone who wishes to develop and submit their own courses to be taught via the platform. You can also nominate existing teachers who you would like to be featured. Please email info@creativeummah.com for more information.

 

Building a community:

• Directory of creative talent: Creative Ummah will offer a go-to directory of the best emerging and established talent to connect entrepreneurs with the most ideal skilled creatives needed for their project teams.
• Community and open collaborative projects: Creative Ummah aims to actively provide a platform to match volunteer creatives with non-profit programs as a great way to help community programs realise their potential, and for the volunteer creatives to gain valuable real-world experience.
• Free creative resources and tool kit: Provide free creative tools, guides and resources to drastically improve the quality of Muslim-generated content, regardless of its origins and target audience.
• Accreditation: Over time, the vision is to partner with educational institutions so that students may receive certification from universities.

 

 

Who will benefit?

1. Develop a creative talent: All creative Muslims who are looking to learn new skills, get some experience in their field of interest, and increase their professionalism.
2. Have a great idea? All Muslim entrepreneurs from grassroots initiatives to businesses who seek quality creative services to launch their ideas and brands.
3. Everyone! We are all consumers of ideas and brands – CU will directly impact the development of more brands and creative experiences that remind you of the Deen and your relationship with God, insha’Allah.