Podcasting is a pretty big deal around the world, and in recent years, it has also grown within the Middle East. PodFest, an event bringing everyone interested in podcasting, will be taking place on March 7 in Cairo at the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) Tahrir Cultural Center downtown.
Essentially, the event would not have been possible if it was not for AUC’s Journalism and Mass Communication professor Kim Fox.
PODFEST LOGO
925Egypt sat with Fox to hear more about what PodFest is all about and why it’s being done in the first place. She explained that podcasting is growing as an industry in the United States and other parts of the world too, such as the UAE, and Egypt is definitely not excluded from the podcast hype. However, the communities need not know each other well enough to create an actual support system. That’s what PodFest aims to create.
“We don’t know each other. I know some people but then I don’t know other people. And I don’t know people who are doing Arabic. So, we need to get everyone here at the table to cultivate the community,” said Fox.
At PodFest, Fox aims for the event to be a rather, cozy meet up among the podcasting community that would allow for interesting conversations. Throughout the event, there will be listening sessions from podcasts such as, Kerning Cultures and Ehky Ya Masr representing Arabic and English content respectively.
Kerning Cultures is the type of podcast where they “tell the kinds of stories in which we can actually see ourselves, the kinds of stories we want to discuss with our friends over warm cups of coffee on cozy sofas,” according to their website. While Ehky Ya Masr, produced by Fox herself, is a narrative podcast about life in Egypt. Ehky Ya Masr literally means “Tell Your Story, Egypt” in Arabic.
All in all, podcasting is all about storytelling and a lot of the people attending PodFest want to kick-start a career in storytelling. With that in mind, Fox explained that the main prize at PodFest is giving people the tools to start a podcast and ‘get going’.
Overall, the sessions will be held in English and in Arabic and will look into voice presentation, interviewing, editing, equipment and promotion too.
Part of the PodFest conference closing is a podcast pitch competition, and just like any other competition, there is an application where your ideas need to be put on paper for the PodFest Cairo team to look at and review. They will then decide who gets to pitch that idea to the judges.
“If you have an idea and you can provide the topic and the passion but don’t actually know how to do it, we want to say, ‘here are your resources to do these kinds of things’. That is what it is and that’s what a conference is supposed to be,” Fox explained.
When it comes to pitching stories for a podcast, it’s important to remember that finding new ideas that ‘standout’ is the key to success.
“We are looking at an environment that is really fresh and really new so anyone can enter the market, but who will be successful?” said Fox.
Because Fox is a professor at AUC, involving students means a lot to her and to the AUC community. Although this is not confirmed, she is considering a smaller version of PodFest at the AUC New Cairo campus especially for students, faculty and administration.
