Emirates Airline and Google are ‘Celebrating Arabic Reading’ all through October in a collaboration to reach millions of smartphone users in the region, and support the UAE’s Year of Reading, a national initiative spearheaded by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
The aim of the UAE’s Year of Reading is to nurture an entire generation of lifelong readers, and ensure the groundwork is in place to support the country’s knowledge economy goals.
Commenting on Emirates’ partnership with Google, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum commented on Emirates’ partnership with Google: “Books can stimulate, inform, touch minds and hearts, and open up a world of possibilities for readers. As founding sponsors of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, we are staunch supporters of the written word.
“Our ‘Celebrating Arabic Reading’ initiative with Google aims to encourage more people to read, and try out Arabic e-books. Smartphones and tablets are increasingly a part of our daily lives, so it makes perfect sense to promote reading on these new platforms as well. People are hungry for content, especially Arabic digital content, and there isn’t a smarter investment for the future of this region than providing access to e-books to broaden the horizons of millions.”
While speaking, Vice President for Large Customer Sales for Google Europe Middle East and Africa, Ronas Harris said: “Technology has always played a pivotal role in providing people with equal access to information, and empowering them with knowledge. That’s something we’re very passionate about at Google and it’s in line with our core mission here in MENA to help promote and preserve local Arabic content on the web whether it was on YouTube, Search, Maps or Play.
“Through our collaboration with Emirates, we hope we can make Arabic literature more accessible and enjoyable than ever. There is so much opportunity to build the digital ecosystem here and we’re happy to have partners like Emirates make it happen.”
The mission of the ‘Celebrating Arabic Reading’ initiative is to make Arabic books more accessible for first-time online book readers and book lovers alike with unprecedented discounts of up to 90% off on online books at the Google Play Books store, the world’s largest ebookstore that hosts more than 5 million titles and offers readers smart technology.
Discounts are valid across nine countries in the Google Play Store (both in IOS and Android) for: the UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. This is the first such online book initiative, and the first discount of this scale in the region at the Google Play Store.
