Leaders

In today’s times, talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not! The contemporary world is driven by ideas and innovations; creative expression is the key to lead progressive evolutions in diverse fields or industries. However, the opportunity to develop talents and reach the right audience is rather slender and monitored by limited platforms. In order to facilitate talented artists reach a global cultural platform and monetize their art serial entrepreneur Reem Kassem co-created Basita.live with her partners Eddie Stone, Adnan Joubi, and Omran Almaitha.

Reem is an international fellow of the Arts Management Fellowship at the John F. Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts and DeVos Institute in Washington DC., an international fellow of the CLORE Culture Leadership programme, and is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of West of Scotland’s School of Business & Creative Enterprises. Her Ph.D. is investigating cultural engagement in the context of protracted crisis, to contribute to resilience building and community wellbeing in a digital age. Being a cultural producer & researcher, she not just appreciates art & culture but is consciously dedicated to bringing to light the intrinsic value of arts and culture activities and their impact on the well-being of the society, especially the less privileged citizens. Founded in 2020 during the tough times of COVID-19 pandemic, Basita.live is a virtual theatre or a virtual venue where artists from across the geographical demography can have access to a highly secured technology and share their live or pre-recorded content in order to generate income.

In an extensive conversation with the WE Magazine, Reem speaks to us about her extraordinary professional journey and her organization that is bringing about a creative revolution in the art & culture space, through digitalization.

Introduce us to basita.live. Take us through your journey to co-founding and entrenching it into the talent promotion sector?

Basita is an online platform that brings together artists, performers & creators on one single platform and helps them generate income to be achieve sustainability. Our objective is to develop and facilitate the environment & tools for a “ONE GLOBAL CULTURAL SECTOR” to emerge. Basita.live is a tool for the cultural sector to maintain, be resilient, and self-sustained financially during turbulent times and beyond. It provides the sector with the necessary actual data to analyse audience behaviour given the changing social dynamics, in order to create informed future strategic plans.

I’m operating in the culture sector for 19 years now, and have been heavily involved in Egypt in planning and addressing the challenges the sector faces, such as financial & business models, lack of resources, and clear policies that regulate the sector. Creatives are dependent on funding. I have seen artists often struggling to sustain and earn a living being just an artist, without the need to have a second job. Although there are several studies and proven impacts of how arts & culture are good for the society and the individual’s mental health, still the sector falls into a funding dilemma. The basic idea of Basita has stemmed from this necessity, and from the fact that artists had to work for free during COVID to keep online presence. Amongst, many online social platforms, Basita is a unique digital platform that offers to its users a detailed, transparent, and accurate statistics of its audience demographics, which signifies its market value.

Back in 2011, I founded Agora in Egypt which is a culture organization that facilitates creative community engagement through education, dissemination, and production of arts & culture. Basita is a continuation of my practical experience with my first organization which I founded to facilitate social & economic development in Egypt and help underprivileged communities develop resilience through Arts & Culture.

“Amongst, many online social platforms, basita is a unique digital platform that offers to its users a detailed, transparent, and accurate statistics of its audience demographics, which signifies its market value.”

What are some of the most challenging aspects of your current role and how do counter these challenges?

Women are known to be multi-taskers and so I’ve been since a very young age. We the co-founders of Basita, constantly teach each other. I’m fortunate to have a strong support from my colleagues; where I’ve the vision & concept for the process of the platform, they are the creators of technology. In all my work fronts, and

projects, I lead. I believe that people and process are more important than the outcomes. If you take care of the people and make the process enjoyable, you don’t need to worry about the outcomes. But if you only care about the outcome, the process will not be meaningful. At Basita, we all take care of each other and conclusively enjoy the process of overcoming any challenge.

I would like to encourage leaders to become more human and so I’m setting the example by leading exemplarily and being an authentic one.

As one of the primary leaders at Basita, how do you drive growth within the organization? What is your guiding leadership philosophy?

I am a multitasker since childhood, be it my education or job. This trait has helped me throughout my life journey. In terms of driving growth as a leader, my efforts boil down to developing cultural policies and highlighting the impact of cultural engagement on societies implying all the necessary tools & programmes that would enable goal accomplishments. We also constantly upgrading & developing our technology, and it is our diligent dedication towards the work that has enabled us to touch demographics beginning from UAE, US, Asia & Africa to across the world. We recently had our first real time live streaming from Egypt, where people were able to watch one of our venue partner event from any corner of the world.

We’re also launching the first edition of the Basita fellowship funded by Drosos Foundation, where 20 young performing artists from different disciplines such as music, theatre, dance, and all types of spoken word, from the MENA region will be equipped with the necessary technical, managerial, marketing, and digital capacities to embark on their next career level, be selfsustained financially, and be able to navigate and master the digital era.

How do you keep yourself well aligned with the periodic evolutions occurring in the industry and the technology domain?

Regardless of my research education, I’m a curious researcher by nature and hence love to keep myself updated about technologies and other sectors and industries as well. Arts & Culture have clear connection with psychology, humanities, and the different sciences, so knowledge about things can never be enough. All of Basita’s co-founders keep enriching each other with knowledge and skills in and across industries.

As a successful business leader what would your advice be to young women aspiring to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?

We all have great ideas, but only a few of us take the lead to convert those ideas into reality. Hence, my advice to all would be, if you have any idea, go for it, don’t hesitate or wait for it to advance & develop, because if you don’t take immediate action and a decision at the right time, you will regret finding it getting implemented by someone braver than you.

Reem Kassem, Co-Founder, Basita

Reem with her transformative approach to Art & Culture is leading Basita to facilitate an ecosystem for a ‘ONE GLOBAL CULTURAL SECTOR’ to emerge and develop.