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A couple of cool things taking place this weekend. Cinemagics is playing the documentary “Amy” on the rooftop tonight. “Amy” is a great documentary on the story of Amy Winehouse and uses real mostly unseen footage throughout the film. I watched it recently and loved it even though I’m not an Amy Winehouse fan. It’s by the same director behind “Senna”, the amazing documentary on Ayrton Senna’s life which I also loved. Qout Market is also back this Saturday, in case you weren’t aware they’re no longer in Murooj but instead have moved to Salmiya near the Scientific Center at the Pearl Marzouq residential building. The new location (pictured above) is their best location yet and a lot more casual feeling than their previous ones. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Art Exhibition: Complicity
Winter Land Carnival
Rooftop Movie: Amy

Friday
Winter Land Carnival
Hight Street Market
Healthy Living at Al Kout Mall
Kuwait Bibliophiles – Book Club Meeting

Saturday
Winter Land Carnival
Hight Street Market
Farm Trip
Qout Market
Blend of Balance
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Workshop: The Imaginative World II
Rooftop Movie: The Time that Remains

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so double check info with organizers.

Combat Athletics is a new training facility in Kuwait that specializes in MMA, No-Gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai and Boxing. I passed by them awhile ago since they’re located near my place in Salmiya and I left fairly impressed. They’ve got two trainers at the moment with two more on the way. The first is Claudio “Hannibal” Silva, an MMA fighter with an 11-1 record with his last two wins coming in the UFC. The second trainer is Ajarn Khunsuek, the 2006 European Muay Thai champion with a ridiculous 300+ fights on his record but the coolest part about him though for me was the fact he had a cameo appearance as an extra in the 1989 movie ‘Kickboxer’ starring Jean Claude Van Damme. Both the trainers are pretty legit and Combat Athletics is banking on them to help turn the place into a proper training facility. Other than getting great trainers they’ve also heavily invested in their facility. The ring pictured above is the only official 5 rope ring in Kuwait while all their Muay Thai and boxing equipment are by Throwdown, their grappling mats by Zebra while and their strength and conditioning equipment by Life Fitness. Basically they’ve spared no expense.

Combat Athletics have been open for awhile now holding private PT sessions, but starting this coming Sunday they’ll be soft launching to the public. The gym is mixed so for all the women who’ve been asking me where they could to do proper Muay Thai training this is the place. I took a peek at their prices which haven’t been finalized yet and they’ve got an interesting system setup. You’ll have the option to sign up just to use their facilities, or the option to come just to their classes or the option for both. So for example because I’ve already got a gym membership somewhere else, I can just sign up for Muay Thai classes with them. They promised to send me the final price list once they’re ready but for now you can check out their instagram at @combatathletics

Here is their location on [Google Maps]

Friday night I passed by RAW Sushi Bar with a few friends to try the place out. RAW is a new sushi place located in a very industrial part of Shuwaikh and currently opening just on the weekends. Actually up until last week they were opening only Friday evenings but starting this coming week they’ll be opening Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. They’re still in a soft launch phase which was why their menu wasn’t the final edition when we passed by but I liked the place so wanted to post about it.

First to get the food aspect out of the way, we ordered a whole bunch of rolls and starters so we could try a variety of dishes. The worst dishes we had weren’t really bad but they just weren’t anything that really stuck out. On the other hand the stuff we did like we would go back for more. Their Negimaki was the best I’ve had and from the rolls we ordered my favorites were the Cali Wearing Orange and the Pink Ink rolls. Forgot what was inside them but just look for them on the menu if you pass by. One of the things I liked about their rolls was the ability to order half portions so you can order more of a variety without over ordering.

The interior of the place was dim, industrial and trendy looking. It’s not that big with a small bar running along one side of the restaurant and four small tables scattered around. They’ll soon have outdoor seating but I think I’d still prefer the inside more just because of the mood. It’s a local business run by the owners themselves who happen to also be the sushi chefs. I asked one of the owners why he chose to open up in that location and he told me he was actually a bike builder and spent a lot of his time in that area. There literally isn’t anything else around them open that late, there aren’t even any street lights which can be a bit creepy. But, it’s where he feels comfortable and along with all the location quirks I thought they helped make the place seem that much more special.

The only issue we really had was with the service. It was fairly slow but that was to be expected since they had only been open a handful of times and are still working to fix all their kinks. Price wise I found them extremely reasonable. We were four people and our bill came out to KD26. It actually should have been around KD31 since we ordered 4 starters, 5 different rolls, 4 waters and 2 green teas but, they didn’t charge us for two half portions of rolls because there was a mix up and we ended up getting them really late. Still, KD31 add tip plus divided by 4 is KD8.5 per person. That’s really good. As I mentioned, starting this week they’ll be opening Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 7PM till midnight. Their instagram account is @eatrawkwt and here is their location on [Google Maps]

This post is for the MMA fans here. A few years ago I posted a clip from Warriors War, a middleweight MMA tournament that took place in Kuwait back in 2001 and involved the likes of Matt Hughes, Bruce Buffer and Big John McCarthy. I was pretty surprised back then that I hadn’t heard of this tournament before but Ray Elbe sent me a link to an article a few days back that discusses the event in full details. Turns out it was a complete mess from an organizing stand point which should be no surprise but there was also a scheme to rig some of the fights. If you’re an MMA fan you’re going to find this enjoyable to read, check out the article [Here]

The Shakshooka Market is back this weekend and it’s my personal favorite event for this weekend. But there are other honorable mentions like the Winter Land Carnival which seems interesting (they’ve got a large outdoor ice skating rink). For the geeks over here there’s Global Game Jam 2016 taking place this weekend as well. Finally there is the Camel Classic RC Race, for those of you who aren’t aware, we actually have one of the largest off road RC tracks in the world so that event should be cool as well.

I also think there is a military event taking place near the Kuwait Towers this weekend but I haven’t been able to get any info on it. If you know something let me know but for now, check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
Art Exhibition: Complicity
Winter Land Carnival
Harry Potter Night
Rooftop Movie: Two Days, One Night
Camel Classic RC Race

Friday
Winter Land Carnival
Global Game Jam 2016 – Kuwait
The Hits Market
Mental Health Movie Night: A Beautiful Mind
Camel Classic RC Race

Saturday
Winter Land Carnival
Global Game Jam 2016 – Kuwait
The Hits Market
Yoga at the Park
Remedy Carnival
Protein Sheikhas: Boot Camp
Shakshooka Market
Cross Cultural Diwaniya
Rooftop Movie: The Fisher King
Camel Classic RC Race

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so double check info with organizers.

Arabian Business have released their World’s 50 Richest Arabs list for 2016 and Kuwait made the list three times:

10- The Al Kharafi Family
11- The Bukhamseen Family
26- The Alghanim Family

The richest Arab is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud from Saudi Arabia but thats not a surprise. What is a surprise to me at least is that 7 people from Lebanon made the list including Joseph Safra whom I hadn’t heard of before coming in 2nd place. Due to the amount of wealth in Kuwait I just expected more people from Kuwait to make the list although a lot of Kuwaitis are not on the list like Mohammed Alshaya because Alshaya is a private and family-owned business and so their finances are a secret.

Check out the full list [Here]

Recently I’ve been doing a bit of maintenance work on my car and one of the things I badly needed to sort out was my windshield. The windshield had thousands of tiny pits that were mostly invisible unless the sun hit the windshield at a certain angle and then my visibility would completely get killed. Last time I swapped out my windshield was at the dealership, it cost me around KD180, I needed to book an appointment and I needed to leave my car with them overnight. It was just too much of a hassle which is the main reason I had put this job off for some time. But, last week a friend of mine snapchatted a video of his windshield getting fixed at a place called Glass Clinic so I decided to pass by and check them out.

When I got there and started talking to the employees I realized the place was legit so I told them to go ahead and swap out my windshield. There are plenty of places on Canada Dry Street that can swap a windshield but majority of them are pretty sloppy with their work, reuse your rubber moldings and most importantly, use silicon instead of a windshield polyurethane sealant. Glass Clinic solves all those issues.

Firstly the place is pretty clean with a waiting area upstairs that overlooks your car. They covered my interior seats before they started any work and the employees wore latex gloves the whole time while working on my car. Instead of using a silicon sealant, Glass Clinic use the Totalseal brand of sealant which is specifically made for automotive glass and is a lot safer and stronger than regular silicon. If you’ve ever replaced a windshield on Canada Dry Street you probably had to suffer with the horrible smell for days after installing the glass, thats the smell of the silicon. With a proper polyurethane sealant there is no smell. The whole installation process took around 2 hours, which is more than double the time it would usually take you on Canada Dry Street so you get an idea of the amount of care they put into the job.

I opted not to install an original Toyota windshield since it was going to cost me KD135 without installation. Instead I went with an OEM version and the final cost with installation was just KD55. Slightly more than what it would cost me on Canada Dry Street but a fraction of the dealership cost. They also fix tiny windshield cracks and they also offer the service of coming to you wherever you are for an extra KD3. If you’d like to find out more, they’re on Instagram @glassclinic and here is their location on [Google Maps]

If you haven’t visited the Bayan Botanical Garden yet then the video above should be interesting to you. A reader uploaded a video tour he made on his most recent trip it does a much better job of showing off the place compared to the still photos I had previous posted. [YouTube]

If you want to find out more information on visiting the garden, check out my post [Here]

InfoConnect takes place at the end of January every year and its usually the best time to renew your internet subscription since all the internet providers and mobile phone operators have the best deals. InfoConnect was supposed to take place from January 24th to the 30th of this month but a couple of weeks ago a small messaged popped up on their website stating:

INFOCONNECT/INFOBIZ exhibitions have been postponed. New Dates will be advised in due course.

Yesterday I heard from a friend that InfoConnect has now been canceled for this year. Supposedly the internet providers came together and decided they would rather not pay the exhibition fees and instead offer their discounted prices directly to consumers. The three big players, Qualitynet, Fast Telco and KEMS have already started teasing their offers on their instagram accounts. That actually sucks since we don’t have that many interesting expos that take place at the fair grounds, and InfoConnect was one that a lot of people went to. In any case once all the ISP’s have their offers up I’ll post a comparison chart like I do every year.

Does anyone know if there is any place in Kuwait that offers stem cell therapy for the knees? My mum has an issue with her kneed and I took her to a doctor at Seef Hospital who recommended operating on it. But, from information I’ve gathered, stem cell therapy seems to be a better alternative. From what I understood they inject healthy stem cells into the knee and it starts repairing itself, does that sound accurate? Biggest advantage though is you can walk right after getting the stem cell injection while with a knee surgery you’re going to have to be off your feet for some time. If anyone has any information on this I’d really appreciate it.

There are a bunch of interesting things taking place this weekend. Tonight theres the NANTA Korean Cultural Performance which is also free to watch. Then there is the Auto Moto 16 car show which I have yet to pass by but I’m hoping to do so today. I’m also a sucker for car boot sales and there is one this Saturday at The English School. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Art Exhibition: Complicity
NANTA – Korean Cultural Performance
Rooftop Movie: The Purple Rose of Cairo
The Avenues Food Market

Friday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
The Avenues Food Market

Saturday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Qout Market
Yoga at the Park
Car Boot Sale at The English School
Madeenah Tour: Sulaibikhat Coast
K’S PATH Shelter Open Day
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Rooftop Movie: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
The Avenues Food Market

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled, postponed or have details changed. Always double check info with organizers.

As promised, here is the video I spoke about yesterday morning on Kuwait’s vision for 2035. The video is pretty long at 23 minutes so if you want to skip to the interesting parts forward to minute 13:48. Just to give you an idea of how large Bubiyan Island is, Manhattan New York is 87 square kilometres while Bubiyan is 863 square kilometres. It’s literally ten times larger so you can imagine how wasted the space is right now.

Watching the video gives me the impression that fixing Kuwait is going to be such a difficult task that they decided it might be easier to just build a new Kuwait from scratch on Bubiyan. I’m curious to know if alcohol be legal on the islands? My guess it would have to be if they’re hoping to attract tourism. [YouTube]

Developing an app can be as complicated or as simple as you think it could be. But before you jump into sketching the user interface (UI) or panic about not knowing how to code (most people with app ideas in the Middle East don’t) here are a few questions for your braincells to process:

– Is it an independent main service such as Talabat or is it an add-on tool to an existing offline service such as Mercedes-Benz Kuwait?

– Will that target audience actually like to use an app for such service or would they prefer another approach?

– Is it something you will charge for? If so, is it compelling enough to charge fees for as the case in the gaming app iKout? If it’s free, how will you generate revenue?

– How much traffic do advertisers need to see before they jump in? Can you generate such a volume within a small market like Kuwait or do you need to think regionally or globally? How long will it take you to get to that volume? Can you survive all that time without income?

If you’re still on the path of app development, then I have two steps for you: research and prototype. For research, you need to first understand the potential users’ needs and wants, and current behavior with apps. Observe closely how they use and feel the app’s prototypes. Your research questions should be insightful and not “likes and dislikes” types. One of the best research methods is observation because you see what people do and say naturally in action. Prototyping can be a 3D mockup, graphically designed paper templates that your testers can manually link to each other (not an actual app), alpha and beta stages, and so on. Prototyping can vary and it’s a quick and affordable way to test the user experience (UX) and UI without spending a significant amount of time and money to develop the app. At a certain point, if the concept and design are validated enough to roll out then launch and keep researching and prototyping, it’s a never-ending cycle.

One of the hardest things in app development is if you can’t code. Teaming up with the right developers is a make-it-or-break-it factor. In general, avoid using outdated or complicated programming languages. It’s best to educate yourself about the types of questions to ask developers. Working with freelancers might be more affordable, but it has its flaws. If you feel up to the challenge of learning how to code by yourself in Kuwait you might want to visit Coded. This week’s tip: Stick to the core big idea and don’t be tempted to add all the bells and whistles from the get go. These are my thoughts. What are yours?

Important: I’m not associated with any of the apps/companies mentioned in this post nor I’m recommending them as a benchmark. They are added for reference purposes only.

Post by Loaay Ahmed, a strategic business therapist since 1995. He currently lives and works in London, UK, while earning his master’s in Service Design Innovation, and managing knightscapital in Kuwait. For Loaay’s advice on business or work matters, send a short email to [email protected]. Regrettably, only the questions chosen for publishing will be answered.

Boulevard is a project that seems like it’s been under construction for an eternity. The first time I posted about the project it was back in 2010 and the project was already well under way by then. Boulevard is located in Salmiya right off the 5th Ring Road and opposite Souk Salmiya. It’s a large project that contains a bunch of things including a mall, a restaurant complex, parks and even a cricket field. I passed by it last April and was impressed with the size of the whole thing but the project still didn’t have any water back then so there was no greenery or lakes. But, a reader just emailed me recent photos of the place and looks pretty nice. According to the reader, Boulevard is expected to open in 3 months time but no official date has been set yet. Check out all the photos below.

A user sent me a link to a proposal by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on drones and other unmanned aircrafts. I’ve been going through the proposal now and here are some points I think are worth highlighting:

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Private Use)
– The UAS shall not be operated within 300 Meters of any person, vessel, vehicle or structure not under the control of the UAS operator; and additionally, during take-off or landing the UAS shall not be flown within 200 Meters of any person, unless that person is under the control of the aircraft operator;

– UAV shall not be operated over a congested areas, except with the permission of the DGCA; it shall not fly over public or private properties, or within 5km of Kuwait’s airport outer fence, Heliports, Helicopter landing Sites, and airfields and shall remain clear of control zones.

– DGCA UAV Registration required for UAV which have a total mass including batteries and equipment greater than 1/2kg. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Commercial Use)
– DGCAA UAV Registration. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

– DGCA UAS Operating Approval.

– DGCA Security Approval when equipped with camera or other scanning or surveillance equipment.

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Over 5KG and Under 25KG (Private Use)
– DGCA approval shall be obtained if operating outside flying clubs air space or the DGCA allocated defined zones.

– UAV shall not be operated near public and private properties;

– Use of video or image capturing device shall be prohibited;

– The applicant shall fill DGCA form to purchase this category.The form can be obtained from proper entity.

So basically if you own a drone or any other unmanned air vheicle you’re going to have to register it. If you’re shooting video and selling the footage then you’re going need to also get approval to operate the drone and approval from the air aviation security department. Finally if you’ve got one of the larger aircraft (over 5KG) like the hobby planes, then you’re going to be very limited on where you could use the aircraft plus you need fill out a form to be able to purchase one.

One thing I found odd is how sometimes they say UAS and sometimes UAV. So I started googling some of the points from the document and turns out they’ve just copied pasted a bunch of stuff from different proposals around the world including from the British CAA and the Emirati GCAA.

If you’d like to download the proposal and check it out, here is the [Link]

Image is a screenshot of drone footage from film Inspiring Kuwait
Thanks Abdulwahab