SIBE to be established at university in Iraq

SIBE, an online producer and broadcaster of TV shows first established at Warwick in 2011, has been introduced to the University of Kurdistan-Hewler in Iraq.

SIBE is a student run producer and web broadcaster of live TV shows and documentaries. By broadcasting TV shows online, it encourages constructive action and audience participation through interactive chat rooms.

The SIBE studio at UKH will be used for student journalistic reporting on the Middle East and other regions. It will also help to form links between students in the East and the West.

UKH SIBE held its introduction event on Wednesday 6 March. It received a warm welcome with just under 400 students, around 40 percent of the student body, attending the event.

Sholi Loewenthal, director of SIBE, told the Boar: “These are historic times for SIBE, because we aim to become a genuinely global medium of the student voice.

“The fact that we will set up SIBE at the University of Kurdistan-Hewler, and the fact that students there are so engaged with the medium, means there being a real bastion for the student voice not only in Iraq but in the wider Middle East.

“Whilst [UKH SIBE] will produce locally focused content, they will also produce regionally focused and globally focused content – and all of their content will have the potential to reach global audiences.”

Florrie Sheehan, SIBE TV producer of the comedy panel show _The Black Hole_, shared the excitement: “I think the newly created UKH SIBE is brilliant. It will bring a whole new media force to the University which will help the communication and discussion of poignant issues and ideas, and of course be excellent as a new platform of entertainment for students!”

The development of UKH SIBE came about the efforts of UKH student Abdurrahman Ali Bapir, who is now chair of UKH SIBE. Abdurrahman’s brother studies at the University of Warwick.

“One of my friends at Warwick, Mohammed Ali Bapir, introduced me to his brother [Abdurrahman Ali Bapir]… Abdu took the idea to his friends, to the SU and to the Vice Chancellor who all supported him in the initiative and encouraged him to introduce it to the whole university,” Mr. Loewenthal said when asked how the establishment of UKH SIBE had come about.

SIBE was due to launch its first Warwick-UKH collaboration project with a televised inter-university debate between Warwick and UKH students on Thursday 7 March. However, the event has been postponed until further notice.