Most online quizzes seem to be an expression of vanity, but for Mohammed Pervez, they are a way to give back to the UAE.
Mr Pervez, a retired Indian expatriate, created the website quizuae.com to educate people about the country that he has called home for 34 years.
He spent “three or four months” building the website, which features quizzes on the UAE, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the Northern Emirates, as a way to educate people in a “fun way”.
“Quizzes appeal to everyone,” said Mr Pervez, 62, from Hyderabad. He calls the quizzes a means of casual education.
The website is free but requires users to register. There are still some kinks – some questions are repeated, for example – but Mr Pervez said he was working on improving the site and hopes to find sponsors.
His website went live on National Day and, after fixing some issues, he decided to start promoting it.
“I thought on the eve of National Day it would be some sort of dedication and tribute from me, having worked for so long in this country,” he said.
He said that people can learn in a “soft” way that is more engaging, through his website.
“If you’re sitting at a bus stop waiting for your bus, or an appointment, and don’t want hard reading – just casual surfing, you might take part in these quizzes,” he said.
“It’s a mix of two ideas. The first idea was the quiz-based e-learning idea.”
He hopes the site “will be something interesting and useful for people here”.
The quizzes include questions on history, geography, trivia, travel and tourism.
They cover the country’s longitude and latitude, airport codes, airline history, exports and imports, local cultural symbols, small towns and even the colours of the UAE’s currency.
It also asks users to choose the most popular sites in Sharjah, know the location of the country’s oldest mosque, and list the UAE ranking in terms of oil production, gas production, population and gross domestic product.
“QuizUAE is a dedication by a long-time UAE resident to this wonderful country and its friendly people,” the website reads. “Few countries in the world have achieved such rapid development within a single generation as the United Arab Emirates has achieved.”
Mr Pervez came to the UAE in 1981 in search of a job, with a master’s degree in business administration under his belt and a background in finance. He was employed by a bank before joining Emirates airline, where he has worked for 32 years.
“I was one of the first in a very elementary team to start the airline,” he said. Emirates started flight operations in 1985.
Mr Pervez has two adult children who work in the UAE and a daughter in Canada.
He said he has enjoyed all of the UAE, which he described as “a nice place, safe and comfortable”, with “plenty of everything”.
“I’m very grateful for that,” he said. “I don’t expect to be making much money in this venture, but all this effort – sentiment is behind it. It’s something that might give back to this country a little bit.”
lcarroll@thenational.ae
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Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
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Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
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Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
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It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”