Mighty tasks

Fortune favours the bold, said the Roman slave come playwright, Publius Terentius Afero. In a big white house in Washington, where the 44th president of the USA is just settling in, they would probably agree. It takes great great boldness to convert a 'no, you can't, because nobody ever has' into a 'yes, we can'.

Barack Obama will mean many things to many people, but he perhaps best epitomises the simple adage of ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained'. Which is a mantra that the Association of Professional Interior Designers (APID) will be espousing enthusiastically between now and November.

Another young upstart with big, bold plans, APID, the youngest member of the International Federation of Interior Architects and Designers (IFI), has run a successful bid to host the organisation's 2009 General Assembly and Design Congress in the UAE later this year. A mammoth, six-day design extravaganza, the event will include an exhibition, student workshops and a competition, as well as the general assembly and congress.

With some 65,000 members from 45 countries, IFI is a formidable force, and if this opportunity is properly utilised, the ramifications for the region could be immense. This is a once in a blue moon chance for the UAE to prove its mettle on a truly global stage.

There are still too many misinformed onlookers who are quick to write the region's design industry off as immature, unsophisticated or lacking in substance. November will be the time to prove them wrong.

It will also be the time to take a united stance, and to put best feet forward. It is a mighty task, and APID only has nine months to prepare. It definitely won't be easy... but difficult and impossible are two very different things.

Just ask Barack.

Selina Denman is the editor of Commercial Interior Design.

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