Round 2 of 8: October

Executive Creative Director at Y&R Malaysia

Before returning to the motherland, Emir Shafri was previously Head of Digital at Y&R Singapore, where he helped grow one of the top digital departments in Singapore. There, they worked on several oddball experiments, which helped Y&R Singapore become
Asia’s top agency in Mobile at Spikes and Singapore’s Agency of the Year for the first time ever, clinch Singapore’s 1st Chimera Lion win and Titanium Lion nomination, and an Asian agency’s 1 st SXSW Interactive Innovation Award, on top of some other shiny pieces of metal.

His favourite win was when he worked with three oddballs – Xiaoan, Cassie and Nico – to win the Young Glory Professional championships in 2014. They even got a free trip to C2 Montreal out of it!

Emir was soon deported/transferred to Y&R Malaysia, eventually becoming its Executive Creative Director, for more oddball experimenting. Thanks to all the experimenting, Emir was recently named one of Asia’s 6 most exciting up-and-coming creative technologists, and invited to judge other experiments at New York Festivals, Spikes Innovation, Young Guns, CCAs, Kancils and more. Outside of work, he also spends time coaching students, as well as at startup accelerator bootcamps, paying forward the lessons he learned from his team’s and mentors’ experiments.

Brief: "THE WAR AGAINST ONLINE RADICALISATION"

The internet has allowed us to eradicate geographical boundaries and tear down barriers against free speech. But it also has allowed hate groups to reach out to potential recruits and radicalise them.

White supremacists. Anti-LGBT hate groups. Even terrorist organisations like Daesh (also known as ISIS). While their aims may be fundamentally different, their journey seems chillingly similar: brutal bloodshed and destruction in the real world that started with radicalisation in the online world. What’s even more frightening is how a lot of these recruits are merely insecure or margnisalised youth struggling to find their place in the world.

Take the story of Dylann Roof, a troubled teen in South Carolina whose journey started with, “absorbing propaganda about black-on- white crime from the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens… and ended with the June massacre in Charleston.” (Southern Poverty Law Center).

Or the thousands of European or Americans who have never set foot in the Middle East prior to being radicalised, yet who have joined Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

In fact, some of the online recruitment and engagement campaigns run by these hate groups could put some brands to shame. With active social media engagement involving their own twisted versions of internet memes, forums numbering hundreds of thousands, and even slick pieces of branded content.

Brief: How might we eradicate online radicalisation?

Online radicalisation is so important to these hate groups that some of these hate groups have hired their own film editors, film crew, designers, social copywriters, social strategists, community managers and recruiters. Titles that would not feel out of place at any advertising agency.

The battle against their hate won’t be won offline, but rather online. Your mission is to develop an idea that would weaken their online propaganda and radicalisation machine. There are many ways to look at the problem. Some examples include how we could weaken the way they distribute messages, damage their credibility or how we can reach out to vulnerable youth before they are radicalised to make them more aware of such tactics and more critical of everything they see online.

It goes without saying that this problem is a complex one, so I don’t expect you to solve every aspect of the problem. What I’m looking for is a clear demonstration that you’ve understood and dissected the specific facet that you’re addressing, and that you’ve come up with a clear, smart, impactful solution to the problem.

Deadline for Round 2: October 31st 2017, 11:59pm Los Angeles time.