iRead, the Egyptian-based startup that strives to spread the passion for reading, has launched a number of activities and competitions on its social media pages. Through these wide range of interactive and entertaining activities, iRead is able to fulfill its mission by spreading positive vibes and engaging many age groups as much as possible during these hard times. iRead has successfully managed to encourage a diverse community to use their spare time wisely while they are social distancing. Lately, iRead has been focusing on how to connect various authors with their fans while they stay home and safe. It managed to do that through its official Facebook page where famous authors went live for an hour on iRead's Facebook page to connect with their fans in iRead's community. Ahmed Mourad, Youssef Zidan, Mohamed Sadek and other renowned authors joined iRead's live sessions. This interactive platform managed to give the fans the opportunity to engage with their favorite authors and ask them all sorts of questions they had on their minds. One of the goals iRead has been striving to achieve was putting the younger generation on the right track and unleashing their full potential. iReadl three competitions for children to discover their talents in recitation, writing and drawing. These competitions aimed to positively fill the free time of younger generation. The contestants' work was published on iRead's Facebook page, allowing the public to vote on the best work and the winner of each competition received a voucher worth 5000 EGP from Seif Stores. "We always seek to effectively and positively contribute to our society especially since these times force us to stay at home. This is a good opportunity that we had to seize; that's why we are keen to encourage people to read more and to spread awareness on how to use their free time wisely and do something worthwhile." Highlighted Engy El-Saban, Board Member of iRead and the CEO and Board Member of VictoryLink. Sherine Rashed, the CEO of iRead commented, "We do our best to encourage everyone to develop good habits during quarantine time and we believe reading is the fastest way that allows us to do that. That's why we offer various entertaining and engaging activities to provide more room for new people to join our hub of reading and spread its passion." It is noteworthy that iRead launched a new competition under the name of “Corona Nights”, which aims to discover new talents during these circumstances. The competition revolves around writing a 2000-word story about the nights we spend during quarantine. The contestants can write stories in any genre; comedy, horror, romance or even science fiction. The best 20 stories will be published by Dar El-Shorouk in a book titled “Corona Nights”. This competition will reveal the hidden talents while reflecting on what our community is going through during this period.
