Shifa Yusuff Ali, Founder & CEO, IdeaCrate Edutainment Company

The children’s play centre industry has traditionally focused on entertainment. What made you believe the model needed to evolve?

The shift to thoughtful play has been gradual, but it’s now more evident than ever. Families today are far more intentional about how and where they spend their time. Parents are not just looking for somewhere to take their children on a weekend. They want tobe reassured that the experience is meaningful, supports their child’s development, and adds value to their time together as a family.

Research has proven that children learn most effectively through play, but not all play delivers at the same value. There is a real difference between passive, unstructured time and play that is designed to build motor skills, social confidence, and creative thinking. The industry has largely treated play as a generic offering, while we saw an opportunity to treat it as a discipline, rooted in child development and intentional design.

The commercial dimension is also that in a maturing market, the concepts that endure are those that give families a genuine reason to return—not just because they are convenient, but because the experience is consistently valuable.

Purpose-driven play is better for children, and it is a stronger business model.

You often speak about creating environments that work for both children and parents. How important is experience design in building modern family spaces?

It is central to everything we do. I have always believed that family spaces should serve the whole family, not just the child. Too often, the parent experience is an afterthought. But when you design with both in mind, the entire dynamic changes.

I have always wanted to build a business that is close to the community it serves. Parenting can be overwhelming at times, and it was important to me to create spaces where both parents and children feel supported, welcome, and connected. At Orange Wheels, for example, parents are not spectators. The activities are designed so families can participate together. That shared experience is what turns a visit into something families genuinely value.

Good experience design also extends well beyond the physical space. It is the journey from the moment a family discovers us online, through the booking process, the arrival, the time spent inside, and the follow-up afterward.

Every touchpoint either builds trust or erodes it. We think carefully about all of them.

Many industries are moving toward experience-led models. How do you approach designing environments that are both educational and engaging?

When we think about designing our spaces, we always start with the question: what do we want the family to feel and take away from this experience? That is what keeps the balance between educational value and genuine engagement.

Our approach starts with developmental outcomes. What do we want a child to gain from this experience? Is it fine motor skills, social interaction, creative expression, or problem-solving? We work backward from those outcomes to design activities that deliver them through play. The child experiences fun. The parent sees growth. Both leave satisfied.

We also invest heavily in the sensory and spatial design of our environments. Colour, lighting, sound levels, and material choices are not just aesthetic decisions; they are developmental ones. Overstimulation is the enemy of focused play. Our spaces are deliberately calmer, more intentional, and more thoughtfully curated than what you typically see in this category.

It requires constant iteration. We observe how children and families interact with our spaces, we gather feedback, and we refine. Design is never finished. It is a living process.

Technology is increasingly shaping how families interact with these spaces. How are digital tools helping enhance the experience?

Children today are already exposed to high levels of digital stimulation, and that shapes how they engage with the world around them. As a result, we are very deliberate about how technology features in our spaces.

For parents, technology plays a clear role in simplifying the journey—whether through booking systems, communication, or feedback loops. It allows the experience to feel more seamless and predictable.

For children, the approach is more measured. The intention is not to replicate screen-based engagement inside a physical environment, but to support interaction in a way that enhances the experience without overwhelming it.

We are also building capabilities that help parents better understand how their child engaged during a visit, including the types of activities and developmental areas explored.That is meaningful technology. It adds value without replacing human interaction.

Our position is clear: technology should enhance the experience, not become the experience. Children need tactile, physical, human-led play. That is non-negotiable for us.

From a business perspective, what have been the biggest operational challenges in scaling physical experience-driven businesses?

The biggest challenge is maintaining experience quality as you grow. In a product business, you can standardise production. In an experience business, you are always relying on people, environments, and interactions, and those are inherently harder to scale consistently.

Our play facilitators are central to what makes our spaces work. They are not just supervising children; they are guiding play, engaging families, and creating moments. Recruiting, training, and retaining the right talent remains most significant investment. You cannot scale culture from a document.

Real estate is another constraint. Our experiences require specific spatial conditions—layout, flow, and ceiling height—that are not always easy to accommodate within standard retail formats.

Scaling successfully requires discipline in both operations and decision-making.

With plans to expand regionally and globally, what does scaling an experience-based brand require?

It requires being very clear about what is non-negotiable and what can flex. For us, the philosophy is non-negotiable: purposeful play, family-centric design, and developmental intent. Those principles travel across markets. But how they are expressed might look different depending on the region and its culture.

Operationally, scaling requires robust systems. We are investing in standardised training programmes, operational playbooks, and quality frameworks that allow us to onboard new locations without diluting the experience.

But systems alone are not enough. It needs to be underpinned by strong local leadership that understands both the brand, customer and the market.

Ultimately, scaling an experience brand is slower than scaling a product brand. And I am comfortable with that. Growing too fast at the expense of experience quality would undermine the very thing that makes IdeaCrate valuable.

With so many indoor play options available, how does IdeaCrate differentiate itself?

Three things set us apart.

First, intent. Everything in our spaces exists for a reason. We do not add attractions because they are trendy or because competitors have them. Every activity, every design choice, every programme is rooted in a developmental purpose. That level of intentionality is rare in this industry.

Secondly, the family experience. We do not just design for children. We design for families. That means parents are part of the experience, not on its sidelines. It means our spaces feel welcoming for adults, not just tolerable. And it means the overall visit is something families genuinely look forward to, together.

Third, our multi-brand approach. Orange Wheels, Orange Seeds, and Orange Hub each serve a different need and age group, but they are connected by a shared philosophy. A family can grow with us, from their child’s earliest years in a nursery environment through to more social, high-energy experiences as they get older. That continuity is something no single-concept competitor can offer.

Beyond that, the difference is often felt rather than seen.

It is the culture we have built: the way our team interacts with families, the warmth of the environment, the feeling you get when you walk through the door. That is what keeps families coming back.

Looking ahead, how do you see the edutainment industry evolving?

The edutainment market is projected to reach over nine billion dollars globally by 2031, and the Middle East is one of its fastest-growing regions. That growth is a clear signal: families are willing to invest in experiences that go beyond pure entertainment.

I expect the next few years to bring greater sophistication to how education and entertainment are combined. The early movers in this space are proving that parents will pay a premium for quality, purpose-driven experiences. That will attract more investment and raise the bar for the entire industry.

I also think community will become more central to how these spaces operate. The best family spaces will not just be places you visit; they will be places you belong to. We are already seeing this in our own business, where families build relationships with our team and with each other. That sense of belonging creates loyalty that no discount or promotion can match.

At the same time, I think the industry will move toward more thoughtful, right-sized concepts. Large-format entertainment centres with high capital costs and short refresh cycles are a challenging model. The future favours concepts that prioritise experience depth over scale.

For IdeaCrate, the direction is clear: continue to lead with purpose, invest in our people and our design, and build a brand that families trust.

What inspired the creation of IdeaCrate, and how has your vision evolved?

The idea behind IdeaCrate goes back about ten years, to a moment that many parents will recognise. I was looking for a space to take my children where the experience felt genuinely enriching, not just entertaining. That search made me realise there was a real gap in the market for family spaces that combined quality, purpose, and warmth.

I wanted to build something that sat at the intersection of education and entertainment, where play is designed with developmental intent and where families feel they belong. That conviction became the foundation of IdeaCrate: the belief that children deserve play experiences that are thoughtfully designed, and that parents deserve to be part of that journey.

The vision has evolved considerably since those early days. What started as a single concept has grown into three distinct brands: Orange Wheels, a premium indoor play concept focused on purposeful play and family connection; Orange Seeds, a Montessori-inspired nursery rooted in emotional wellbeing and early development; and Orange Hub, a social, high-energy space for older children and group experiences.

Each serves a different need, but all are built on the same philosophy. We have also become much more deliberate about end-to-end experience design, thinking beyond what happens inside the space to how families feel at every stage of their interaction with us.

As we have grown, the focus has shifted toward maintaining that intent at scale—ensuring that the experience remains consistent across locations. The goal now is to set new standards for what family spaces can be, starting in the UAE and expanding across the world.

“Cloud waste isn’t created by bad engineers. It’s created by systems that show problems too late. Once I saw that, it became clear, the solution wasn’t better reporting. It was prevention.” – Atmoz CEO Yael Shatzky

Yael Shatzky didn’t set out to build a company around cloud costs. What she noticed, after more than 25 years across enterprise technology, product marketing, and growth at organisations including Amdocs and Microsoft’s R&D ecosystem, was a pattern.

Not just rising cloud spend, but a deeper structural disconnect in how it’s managed.

If you were introducing yourself and Atmoz to someone outside tech, where would you begin?

I’d say I’m building a company that changes how people think about waste—specifically cloud and AI waste.

Imagine a house where electricity prices constantly change depending on what you use and when, but no one knows the cost. Lights stay on, AC runs all day, and while you know you’re wasting about 30%, you have no way to prevent it. The only signal you get is last month’s bill.

That’s how companies operate in the cloud today.

Atmoz changes that by bringing cost awareness into the moment decisions are made, helping teams make smarter choices without disrupting how they work. The result is simple: waste is prevented before it happens.

What is the core problem Atmoz is solving—and where has the market gone wrong?

The market has focused on visibility, dashboards and reports that explain what already happened.

But the problem isn’t visibility.
It’s timing.

By the time companies see the data, the money is already spent and systems are already in production. Even with perfect visibility, nothing changes.

Atmoz works at the moment engineers are building, engaging them with immediate, simple recommendations that don’t slow them down. That’s where prevention becomes possible.

What does ‘AI-first’ product development look like at Atmoz?

We built a data foundation that reconstructs cost signals as resources are created, before billing data exists. That’s the hard part.

On top of that, we use AI where it matters most: interaction and execution. Our AI agent takes accurate, contextual data and delivers actionable recommendations directly within developer workflows.

Because the system is grounded in precise data, the guidance isn’t just intelligent, it’s reliable and immediately usable.

What are the biggest challenges in getting engineers to trust AI-driven recommendations?

Interestingly, it’s not trust in AI, it’s the belief that prevention is even possible.

For years, companies have been told they can reduce costs, yet around 30% of cloud spend is still wasted. That’s because most tools analyse waste after it happens, they don’t stop it.

Once engineers see an issue flagged in real time, with clear context and a simple fix, the skepticism disappears. It becomes tangible.

What is one leadership mistake that fundamentally changed how you operate?

Focusing too much on the product, and not enough on marketing early on.

Great products don’t speak for themselves, especially when you’re creating a new category. Marketing isn’t something you layer on later; it shapes how the product is understood and adopted. Starting early makes a significant difference.

Where do you see the biggest inefficiencies today?

The biggest inefficiency is the disconnect between engineering decisions and their financial impact.

Every time a developer deploys infrastructure or triggers an AI workload, they’re making a financial decision, without visibility into its cost implications.

AI is amplifying this. Costs are more volatile, and traditional feedback loops can’t keep up.

Atmoz brings cost awareness into that decision point, making efficiency part of the engineering discipline, much like security became over time.

At this stage, how do you define success?

Success isn’t a single milestone, it’s a series of moments.

Signing a new customer. Launching a capability that impacts spend. Getting a call from a customer excited because they just saved $30K on something they didn’t even know was happening.

Those moments are what drive us forward.

You’re defining a new category. What does it take to change long-held assumptions?

It starts with conviction. You’re asking people to question something they’ve accepted as normal.

But conviction alone isn’t enough, proof is everything. Category change happens when someone sees it working in their own environment and has that “aha” moment.

That’s why we focus on immediate, tangible value. When waste is prevented in real time, the mindset shift follows naturally.

Resilience also matters. When you challenge established models, you will be dismissed. The key is to stay grounded in the problem and keep showing evidence.

Has the industry been solving cloud waste the wrong way? Why hasn’t it changed?

I wouldn’t say wrong, FinOps tools solved the problem they were designed for. They brought visibility and governance, which was critical.

But they were built on the assumption that cost is something you analyse after it happens.

Today, cost is created instantly, when infrastructure is provisioned or AI workloads run. But feedback still comes later. That gap is the issue.

What’s changed is the pace of engineering. With AI, decisions are faster and costs are more dynamic. What used to be inefficient is now unsustainable.

That’s why prevention isn’t just an improvement, it’s becoming essential.

How will engineering teams work differently in five years?

Cost will no longer be treated as something external, owned by finance. It will become part of the engineering feedback loop, like performance or reliability.

Atmoz brings that awareness into everyday workflows, guiding better decisions without adding friction.

Over time, this shifts behaviour. Waste isn’t something you detect and fix later, it simply doesn’t get created.

The result is not just lower cost, but faster teams, better decisions, and more room to innovate.

As the Middle East accelerates its push toward becoming a digital economy, global consumer electronics brands are being forced to rethink their role beyond simply selling devices. For Hisense, that shift is already underway.

From building connected living ecosystems to strengthening regional manufacturing and R&D, the company is positioning itself not just as a technology provider, but as a long-term partner in the region’s transformation.

In this conversation, Jason Ou, President of Hisense Middle East, Africa and India, outlines how localisation, supply chain investments, and a sharper focus on consumer relevance are shaping the company’s next phase of growth in the region—and why the Middle East is emerging as more than just a consumption market.

The region is increasingly positioning itself as a hub for digital economies. How can consumer electronics brands contribute to this broader transformation beyond simply selling devices?

Consumer electronics brands today play a much bigger role than just providing devices. Our real impact comes from shaping how people live in an increasingly digital world. At Hisense, we focus on anticipating consumer shifts and building our innovation around the needs of modern, connected lifestyles. It’s not only about technology, but about how that technology integrates seamlessly into everyday life.

We see this clearly through connected living. A TV today is no longer just a screen, it becomes part of a wider ecosystem, connecting with appliances, enabling intuitive control, and helping consumers manage comfort, energy, and daily routines more efficiently. At the same time, localization is key. Through regional R&D, partnerships, and a stronger presence on the ground, we ensure our innovation is relevant to local lifestyles and market realities. Ultimately, our role is to translate innovation into meaningful, practical value, supporting the region’s digital transformation in a way that is tangible for both consumers and communities.

Technology companies often struggle between being engineering-led and market-led. How does Hisense maintain that balance internally?

For us, it is not a question of choosing between engineering-led or market-led. The strongest companies are built on both, working hand in hand. At Hisense, we combine strong engineering capabilities with a deep understanding of consumer needs and local markets. Our innovation is driven by technology, but always shaped by how people actually live, interact, and use our products. We focus on one simple principle: every innovation must translate into a better user experience. That is where engineering excellence meets real market relevance, allowing us to stay both forward-looking and grounded in consumer value.

You have led Hisense’s expansion in the Middle East through a period of rapid technological change. What leadership principles have helped you balance global innovation with local market realities in this region?

The starting point has always been staying true to Hisense’s vision and values. That gives us a clear direction, especially during periods of rapid change. The second element is people and partnerships. Building the right team on the ground, and working with the right partners, has been essential to understanding the region and executing effectively across markets.

Third is localization with discipline. While we benefit from strong global innovation, success in this region comes from adapting that innovation to local lifestyles, climate, and consumer expectations in a consistent and structured way. And finally, long-term commitment. We have approached the Middle East as a strategic growth market, continuing to invest in technology, operations, and relationships. That long-term view allows us to balance global ambition with local relevance and build sustainable growth over time.

As most global supply chains and manufacturing ecosystems for consumer electronics remain concentrated outside the Middle East, what role do you see the region playing in the future production and innovation landscape of this industry?

I believe the region will play a much bigger role over time, especially as a center for localization, strategic manufacturing, regional distribution, and application-led innovation. We are already seeing that evolve. Hisense has been strengthening its regional manufacturing footprint, including operations in Algeria and Egypt, alongside localized R&D in Dubai. Our recent export milestone from Algeria into Egypt and Tunisia shows that the region is not only a consumption market, but increasingly part of a broader industrial and supply-chain ecosystem.

Going forward, I see the Middle East and wider MENA region becoming more important in three areas: as a faster response hub for regional supply and customization; as a testing ground for technologies suited to local environmental and lifestyle conditions; and as a bridge between global innovation and emerging-market demand. The opportunity is not just to manufacture more, but to shape products and solutions that are more relevant to this part of the world.

If we fast forward ten years, what will the concept of “home entertainment” look like compared to today?

We are currently witnessing a significant wave of innovation, particularly driven by AI capabilities. I believe this will continue to evolve, becoming smarter, more intuitive, and more seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Home entertainment will not only improve in terms of quality, with better visuals, sound, and performance, but it will also become more personalized and adaptive to each user.

At the same time, we will see more robotic and automated technologies becoming part of the home, supporting everyday tasks and enhancing convenience, creating a more connected and intelligent living environment. Ultimately, the experience will shift from simply watching content to enjoying a smarter, more immersive, and fully integrated home experience.

Finally, if you had to describe the next chapter of Hisense in the Middle East in one word, what would it be and why?

Reliable. We aim to become the most reliable brand in the region, in line with our longterm vision. This means continuously strengthening our position across technology development and market penetration, while keeping consumer needs at the center of everything we do. At the same time, we will further invest in localized solutions to ensure our innovation remains relevant, practical, and impactful for the region.