We’re here to bring a new social hub to Dubai. Why? Because community is the core of civilization. But finding like-minded people in a new place can be difficult. That’s the problem co-founder Mike Askew faced. Hear about his experience and how ASKWHO is bringing a new community to Dubai.
The Background
Moving from London to Riyadh and then to Dubai, my co-founder Matthew and I both experienced how hard it can be to make a ‘home away from home’ and find new friends with similar interests. From this, the idea for ASKWHO was born. We both strongly believe that nobody should feel isolated, struggle to make friends or experience a sense of inadequacy because of the unrealistic spectacles they see on social media.
The Importance
Extensive research has proven the importance of community for our physical and mental wellbeing. In fact, “People who are more socially connected to family, friends, or their community are happier, physically healthier and live longer, with fewer mental health problems than people who are less well connected.”
But when you move to a new place, you are no longer physically connected to your friends and family so the emphasis becomes solely on community. Therefore, community becomes one of the main pillars of our social life that takes care of our happiness, physical well-being and mental health. It became apparent that we needed to provide this community for expats living in Dubai.
The Solution
With this in mind, we developed a dedicated group app focused purely on your city, we have complex algorithms within the app that help match like-minded people. We’ve set the groups ourselves so they’re easy to join and cover over 150 topics ranging from Fitness, Foodies, Lifestyle, Knowledge and Outdoors.
We provide a supportive space for people to share advice, and recommendations, find out what’s happening, arrange meet-ups and do more together in real life. We can’t wait to continue on this journey and bring a safe community to more people.
