Creative Futures
In her role as Head of Arts at the British Council India, Alice Cicolini conceived the project, developed the early concept, research phase (with IIM Bangalore) and collaborative partnerships, and commissioned the brand from Ulhas Moses.
The platform: The creative industries sector contributes eight percent to the UK’s GVA, employs 1.9 million people and in London alone, employs more people that the financial sector. The creative export market is growing at 15% (against 3% for other sectors) and is currently valued at 11.4 billion. Globally, the creative industries are estimated to account for more than 7% of the world's GDP and are forecast to grow on average by 10% per annum.
Though the structure of the creative market makes it difficult to measure the contribution of the creative industries on the Indian economy, India’s creative potential is likely to be its trump card as it competes for space in the world market. With stiff competition coming from China in the traditional manufacturing sector, the Indian economy, will stand to benefit by exploring and nurturing its creative industries.
The British Council believed that it was time for the UK to demonstrate its creativity and experience in supporting the creative economy by sharing with its Indian counterparts some learning from that experience - with the intention both to forge new bonds and joint ventures in creative business between the UK and India, and to pave the way, by creating local champions for creativity, for UK creative business to succeed in India in the longer term.
The "Creative Futures" journey began with a a countrywide competition from which they selected twenty young creative entrepreneurs who were offered the opportunity of spending two weeks at the Creative Future School, a tailored residential workshop at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore. Over this time, they had the opportunity to develop their business skills with some of India’s best lecturers and business people, and to meet creative entrepreneurs from India and Britain to learn from their experience. Through a specially designed course methodology comprising of lectures, case study discussions, workshops, business games, interactive sessions with guest speakers, mutual learning techniques and one-on-one mentoring, the school aimed to equip the twenty participants to succeed.
On 24th & 25th August 2006, the twenty applicants made individual presentations of their business ideas to a jury panel including Andrew Senior (Head, Creative Industries, British Council) Sunl V (Artier, A Partnership) and Darshan Shah (Weavers’ Studio Kolkata.) They shortlisted three candidates based on their readiness to present their business proposal to UK investors. The selected three travelled to the UK in November 2006 for a week long, individual tailored tour followed by two days in London to share their experiences and prepare their pitches to UK investors. The pitches took place in London to a group of business angels.
A couple of months later the selected three were given another opportunity to present their ideas to a different jury, this time comprising of Chris Powell, advertising guru and senior advisor on the creative industries in the UK, Ian Livingstone, Creative Director of ELDOS, responsible for the success of Tomb Raider and Lara Croft, Sujata Keshavan, founder of Ray & Keshavan and one of India Today’s top 50 in Indian business and Niret Alva, co-founder of Miditech, one of India’s leading broadcast producers. They will be joined by Sanmit Ahuja, Director of Global Investment for the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC.) Andrew Senior, Head of Creative Industries, British Council, will Chair. CBC has also partnered with the British Council to give the selected finalists the opportunity to pitch to business angels in India over a two day period.
