Creative Economy approaches the arts as a business which can both sustain individual artists and lead to wealth creation in the economy of whole countries.

Our Creative Economy team in London was established in 1999 to lead in this area and runs programmes in both emerging economies and developed countries, including within the UK. The website underpins this work by providing information on recent and current initiatives including the UK and International Young Entrepreneur Awards and the nurturing of the creative economy programme. The site was also set up to establish networks for the creative community.

WHAT IS CREATIVE ECONOMY?
Before 1997, the creative sector was considered to be of only marginal importance to the UK’s economic well-being. Creativity was not seen as a driver for job creation or economic growth. Over ten years later, all this has changed.

The first Creative Industries Mapping Document was published in 1998 and the second in 2001. The need then was to raise awareness of the industries, the contribution they made to the economy and the issues they faced. Now the impact of creativity in regeneration and social inclusion is widely acknowledged. Every region of the UK has identified the creative economy as a priority area for economic growth. And the special needs of these industries are reflected in policy development at national, regional and sub-regional level. They are a real success story.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) UK helps the creative industries thrive by raising their profile and supporting their development. It believes that the most successful economies and societies in the twenty first century will be creative ones. The British Council works with the DCMS to promote the vision of the UK as the world’s creative hub; and to share expertise and experience with other countries worldwide.

ACTIVITIES IN SRI LANKA
To demonstrate the importance and power of creative industries in a country’s economy, British Council Sri Lanka is currently involved in the Young Creative Entrepreneur (YCE) Awards programme, developed by the British Council Creative Economy team in London. This programme aims to develop a powerful professional network between creative entrepreneurs in the world and to inspire and facilitate the sharing of best practices in building skills. And it also aims to provide access to resources, professional development, markets, mentoring and resources thereby increasing opportunities for business between Sri Lanka and UK.

A key objective is to sensitise the UK creative sector to the opportunities that come from working with creative entrepreneurs in emerging economies. A second objective is to better understand the dynamics of being an entrepreneur in the creative economy. Throughout the programme we seek opportunities to achieve both this sensitisation and understanding.

The International Young Creative Entrepreneur (IYCE) award programme aims to celebrate the achievements and develop the potential of young creative entrepreneurs across the British Council’s international networks. Sri Lanka currently promotes the enterprise award in Fashion, and seeks to promote the Music award in the near future.

The first International Young Fashion Entrepreneur (IYFE) award took place in London in February 2008 and Darshi Keerthisena of Buddhi Batiks' fame competed along-side 9 other international winners. In 2009 the Sri Lankan title was won by Linda Speldewinde who is the Managing Director of Academy of Design and she received an opportunity to represent Sri Lanka in the international award where she got a special commendation for her work by the final judging panel. Chathuri Samaraweera, Managing Director, Anaya International Pvt Ltd, was chosen as the national winner in 2010 and Kasuni Rathnasuriya was judged as the 2011 award winner. In 2012 the award was revamped and renamed the Young Creative Entrepreneur Award and the award under the 'Design and Fashion' category was run in Sri Lanka. Prassanna Pathmanathan, Communication / PR Consultant, Corporate Trainer, and Lecturer was the YCE Design and Fashion Award 2012 winner.

The award programme, both international and UK, is unique in its focus on young creative entrepreneurs; recognising their centrality to the development of a competitive and sustainable creative economy. It is our intention to link the networks created through the international and UK awards, to amplify these opportunities. Quite simply, we believe that creative talent can be found anywhere and the next big idea can emerge from any country.

The YCE programme is currently being revamped as we reshape our work in Creative Economy to make the programme bigger and better.

PAST EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES
Given below are some of the key activities in the recent past which the British Council Sri Lanka has been involved in. Please click on the respective activity for more information.

UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES
For information on future creative economy related activities please click here.