Leading Lights Debate Future Of UK Creativity

The Government-backed Technology Strategy Board, the organisation set up to promote innovation and ensure the future competitiveness of the UK creative industries, brought together a group of top industry representatives to debate the new Creative Industries Strategy, which identifies where emerging technologies and business models will have the most significant impact for the UK economy and outlines how Government investments will be made to stimulate innovation.
 
Fred Bolza (Sony Music UK), Rory Sutherland (Ogilvy Group & chairman of the IPA), Julie Meyer (Ariadne Capital / BBC Dragons Den) and Peter Buckingham (UK Film Council) joined host Jeremy Silver, Lead Specialist for the Creative Industries for the Technology Strategy Board, in a 40 minute panel debate viewed live on the web by over 400 people from the creative industries to give a unique insight into the future of the sector.

Jeremy Silver said: “The Q&A debate raised many issues that will be of interest to those working in the UK creative industries today, for example, the future of film and gaming as a unified platform. 

“We’d like to encourage people to take a few minutes to view the video, understand the implications of the Creative Industries Strategy and provide their feedback to have a direct impact on exactly where the technology Strategy Board should be focusing its attention and, ultimately, making investments to help the UK creative sector remain a centre of excellence for many years to come.”

Questions posed during the Q&A included protection of content, developing content to create a multi-platform media ‘experience’, the relevance of linear narrative in a multimedia environment, the utilisation of existing technologies to solve new and existing problems and the use of augmented reality. 

Viewers were encouraged to provide feedback and submit questions for the panel as part of a wider consultation exercise in which the Technology Strategy Board is seeking feedback from the creative industries on its Strategy before roll-out of investment competitions in Spring 2010.

Those who missed out on the debate are encouraged to watch again via the http://www.innovateuk.org/  website, which also hosts additional bonus footage. The site also features a downloadable copy of the Creative Industries Strategy, as well as executive summaries and a feedback area.
 
The UK creative sector currently contributes a Gross Value Added figure of 6.4 per cent to the UK economy and direct employment to around 1.15m people. The Creative Industries Strategy seeks to unify the sector by creating links that will help businesses to fully exploit new commercial opportunities.

To find out more about the strategy, view the panel debate and have your say on how Strategy’s aims can be best achieved, visit: http://www.innovateuk.org