A word from CIDA Chief Executive, Anamaria Wills
Just back from Bangalore, India - spent a week with some of the most fantastic people I've had the privilege to work with - and that really isn't hyperbole!
The 20 participants in the British Council Creative Future programme were invited to attend a two week Summer School at the prestigious Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB). In a programme designed by CIDA Associate Lee Corner, working with Professor Ramnath Narayanswamy of IIMB and involving a number of his IIMB colleagues, our aspirant Creative Entrepreneurs attended lectures, workshops and master-classes starting at 9.00am and finishing for dinner at 8.00pm every day except Sunday.
Everything, from Marketing to Finance, Values to Strategy, was covered and accompanied by really inspiring presentations by successful leading entrepreneurs from companies such as Infosys and MindTree Consulting. Giving a UK perspective, Kate Jones of Gillies Jones Glass (www.gilliesjonesglass.co.uk) gave a brilliant demonstration of how to run a creative business successfully and stay sane – and of course everyone just fell in love with her work which is superb! I did a talk about setting up a creative business, reflecting my own experiences; I made the point that CIDA is one of the few organisations providing business advice that really has to 'walk the talk' - we aren't a public sector organisation, as so many others are, and we have to run our own business, with all the travails and joys that that involves, even as we help others with theirs - I think it's called 'keeping it real'!
At the end of the two weeks, the participants each had to make a presentation to a panel consisting of two successful creative entrepreneurs, Darshan and Sunil, with Andrew Senior of the British Council and Clore Fellow Katrina Thomson. Lee and I took it in turns to sit in on the presentations, to listen to the judges' comments and then to give feedback immediately to each participant. What an amazing experience that was! The learning that had clearly been going on during the two weeks was brilliantly illustrated by the presentations, all of which had acquired a focus, a clarity of vision and an increased hard-edged business reality that had, in most cases, been missing in their original interviews.
The next stage of the programme is that all 20 participants will each be assigned a business Mentor who will work with them to start developing the business plan that will take them from idea to reality. In early 2007, there will be the opportunity to pitch their businesses to investors in India. Three of the participants were seen to have developed their ideas slightly more commercially than the others and they are being brought to the UK in November, to meet peers and role models over here but essentially to test out their ideas on UK venture capitalists and business angels. They will then take the benefit of that experience back to India to share with all the others before they all make their pitches in India. Hopefully, they will spend some time in Yorkshire when they are here, and we aim to profile each of them on the Creative Portal.
I was hugely proud that CIDA was so closely involved and we look forward to working on the new Creative Future programme in 2007.
Creative Future - India