Innovation Festival Milano: What makes creative professionals successful today?

Be it in Milano, Cardiff, Madrid, Tel Aviv, or Dortmund – it is not easy to break into a market for young creative entrepreneurs. Bureaucracy and legislation are obstacles per se which discourage and scare many of those involved in creative and cultural processes.

The European Creative Industries Alliance (ECIA), just recently launched, wants to do something against these circumstances. It does not only have a widespread network, but can also offer seed capital to small and medium creative enterprises.

Anna Whicher | PM Design Wales

Still, the first step to improve the entrepreneurial skills of creative people is to learn the language of business. Anna Whicher knows that very well: she is project manager at Design Wales and encourages creative minds to look beyond their desks. If creative professionals don not get into contact with people from outside their field, they will hardly be successful. Because in spite of financially tight times, there are still a lot of people out there looking for good products and for ideas to invest in.

Antonio Tajani | EC Vizepräsident

But the European Commission is not just interested in a one-sided assimilation to the market realities. Carsten Schierenbeck, authorised representative regarding innovation policy for the Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry: „Politics need to be changed in a way of taking better account of the creative industries.“ In this context, the vice president of the European Commission, Antonio Tajani, points out the successful cluster programmes of the EU.

Text: Boris Alexander Knop