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British Council Creative Economy Tour

Since 2004 the British Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneur (YCE) programme has celebrated the entrepreneurial  individuals who are driving innovation within the creative industries. In April 2014 the focus of the programme was on digital publishing.

The British Council selected seven digital publishing entrepreneurs from around the world and brought them to London for the week of London Book Fair, where one of them was named ‘International Digital Publishing Entrepreneur of the Year’ at the International Industry Excellence Awards.

We were hired to create a bespoke programme for the entrepreneurs’ visit to London and to work with the British Council to deliver it on the ground.

Our brief was to create a programme which connected the international YCEs with leading UK companies and individuals working in and around digital publishing, and to provided them with the opportunity to showcase their work, share knowledge and experience, and foster long-term relationships.

Our work included:

  • Providing the YCEs with insight into the UK publishing sector in 2014 – at the ‘Welcome’ session, The Literary Platform’s Sophie Rochester presented an overview of the UK market and guest speaker, Michael Bhaskhar of Profile Books, presented research from his new book, The Content Machine.
  • Arranging and hosting meetings with digital publishing companies at London Book Fair – the YCEs met with Distimo, Nosy Crow, Byliner, Open Road and digital publishing innovators from the IC Tomorrow programme.
  • Producing a ‘Trend Safari’ of pioneering UK digital publishing companies – the YCEs visited Pottermore, the online Harry Potter experience; children’s digital media company, Made in Me; award-winning app publishers, TouchPress; leading magazine brand, Dazed and cross-platform service developers, Padify.
  • Arranging and facilitating a round-table discussion about Disruption / Collaboration – UK digital publishing entrepreneurs Anna Lewis of Completely Novel and Valobox; Miranda West of the Do Book Co and Dan Kieran of Unbound joined the YCEs to share their experiences of ‘starting up’.
  • Organising the judging of the ‘International Digital Publishing Entrepreneur of the Year Award’ – The Literary Platform booked and briefed the judges – Anna Rafferty, Julia Kingsford; Octavio Kulesz and Rohan Guntallike – and designed a judging framework for them to use.
  • Producing ‘The British Council Presents … Publishing 2024’, a public panel discussion at the Hospital Club – The Literary Platform booked and briefed the panelists – Sarah Ellis (RSC); Julian McCrea (Portal Enteratinment); Octavio Kulesz (Teseo Publishing) – who were joined by Ricardo Almeida, YCE winner of the ‘International Digital Publishing Entrepreneur of the Year Award’ for his company Clube de Autores. The debate was chaired by The Literary Platform’s Joanna Ellis.
  • Throughout the visit The Literary Platform were on-hand to advise the YCEs on companies and individuals that might be of interest to their businesses and facilitate introductions.

YCEs at Digital Minds 2014

You can read more about the 2014 Digital Publishing YCEs on the British Council’s site and in this article in WIRED, and you can find out more about the YCE programme in this BBC Click interview with Beatrice Pembroke from British Council Creative Economy.