Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise Program
By Mariam Chanishvili
Friday, November 23
A new program implemented by the British Council - Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise Program - brought together representatives from the UK and all program countries involved in Georgia for the first time on 20-21 November to discuss and share their plans.
International partnerships between higher education and creative institutions in the UK and: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan will be granted a maximum of ?50,000.
It is worth mentioning that Georgian cultural institutions are among the winning partnerships: Creative Georgia and Tbilisi State Academy of Arts to partner with Advantage Creative; Georgian Technical University with Keele University; Creative Georgia with University of East Anglia, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and V.Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire with University of Essex Change School and Ilia State University with University Of The West Of England in Bristol
The partnerships focus on giving young people improved access to international networks and opportunities, markets and resources. Over the course of this year, partners will work together and deliver enterprise skills training packages to students and creative entrepreneurs. Topics covered will vary from pitching ideas and starting a business, to protecting intellectual property and securing financial support.
Skills will be developed further through a ‘video pitch’ competition, open to 100,000s of students across the program countries next summer. Prizes will be UK-based professional development courses.
The British Council will deliver an English Learning Program with a range of new digital language learning content. This will include online learning packs on the English Channel platform, online courses and new Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) focused on English for entrepreneurship.
Richard Everitt, Director Education and Society, Wider Europe, British Council noted that they have received over 100 applications, so they will be offering a package of support for those who wish to keep engaged with the Creative Spark and did not receive a grant this year.
“The British Council has brought together colleagues from the UK and other countries from around Europe to come together to plan and to talk about the Creative Spark program. Over the next five years, we will be trying to build partnerships between countries like Georgia and UK to help hundreds of thousands of students to learn the skills, entrepreneurship and enterprise education and to help foster stronger relationships between these countries. This conference in Tbilisi is the kick-off of this five-year program,” said Everitt.
The United Kingdom (UK)'s new ambassador to Georgia Justin McKenzie Smith also attended the event.
"In recent years, we have come to realize the important value of the creative industries to the economy and to our society. We want to share the experience by working together in these partnerships," said Justin McKenzie Smith.
British Council is the UK’s international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities, working with over 100 countries in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society.
