Pakistan’s Creative Future, a five-day residential creative business training programme, held at BNU’s Tarogil Campus, was concluded on Friday, November 01, 2019. The programme is a response to UNESCO’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which supports the development of the creative economy.  

The programme, a tripartite partnership between Beaconhouse National University (BNU), the Republic of Korea and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was customized to the needs of twelve aspiring entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industries. The participants worked on case studies taken directly from successful Pakistani businesses in film and media, performing arts, game design and advertising. The trainings were delivered by BNU faculty, along with local and international experts, including Andrew Senior, an expert in the creative economy, who has been working with UNESCO, in Pakistan, since 2015. The Republic of Korea’s Ken Roh, co-founder of WELT, also provided participants with insight on how to develop their business.

The twelve participants, selected through an open call for applications that prompted over 240 applications, were a diverse group that included four women, seven men and one transgender. The mean age of participants was 31 years, ranging between 24 years and 39 years, who came from across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan (some hailing from less urbanized cities such as Chitral, Bhakkar and Nawabshah). 

Programme modules included problem-solving for emerging businesses, design thinking, intellectual property rights and legal obligations , finance and accounting, marketing and internalization at both startup and accelerator levels. 

The programme is part of UNESCO’s Korea Funds-in-Trust project, which is focused on the development of the creative industries. It is actively supporting sustainable creative industries and enhancing skills and professional networks in the Asia-Pacific region.  The objective is to create a training methodology, sensitive to local needs, that responds to the potential of Pakistan’s growing economy.  The programme empowers young creative entrepreneurs, promotes participatory policy-making for the culture sector and integrates culture in the national sustainable development agenda and in international cultural cooperation.

UNESCO, in partnership with BNU and Hunerkada, also organized an advocacy event for the ratification of the 2005 Convention for the promotion of cultural and creative industries in Islamabad on November 04, 2019. The purpose of the event was to bring together parliamentarians, academics, government officials, civil society as well as experts in cultural, economic, and social development to discuss the growing importance of the creative economy in Pakistan.  Ms. Vibeke Jensen, Director, UNESCO Pakistan, Mr. Andrew Michael Senior, UNESCO Expert on creative economies and Mr. Zaeem Yaqoob Khan, Executive Director (Student Affairs & External Relations), BNU, also the Project Lead of the Pakistan’s Creative Future programme spoke at the occasion. The event concluded with a panel talk moderated by Mr. Andrew Senior on challenges and opportunities for the creative and cultural sectors in Pakistan. The panelists included Mr. Abdul Wasay of Tintash Pvt. Ltd, Mr. Jamal Shah of Hunerkada, Ms. Kanwal Khoosat of Olomopolo Media and Ms. Nayha Jahangir Khan, an Art Therapist. 

For further details visit: bit.ly/pakcreative