AlmaU School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation: effective collaboration for development
AlmaU Entrepreneurship & Innovation team met with colleagues from Northampton University and Henley School of Business at Reading University, the UK, and also participated in “Creative Central Asia” Forum in Uzbekistan.
Participation in “Creative Central Asia” Forum in Tashkent
In November, leaders from all over the creative sector of Central Asia gathered together with their British counterparts for the third conference of creative leaders in Central Asia, which was held in Tashkent. Ksenia Yuzhaninova-Karadenizli, Executive Director of the School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, took part as a speaker, and also previously participated in the work of the Strategic Group of organization the forum.
The strategic group helped identify topics, participants and speakers of the conference, a strategy for evaluating the forum and distributing its conclusions. The participation of representatives of AlmaU School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation School team in preparation of the Central Asian Forum program can be regarded as highly appreciated by the work of the School, and previously the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Development, in the field of entrepreneurial education and development of creative economy in Kazakhstan.
Within the framework of the forum, a dialogue was established, an assessment of what was done, and goals were set for promoting the agenda for development of a creative economy in Central Asia. This year, Turkmenistan joined the discussion, so the dialogue covered the entire region. Although the vision, goals and scope of this year’s conference remained largely unchanged, this year the organizers laid the foundation for a new network of creative and cultural leaders from Central Asian countries and presented a manifesto for the region’s creative economy.
The first forum was organized by the British Council in November 2017 in Astana. This year about 150 participants from the UK, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and, for the first time, from Turkmenistan arrived at the forum.
Today, the creative economy is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy. According to Ernst & Young report, creative methods contribute about 3% of global GDP to the economies of developed countries (2,250 billion US dollars and employment of 29.5 million people) and, according to the forum participants, this industry is the economy of the future.
Working meet-up with colleagues from Northampton University and Henley Business School
In November, Daniyar Medetov, an expert at AlmaU School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, coordinator of “Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise Program AlmaU” project, and Dinara Rysbekova, an expert at AlmaU School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, visited Northampton University to participate in a joint collaboration planning session for Creative Spark .
Creative Spark is a five-year initiative of the British Council to support international universities and create international partnerships with the goal of developing entrepreneurial skills and a creative economy in seven countries, including Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan), the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) and Ukraine with the support of the United Kingdom.
Partnership of Northampton University and Almaty Management University have been implementing the project for the second year with the educational component “Fashion Entrepreneurship” in Central Asia. The purpose of the component is to help Kazakhstani designers and other representatives of the fashion industry turn their favorite business into a profitable business, as well as expand the possibilities of the creative industry in the country.
This year, fashion residents of Almaty Technological University and T.K. Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts joined the partnership as beneficiaries. Workshops and trainings for development of fashion education in Kazakhstan are waiting for representatives of higher education institutions in the field of fashion, as well as representatives of the fashion industry will be able to get advice from the best fashion marketers in the UK in March 2020. The event will host a Fashion Base Camp for 50 students of three universities, where residents will create projects based on design thinking.
In April 2020, AlmaU will be able to host partners at its site - Henley Business School (UK). Due to this, top management of entrepreneurial educational institutions, researchers and representatives of the fashion industry will be able to participate in the research seminar Entrepreneurial University’s Business Model: Stakeholder Theory Approach. For residents of the Business Incubator of Kazakh-British Technical University, master classes “Formula of Value Proposition” and “Customer Development for nascent stage entrepreneurs” are waiting. For representatives of small and medium businesses, experts in fashion marketing and strategy, together with experts from AlmaU School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, will conduct a three-day consulting session.
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