Venturefest WM 2021: Creative and Innovation Panel

The dedicated panel (led by Nick Pinks, CEO of Covatic) examined the ways in which businesses can maximise the potential of their products by working with new technology and involving creative industries to bring new ways of thinking into play. The panel included Amrit Singh (Creative Director of Rebel Creatives), Fiona Latter (Lead of the WMCA Creative Scale-up programme), and Taran Singh (Director of Taran3D).

Nick touched upon a changing world, one in which we have become used to working from home and engaging through tech – a world which has tremendous opportunities for creative companies to pitch new ways of working to a very traditional workplace. Nick also took time to mention the new Creative Screen agency based in the West Midlands (Create Central) and explained how his role on the board and lead on innovation has helped generate ideas which have turned into supported projects. As a trade body to represent the creative screen sector it was noted that Create Central would be a great source of information and support in the future and are indeed leading projects which support such cross sector innovation and collaboration. 

The idea of cross sector collaboration continued to be the main theme and the audience were able discuss many business cases where the skills of the creative sector are used to solve problems often found in more traditional sectors such as Engineering, Healthcare, Tourism and Automotive.

Taran was able to cover the use of VR to support museums and tourism, and was also able to inspire the audience to consider how VR could be used as a medium for future events and even virtual conferences – following his discussion the chat was all about ways to make Venture Fest 2022 virtual using Taran’s Virtual Reality platform. 

Fiona Latter provided an excellent overview of the DCMS supported Creative Scale Up programme in the West Midlands and explained that future events (both virtual and physical) are planned which will bring together key challenge holders and creative companies who have potential solutions to address such challenges – her network of mentors and support are apparently on hand to support such direct facilitation – watch this space.

Amrit Singh, as an award winning creative director based in Birmingham, was able to provide excellent examples of where his businesses has taken the time to upskill and explore new technologies which could be used to engage a new audience – often using modern platforms such as AR and VR. 

All the panelists were able to inspire and engage the audience, and the session provided a valuable insight into the benefits of collaboration with other businesses, often in sectors and areas which the audience has not previously considered. The group discussion also covered innovative ways of approaching funding.

You can watch a recording of the discussion below.

(Author: Tim Luft, Create Central)