Sunday 10 September 2017

British Council in partnership with TCDC organised a regional forum titled “Creative Hubs and Cities” on Tuesday 10 October 2017 at Thailand Creative and Design Center, Bangkok, Thailand. The one-day forum explored the concept of creative hubs and how they contributed to creative cities. Creative hub is a physical or digital space where creative ideas are gathered and developed to generate positive impact to society. Within this conference, the concept of “Creative Hubs and Creative Cites” was first introduced to the public, coupled with case studies and views from the experts from UK, Thailand, Japan, Taipei, Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands and the Philippines. 

Kitirattana Pitipanich, Acting Director, TCDC said “Thailand’s strategy recognises the importance of Creative Economy and aims to transform Thailand to be innovation and value-driven country. To achieve this goal, the multi-level collaboration in enhancing the ecosystem to support the growth and development of hubs and the young entrepreneurs are required. TCDC is working in partnership with the British Council to organise the regional forum on “Creative Hubs and Cities” aiming to raise awareness on the importance creative cities and hubs, andthe creative economy development.”

Andrew Glass OBE, Director, British Council in Thailand said “The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.  We have worked for 65 years in Thailand, creating opportunities and building relationships and partnerships between the two countries. Towards 2020, our work in Thailand focuses on 3 themes responding to Thailand and UK’s priorities; raising levels of English, internationalising higher education and science, building creative economy. The UK is a world leader in the Creative Economy and has a number of success stories of creative industries. UK's Creative Industries sector has been the fastest growing sector of the UK economy since the 2008, worth £87 billion; generating nearly £10 million per hour, more than car manufacturing or aerospace. We hope this forum can explore and extend the boundaries of creativity and innovation through our collaboration and bring the best outcomes to our society.

About the British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. Using the UK’s cultural resources we make a positive contribution to the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.

We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications.

Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. The majority of our income is raised delivering a range of projects and contracts in English teaching and examinations, education and development contracts and from partnerships with public and private organisations. Eighteen per cent of our funding is received from the UK government.

We have been in Thailand since 1952 and currently established 6 offices in Thailand; 5 in Bangkok and 1 Chiang Mai. We are committed to developing relationships between UK and Thailand and creating opportunity through our work English, education, examinations, the arts and society.