It is suggested by some that much of the wealth creating opportunities left in the free market are in the creative industries sector because the production and manufacturing opportunities are all going towards the east due to the competitiveness of their cost to the outsourcing market. Having sat in a symposium on how to teach creative modules at university or even before university, I found myself wondering about the African context in terms of creativity, creative learning and how the continent could tap into these suggested wealth creation potentials that exist in creative industries.

Without getting to deep into the hows, it may be opportune at this point to quantify just what creative industries are. These are industries that a founded on individual creativity, talent, skill and entrepreneurship that produces wealth creation opportunities and jobs thought intellectual property. So, in a nutshell using your brains to create something valuable enough for others to want to pay for it but still remaining the sole owner of the idea or concept. The best example of this is Music, artist or musicians make music to sell to listeners but still retain ownership of the rights to the music and its future earnings.

So as Africans we are already there, we have world famous musicians both old and new, we have world famous sports people gracng the world’s stage. But this is probably only benefiting those directly related to the owners of the said intellectual properties. I am looking at creative industries in the sense of creating wealth for the continent at large, something similar to how China as a nations is rich and individuals in the country get opportunities to be wealth in that economy. I use the term wealth because that is more sustainable than rich. Riches are exhaustable but wealth builds on itself and can be never ending if done right.

The question at the head of this piece is “Do we do creative?” I suppose what I am driving at is the question of whether Africa as a whole or different countries in part can find a niche segment in the global market to start its own creative industries. The options are many, from advertising, architecture, art and antiques, computer games, crafts, design.

Kenya and Rwanda are selling internet based customer management solutions, using VOIP to run call centres of behalf of western companies. I feel this is the way to go for Africa’s future, creative industries can operate on minimal financial input, require a lot of hard work and ingenuity which a lot of Africans have, how else do we continue to survive in the face of all the challenges that engulf the continent?

Be creative!