Marina Mongush: Every Country Needs People Who Can Create Intelligent IT-Driven Creative Products
Today's digital platform economy gives people working in the creative industries the ability to build and distribute their own products while redefining what a workplace looks like. Creators no longer have to leave a small town to reach customers around the world.
Speaking during the seventh annual Rossiyskaya Kreativnaya Nedelya (Russian Creative Week) federal festival and forum at Moscow's Gorky Park, Marina Mongush, President of the Creative Economy autonomous nonprofit organization and Director of Russian Creative Week, explained how digital technologies are reshaping opportunities across every segment of the creative economy.
– The idea of the creative economy has clearly evolved. We used to talk about 16 separate industries - design, music, computer graphics, architecture, urban planning, and others - each operating on its own. Today, we recognize that together these industries have become a driving force in the economy of every developed country. Professionals from the creative sector are also helping generate new advances in fields ranging from healthcare to sports, something we discussed during today's plenary session.
The creative industries have therefore become one of the strongest drivers of greater efficiency across the broader economy.
For decades, we lived in a resource-based era, and we were taught to manage businesses, cities, and regions through that lens. Today, however, the creative economy is growing three times faster than resource-based industries. Investors around the world are directing their capital toward creative products. As public strategists and long-term thinkers, we believed it was essential to introduce new ways of understanding what the creative economy means for Russia today because this question is fundamentally important.
Today, a creative person capable of producing an original intellectual and creative product effectively becomes a factory. An individual creator can develop and launch products independently while remaining in a village or a small town and still reach customers worldwide through the digital platform economy.
That is why developing creative people - people who think differently and can build intelligent IT-driven creative products – has become one of the highest priorities for every country. We see that reflected in the participation of colleagues from 16 countries, where one of the main competitive advantages is the presence of an active, economically successful creative class.
The creative economy also allows countries to produce their own cultural narratives. If a nation does not generate its own ideas through design, music, architecture, or urban planning, it inevitably becomes a consumer of narratives created elsewhere.
Understanding that reality is critically important today. It was a recurring message from our international colleagues attending Russian Creative Week. A country's creative sovereignty is built by people like us – creative professionals who produce content, including content shaped by shared values. That kind of values-driven content has become essential for any country seeking to preserve its sovereignty.
