Join us for an afternoon discovering business and research applications of CreaTech with panel talks, lightning pitches and product demos!
CreaTech, as described by the Creative Industries Council (CIC), "is where creativity meets technology. It brings together creative skills and emerging technologies to create new ways of engaging audiences and to inspire business growth and investment."
On 22nd May in the inspiring spaces of No.1 Circle Square, Oxford Road, Creative Manchester are delighted to host our next CreaTech Innovation Showcase. Our CreaTech Innovation Showcases are the conclusion to our Innovation Labs, which we hold with the The University of Manchester's Business Engagement team every year, and offer the opportunity to celebrate and spread the word about projects that were funded. The Showcase will take the shape of a half-day event featuring lightning talks from our recently graduated CreaTech Innovation Lab cohort, panel events with speakers from industry and academia and demos of the research projects.
Who is this event for?
The CreaTech Innovation Showcase is aimed at a diverse audience, including creative professionals, tech enthusiasts, industry experts, researchers, business leaders, and the general public. We want to bring together individuals interested in the intersection of creativity and technology, offering opportunities to learn, network, and explore innovative CreaTech projects.
Accessibility
We want to make the event a positive experience for all participants. If you have particular access needs, please let us know in advance by providing details of any accessibility needs when registering for your ticket or by emailing us at creative@manchester.ac.uk.
About Creative Manchester
Creative Manchester is an interdisciplinary research platform based at The University of Manchester. The platform champions research in creativity and creative practice, bringing together research communities with external stakeholders to explore new research areas and address strategic opportunities.
About the projects
Manchester Camerata Audience Data Pilot – Consumer Profiling
A recent research project explored the characteristics of Manchester Camerata’s audience, providing valuable insights into both online and in-person attendees.
About the project team
Dr Abbie Iveson is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Marketing at The University of Manchester, specializing in consumer behavior and digital marketing. She holds a BA in Linguistics and Phonetics, an MA in Advertising and Marketing, and a PhD in Marketing from the University of Leeds. Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as the Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, and the European Journal of Marketing.
Dr Courtney Chrimes is a Lecturer and Researcher in Digital Fashion Marketing at The University of Manchester. She completed her EPSRC DTA-funded PhD in Materials at The University of Manchester in January 2021. Her research explores the role of digital innovation in driving sustainable production and consumption within the fashion industry, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 9 and 11.
Seb Mariner is Head of Communications and Marketing at Manchester Camerata, he does not come from a classical music background but loves the artform dearly. Before that, worked for internet radio NTS setting up their Manchester office and programming events for cultural institutions around the North West, including Yorkshire Sculpture International, Tate Liverpool, The Whitworth and more. A huge advocate of anything left of centre, Seb loves to challenge the status quo taking inspiration from all areas and applying them to the classical artform.
Factory International: Building Accountable Narratives
The "Building Accountable Narratives" project introduced a comprehensive suite of socio-economic impact indicators designed to evaluate the cultural, economic, and social outcomes of cultural venues and events. The research addresses how arts organisations can develop more strategic, holistic approaches to data that better measure their impact across dimensions such as audience diversity, local economic contribution, community engagement and artistic innovation.
About the project team
Dr Leandro Valiati is a distinguished global leader in creative and cultural industries, academic research and evidence for policy. Currently based at The University of Manchester, he is shaping the next generation of policy and industry leaders in this critical sector. Leandro held academic appointments and led collaborative projects at prestigious institutions worldwide: UFRGS (Brazil), University of Valencia (Spain), Queen Mary University of London (UK), and Labex-ICCA at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord (France). in 2024 he published "The Political Economy of the Creative and Cultural Industries" (Routledge, 2024), laying the foundations to rethink policy and academic approaches to multidimensional development based on CCIs in the 21st century.
Sineco: The Audio Innovator
The project team developed a low-level generative AI system, capable of creating music finely tuned to a specific genre. They blended cutting-edge algorithms with creative innovation to craft a tool that generates unique, genre-specific soundscapes.
About the project team
Ben Etches is a music industry innovator with 5+ years of experience producing for Universal-signed artists and writing songs with BMG, amassing over 30 million streams. Now, Ben is now building Sineco, a groundbreaking platform revolutionizing music creation and licensing for brands and creators worldwide.
Chenghua Lin is Professor of Natural Language Processing in the Department of Computer Science, The University of Manchester. His research interests lie in the integration of machine learning and NLP for language generation and understanding, as well as representation learning and generation for music. He has received several prizes and awards for his research, including a CIKM Test-of-Time Award and an INLG Best Paper Runner-up Award. He is the Chair of the ACL SIGGEN Board, a Member of the IEEE Speech and Language Processing Technical Committee, and a founding Advisor of the Multimodal Art Projection community.
