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  • (GASPS)

  • Today, we are on the cusp of an unprecedented opportunity.

  • Powerful social and technological changes

  • mean that we can realistically commit to the aspiration

  • that everyone be able to live a creative life.

  • What do I mean by a "creative life"?

  • It's a life that feels meaningful, fulfilled,

  • where we're free to express ourselves as individuals,

  • we have access to the power and resources to shape our own future,

  • we can make our unique contribution to the world.

  • People hear the word creative

  • and think, "That's about art, culture or invention.

  • "I don't have that kind of talent."

  • But creativity is in all of us.

  • The artist Ai Weiwei called creativity The Power to Act.

  • So, let's think about the creative life in this way -

  • everyone having the skills, confidence and opportunity

  • to make their ideas a reality.

  • Whether that idea is a performance, a product, a service, a business,

  • even a social movement.

  • So why do I think that we might have reached a moment

  • where this kind of creativity can flourish as never before?

  • Several forces are coming together to make this possible.

  • First of all, there's the growing appetite and demand for creativity.

  • Across the world, a better educated, more mobile, more questioning population

  • is seeking out and discovering new routes to self-expression,

  • collaboration, enterprise.

  • And thanks to the power of the social web,

  • people just about everywhere are creating and connecting in a host of new ways.

  • The internet has the potential

  • to be the most powerful accelerator of creativity in human history.

  • And it's clear we urgently need this creative power.

  • The world is facing big challenges -

  • problems like caring for an ageing population,

  • tackling growing inequality, responding to climate change.

  • It will take our combined creativity

  • to find the breakthrough solutions we need.

  • Understand, creativity isn't just about the individual.

  • Our lives are only possible because of those around us.

  • And so it's not just people who can be creative.

  • It's organisation, it's places, it's societies.

  • But there's another side to this story -

  • the barriers that stand in the way

  • of achieving the goal of creative lives for all.

  • These include those employers and educators who draw too distinct a line

  • between those they deem "creative people" and "creative tasks", and the rest,

  • shutting down opportunities to engage and develop us all to our full potential.

  • We need to address the way our institutions behave,

  • the way they treat people and the way our government is run.

  • Leaders have to think differently about how they motivate and mobilise.

  • Lasting social progress only comes about

  • when governments work in partnership with communities,

  • drawing on the creative capacities of all citizens,

  • recognising them, not as bundles of need,

  • but as huge, untapped assets.

  • Instead of seeing social engagement as an optional add-on to government policy,

  • we should see that policy only really works

  • when people themselves have chosen to be change-makers.

  • We need to make sure that assets like finance, intellectual property, networks

  • are not just hoarded by the few,

  • but made available as resources for a truly creative society.

  • Looking back in history, we can see that from Aristotle...

  • to the Victorians... still persisting today,

  • writers and thinkers with an ambitious idea of the good life,

  • they've also tended to be elitists,

  • assuming that such an ideal is beyond the capabilities of the masses.

  • But all human beings can be the authors of their own lives.

  • We are all born with the muscles for creativity,

  • muscles that grow with the exercise of self-determination.

  • This is what we call the power to create.

(GASPS)

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