Paolo Montemurro
Directore of Materahub - Industrie culturali e creative, Italy

After a degree in International Studies and Diplomacy at Trieste University, with a period of research at Leiden University in the Netherlands, I started working for the Italian Foreign Affair Ministry at General Directorate for Cooperation and Development and for the Ministry for Economic Development on projects for local development, both at national and international level. After this experience, I decided to focus on EU financed initiatives in particular on those regarding SMEs support, entrepreneurship promotion, capacity building in the field of cultural heritage, sustainable tourism and creative industry. While working as Project Manager on a number of EU programmes, such as Interreg Italy-Albania, Life Third Countries, Lifelong Learning, Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, I became Director of materahub - Industrie Culturali e Creative, an incubator for cultural and creative industries based in the Matera - South of Italy, to promote a new entrepreneurial spirit among all those people willing to create economic development through culture and creativity exploiting the potential of local heritage with an international vision and networking.

Topic:
How to revitalize local economy through creative industries. A small town from the South of Italy can become an incubator for creative and cultural industries?

Abstract:
The current economic crisis has a severe impact on "traditional" economy - factory based. Local realities are called for a new scheme of development based more on people's ideas than on "machine" and industrial cycles. What could be the future of a local community which has as great added value an incredible cultural heritage? How can we move from traditional economy to creative based economy? We would like to talk about the experience of Matera, a town in the South of Italy, a Unesco site, which is trying to foster cultural and creative industries as a new spring for economic growth.