The seventh edition of Creative Central Asia took place from 28 February to 2 March 2026 in Tashkent and Samarkand. It brought together 55 delegates from Central Asia and the UK. This edition focused on creative cities and collaboration, impact and education for the next generation. The forum welcomed 185 participants in person, with an additional 70 joining via livestream.
Manifesto CCA 2026
The development of cities, regions and countries is no longer determined by natural resources, infrastructure or technology alone. The defining factor today is the ability to attract, retain and bring together people with ideas, education, skills, initiative and a sense of responsibility – in other words, human capital. This is why creative places and cultural events play a key role: they become magnets for meaning, identity, economic and social energy, innovation and cross-disciplinary connections. They create emotional and social attachment to a place – something no top-down initiative can achieve.
Individual projects do not transform cities on their own. Cities change when projects begin to reinforce one another, when horizontal connections emerge between culture, business, technology, education and the urban environment, and when intermediaries appear – curators, producers, platforms and institutions capable of translating the language of culture into the language of economics, policy and investment. It is within such environments that creative places and events become assembly points for sustainable ecosystems.
Today, the creative industries are not simply ‘about culture’. They are a distinct phenomenon that functions as connective tissue between the economy and identity, technology and people, business and collective social meaning.
At our previous conferences and events in Central Asia, we were used to saying that the creative economy, infrastructure for creative industries, new skills, artificial intelligence, education and new values belong to the future. But that future is already here. It is our present – a moment of opportunity and responsibility for choosing our development path.
Today, it is not enough to observe from the sidelines – we must act! Learn, collaborate, experiment and grow, turning ideas into tangible change. This is why for Creative Central Asia 2026, which took place in Tashkent, we chose to focus on areas without which the practical development of the creative industries is impossible:
- collaboration, cross-disciplinarity and the role of intermediaries
- finance, investment and the language of values
- education, artificial intelligence and new skills.
Watch the full videos of the panel discussions:
Keynote by John Newbigin
Today, cities and regions thrive not through resources or infrastructure alone, but through their ability to cultivate human capital – and it is creative places, cultural events and cross-sector collaboration that transform this capital into sustainable ecosystems connecting economy, identity, technology and collective meaning.
Panel 1 | The Invisible Infrastructure of Creative Cities
This panel examines how cross-disciplinary projects act as key points of growth for tourism, the night-time economy, local businesses and startups, and wider creative ecosystems – and how, together, they form a new type of urban infrastructure.
Panel 2 | Speaking the Language of Value: Investment, Impact and Sustainability
This panel addresses how to define and measure the impact of creative industries on urban life, how to build meaningful dialogue with investors and sponsors around shared values rather than profit alone and how to create projects that are both economically sustainable and beneficial for cities.
Panel 3 | Next-Gen Cities: Who Creates Our Future
Speakers explore the skills and professions essential for creative urban life, the role of education systems in preparing this new generation of tech-savvy changemakers and how cities can support lifelong learning and reskilling to retain young creatives, technologists and cultural practitioners in the age of automation.