How A New Campaign Is Challenging British Creativity To Think Bigger

Project Ambition is calling creative Brits to ditch their reserve and reach for the stars, says Ed Vaizey.

How Project Ambition Is Reshaping British Creative Entrepreneurship

CP Snow famously identified two cultures that existed side by side – the arts and science – but were separated by a gulf of incomprehension. Snow saw scientists as focused on the future and progress. By contrast the literary world was one of tradition and nostalgia.

As a minister, I straddled these worlds. I was appointed minister of culture, and became by accident minister of technology. This was because the big issue at the time (2010) was search engines like Google allowing consumers to find ripped-off content from sites like Napster.

During my tenure, I came to the same view as CP Snow. It was a great irony to me that the lefty, Tory-hating, trendy creative industries were actually very conservative. Whereas the world of technology was innovative, and constantly questioning how to do things differently as smartphones became ubiquitous.

So I wasn’t surprised when I saw new initiative Project Ambition was fronted by an entrepreneur – the founder of HelloFresh, Hamish Shephard – and a venture capitalist focused on technology, Pippa Lamb, whose fund Sweet Capital is anchored by the founders of Candy Crush. The duo aim to ignite a campaign to encourage Britons to be less reserved and humble, and more assertive about their ambition, like their US cousins. No more ‘don’t get too big for your boots’ and more ‘go and get it’.

Both founders are steeped in the creative industries. Because the irony is that technology only succeeds if it is creative. After all, the vast majority of our internet usage is for creative content, at least outside the office – and it is no surprise to see half of the ambassadors for this project are creative entrepreneurs.

And remarkable people they are. Dev Sharma is only 21, but already a veteran. Aged just 14, he co-founded Bite Back 2030 with Jamie Oliver (himself no slouch at being a creative entrepreneur). Bite Back led the movement to ban junk food from our schools, and became a multimillion-pound organisation. TJ Sawyerr, 23, used his early career as a model to break into fashion and become a creative director, working with big names like Bukayo Saka and Skepta. Shani Moran-Simmonds is a ballet dancer, already part of the Royal Ballet at just 19.

So the additional irony here is that the arts, while paradoxically traditional, foster many entrepreneurs with almost limitless ambition. That is why we are so successful all over the world, with our films, TV shows, music and video games. In fact, it is probably what we are best known for.

Where Project Ambition can make a difference is to highlight the success stories that exist in Britain. In the US, business leaders and entrepreneurs are well-known and seen as heroic. In Britain, we focus on those who are not doing so well. We need to spend more time focusing on our successes and showing that outstanding success stories happen every day in Britain. That’s a campaign worth getting behind.

Find out more about Project Ambition at projectambition.org