DigiCreate & Digital inclusion – Ensuring equal access to creative tools & training
Financial Barriers to Accessing Professional Creative Tools
Despite high digital engagement, not all individuals have equal access to the best tools within the cultural and creative industries (CCI). According to University of the Arts London, financial status prevents 82% of people from under-represented socio-economic backgrounds from applying to roles or taking up job offers in the CCI sector (arts.ac.uk).
Free and Open-Source Tools: Opportunities and Limitations
The majority of young creatives start out on free or low-cost software and applications, since professional creative software (for video editing, design, architecture, music production, etc.):
- Design & Visual Content: Canva, Adobe Photoshop, GIMP
- Video Editing & Animation: Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Blender
- UX / UI & Digital Design: Figma, Sketch
- Audio & Music Production: Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Audacity.
Free and Open-Source Tools: Opportunities and Limitations
Using these tools often comes with a hefty price tag for a one-time purchase or comes bundled as a high monthly subscription fee, which many without a stable income find difficult or impossible to afford.
Open-source alternative programs and free applications provide entry-level functionality to those who cannot pay for top-tier, industry-leading software. However, using these tools can be limiting, as creative hobbyists and professionals often find themselves juggling multiple applications due to limited functionality and niche-dedicated use cases. Additional issues arise from limited support for industry-standard formats and difficulties in collaborative workflows. These limitations can result in loss of metadata, resolution, or, more broadly, loss of overall quality in the final product. Open-source tools are also more likely to lag behind industry trends, lose support over time, or be accompanied by incomplete documentation and weaker support channels, making long-term adoption more challenging.
Industry-Standard Tech Stacks and Structural Inequality
Many companies and employers have an exactly defined tech stack they use, and in somewhat to fully professional surroundings these often come down to the best of paid tools. For example:
- Industry-Standard Creative Ecosystems: Adobe Creative Cloud
- Autodesk
- Avid Media Composer
Having experience with those gives a clear advantage to some individuals over others. Stepping into major creative industries assumes familiarity with proprietary ecosystems, creating a real barrier for creatives with talent and ideas who lack the financial means to access the tools that align with industry workflow. Recognizing this, many initiatives have influenced companies behind such software to offer free educational licenses and heavy discounts for students. However, this does not guarantee universal accessibility, as not all of those starting out are necessarily students. The creative sector is one of the few where formal education is not always a prerequisite for entry, and a large number of young creatives begin self-taught, freelance, or through informal learning environments. As a result, student-based subsidy schemes fail to adequately reach the broader starting-out audience, despite them facing the same financial barriers when attempting to adopt industry-standard tools.
DigiCreate’s Response: An Open, Inclusive Digital Hive
To address this gap, DigiCreate aims to create a comprehensive digital corner for all those in need of direction and guidance in terms of digital tools, by providing a centralized digital toolbox. This is intended to be an open-access, free-to-use digital hive containing links to digital tools and digital tools themselves, alongside freely accessible learning resources that cover the major know-hows for what project findings determine to be essential skill gaps and priority tools within the industry. Additionally, these resources are to be curated with inclusion in mind. The platform is to be developed as multilingual and open to all, removing the lingual barrier, which project findings already indicate as one of the major obstacles to most forms of open-access knowledge and content.
More Than Tools: Community, Collaboration, and Learning
The digital hive is not only that, but also a space intended to foster communities, where aspiring creatives can exchange ideas and create common projects. It is a space that supports digital inclusion and learning so that cost, location, or lack of know-hows pose no barrier to creative youth.
Partners:
- Youth Power Germany EV (YP-DE) (Germany)
- Evolutionary Archetypes Consulting SL (EAC) (Spain)
- Cooperativa Para O Desenvolvimento E Coesão Social, CRL (Contextos) (Portugal)
- Univerzitet Union Nikola Tesla (UniTesla) (Serbia)
- Udruzenje Okret (SPIN) (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
- Nevladina Organizacija GLAS (NVO GLAS) (Montenegro)
- Javna Ustanova Univerzitet Crne Gore Podgorica (UoM) (Montenegro)
- Fakultet Za Poslovnu Ekonomiju I Pravo Bar (FPEP Bar) (Montenegro)
Funding Agency: EACEA – European Education and Culture Executive Agency
