A collaboration for socially relevant enterprise

The man behind a unique social enterprise initiative bringing together young talent from the UK and India explains what Modual: Mumbai is all about.I'm writing this from day three of the Modual: Mumbai workshop. Already the ideas are flowing through a cultural collaboration that has exploded into more energy than even we experienced Modual-ers had anticipated.As part of its pioneering approach to delivering creative education, University of the Arts London (UAL) has funded, supported and nurtured the Modual initiative for four years. I developed the programme to bring students out of a traditional university lecture environment, and into a context that better reflects the professional creative world. Participants are given the challenge of delivering positive change and, through forming pop-up creative studios, develop their idea into a business proposition.In just eight days, each group of four students comes up with their own idea for a social enterprise start-up venture and then produces a Kickstarter-style video, an advertising campaign and various other digital and real world assets that represent their project. They then present these live to an audience of high-level professionals and industry experts at a vibrant launch night and networking event.The seventh iteration of Modual is the first time it has ventured into Asia and embraces cross-cultural exchange. Ten students from University of the Arts London in the UK have flown into Mumbai and have joined 20 participants from India to collaborate with each other throughout this 2017 international Modual programme. The resulting cohort allows collaboration with peers not only from different creative backgrounds, but also a broad range of social and cultural contexts.This year's students are passionate, committed and talented, and are propelling all of these qualities into their work with more vigour every day. The wide range of skills in the room are creating surprising opportunities, and already we are seeing promise of real innovation and social change. Early ideas are tackling stress and anxiety; prejudice; lack of confidence in young people; and preservation of traditional arts.Of course, being submerged in a cultural centre as vibrant as Mumbai helps. Every turn provides a new experience, colours, sounds, smells merge to tingle all of the senses and boost the imagination. Particularly for the students who have flown in from the UK, the experience has opened their eyes to a range of inspiration and experience which will no doubt influence their future work, not just in their Modual projects, but also their careers far beyond.Those of us experiencing Mumbai for the first time have had a crash course (almost literally) in travel in the city. Chaos reigns on the roads in the morning and evening rush hours, with vehicles of all shapes and sizes competing to fit into the smallest gap to progress a few inches in their journey. We have learnt to allow an extra hour for the commute, just in case. The travel time does, however, provide ample opportunity to observe Mumbai life - something which exists in abundance. The constant energy within Mumbai is infectious, and carries through into the workshop each day.The UK and Indian participants have also been collaborating socially with the hosts being extremely generous with their time and energy. After a week of brainstorming and planning, production on these projects is about to begin and again the locals' expert knowledge will be essential to enable these projects to reach fruition before their presentation on launch night.We can't wait to see the resulting projects that emerge from this unique collaboration opportunity, and we would love to share them with you when they do.*The launch night for Modual: Mumbai takes place on September 14 at the British Council in Mumbai. Professor Fred Deakin is Chair of the Digital Arts at University of the Arts London (UAL).