Harnessing Digital Technology

The field of economic development is at a pivotal moment. The transformative potential of the digital revolution has yet to be fulfilled and new, disruptive technologies and business models have begun to transform economies and societies at the most basic levels: how work and firms are organized, and how products and services are designed and delivered. Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, development organizations and governments are struggling to find new ways to promote economic and social well-being.

The book, TechnoCreative Entrepreneurships Creativity and Technology: Allies or Enemies?, is a guide that focuses on demythifying that the orange economy is not linked to new technology. In general, when we think of handicrafts, we don’t think about technology, but in reality they are more allies than enemies. We will also focus on demonstrating how creativity eliminates frontiers and permeates other more traditional sectors such as health, education and Fintech.

Based on new quantitative and qualitative data tailored for this research, we suggest different ways in which museums in LAC—at the core of a network formed by other creative industries—can resume and enhance growth. Here we consider a museum a space for innovation, social transformation, digital disruption and economic development. In addition, we intend to look at their paramount and yet not sufficiently explored opportunities, their challenges, and their ongoing and future strategies, especially in the context of their relation to new technologies, since the onset of COVID-19.

Carnivals and Festivals: Digital Trends and Strategies is part of the IDB’s editorial series, Art, Culture and New Technologies in Latin America and the Caribbean, intended to point out the impact of digitization and the adoption of new technologies by cultural and creative industries from the region, and how this can catalyze innovation, social cohesion, and change.

Can digital technologies enable new tourist experiences? How can tourist destinations and nation brands be constructed and promoted in the light of cultural industries and digital technologies? How can a territory and its brand be managed through digital technologies in the current context?

Using quantitative and qualitative data tailored for this research, we will review the main challenges the food industry is currently facing. We will discuss its growth and the ways in which LAC restaurants can be strengthened as a core center where other creative industries can converge.

On the following pages we will study the potential of edutainment, focusing mainly on those tools, methods, and content from Cultural and Creative Industries (ICC) that foster innovation. Edutainment: Trends and Digital Strategies is part of the IDB editorial series, Art, Culture and New Technologies in Latin America and the Caribbean, intended to point out the impact of digitization, the adoption of technologies by cultural and creative industries from the region, and how this can catalyze innovation, social cohesion, and change. 

Music and Performing Arts: Digital Trends and Strategies is part of the IDB’s editorial series, Art, Culture and New Technologies in Latin America and the Caribbean, that aims at identifying the ways in which technology can drive innovation in the creative economy. The sector generates a multidimensional impact rarely analyzed from an economic perspective, considering them productive activities worthy of attention and promotion.

This report looks at the implications for the Creative Economy of the rapid changes in automated technology and advanced internet communication that came to be known as Industry 4.0. Among the many observations that this report makes, ones that are important from the perspective of sustainable and inclusive development especially that of small developing countries are that: (1) Creative Industry 4.0 can speed-up the transfer of technology; (2) the size of the domestic market will no longer be a limit when it comes to developing a product; (3) new niche market opportunities are emerging.