ACII Happy To See Businesses

Empowered By Us

By Rudina Hoxha

Anisa Lloja is the co-founder of Albania Creative Industries Incubator (ACII), a shared digital infrastructure for the cultural community. The platform (albania. culturalyst.com) has resulted key in exploring the potential of the creative industries in Albania.

“Our platform is needed in order to formalize the creative industries in the market and to seriously represent their work online,” Lloja told TRAILBLAZING MAGAZINE.

ACII is an outcome of Anisa’s and her sister Manjola Lloja Bushati’s project “Nji Mar, Nji Mrapsht,” the first concept store in Albania dedicated to artisans in the country. This platform brought together the works of 220 artisans from all over Albania from the farthest north where the works come to Albania from Prishtina, and as far south as Gjirokastra.

“Both these experiences have been very interesting and informative for us, as a team. We believe that the most important outcome are the businesses started by those who were empowered through our collaboration. We are very happy we’ve been able to support them in their journey and believe that each holds an important place in the local ecosystem,” Lloja said.

Full interview below:

Please can you tell us more about Albania Creative Industries Incubator and how did you come up with this idea?

Albania Creative Industries Incubator (ACII) is a shared digital infrastructure for the cultural community. ACII is the first Albanian incubator for the creative industries, supported by local and international expertise on entrepreneurship, creative industries and ICT. The different components of ACII include an online platform to serve artists and creators, a series of 20 lectures and talks by local and international experts, a series of 3 documentaries, titled “Ne vete te pare,” and 8 sessions of collaborative creations called Kafet e Vogla.

This platform is a continuation of the innovative work done through Nji Mar, Nji Mrapsht, offering a holistic support to the local artistic scene. All the components of the project were designed to tackle issues of the sector identified through the experience gathered with Nji Mar, Nji Mrapsht. Through our work we’ve seen up close the potential of the creative industries in Albania. The situation we faced due to the pandemic made very obvious two immediate needs of the sector: its formalization and its serious presence online.

Our platform is needed in order to formalize the creative industries in the market and to seriously represent their work online. Our incubator aspect is needed in order to support such industry reach its potential.

Through the support of EU4Innovation, the first year of operation of ACII was very successful and exceeded our expectations, in terms of engagement and interest by the creative sector community.

What makes your business so unique and what are your intentions about it?

ACII is a new approach to incubators and creative industries, merging the best of both sides. Our platform, where each artist has their profile, will serve as a networking platform among artists. This supports the creation and formalization of the artistic ecosystem in the country. At the same time, this platform is a tool to help the artist reach the market in an easier and better regulated manner. It is a tool to democratize the cultural scene. In this way, the platform serves the whole community as well, formalizing the artistic offer and giving them an opportunity to get to know the cultural scene of their city.

The online platform brought to Albania a successful platform that is already being used in the US. As all content offered to the artist and all exchanges between artists and customers is done online, this platform is an innovation in the incubator scene in the country, while also offering contemporary online sales practices.

Our objective for the future is to continue to grow the network of members, while strengthening partnerships and collaborators with various stakeholders in the country and in the region.

In your view, why you were selected as one of the winners of EU Challenge Fund and what benefits have you scored out of it? How supportive has been the EU 4 Innovation for your business?

The creative industries sector holds incredible potential for development, supporting local economies and wellbeing. This is quite well-established in the EU, but not so much in Albania. Thus, we believe that the first reason was that EU 4 Innovation team understood our vision. Moreover, we believe our proposal to help develop the creative industries sector added to the variety of sectors the program has supported. Lastly, we think that our approach, combining our local experience with international best practices, was a convincing formula.

The support we got from EU 4 Innovation came at the right time – a period of transformation for our business – and gave us the opportunity to take on a new path, increase our community and range of collaborators. This support empowered us to have the structure and formalization we want the sector to have, thus embodying the principles we were transmitting to the community.

Nji Mar Nji Mrapsht was supported by a network of +200 artisans all over the country, while ACCI counted more than 150 members and 350+ participants in the online sessions. Can we talk of tangible results?

Nji Mar Nji Mrapsht was intended to be a meeting point among products and customers. Thus, most of its existence revolved around tangible products, the items produced by our artisan and creatives. Simultaneously with the design, production and sales processes, what we saw happening was the creation of a community. It was this community that we wanted to support through ACII. In this perspective, the numbers of members, participants, etc, are very important to us, and very tangible as well, as each number is a member of the community.

On the other hand, during the first year of ACII we managed to achieve some important results, such as the creation of the platform, delivering a series of 20 online talks by local and international experts – all aiming to raise the capacities of our community members, a series of 3 documentaries showcasing some success stories of our community members, and a series of 5 sessions of Kafet e Vogla – video productions showing the works of many creatives and artists.

Nji Mar Nji Mrapsht led you to other business initiatives and career paths. Can you elaborate more on them please?

As stated above, the experience gathered through Nji Mar, Nji Mrapsht shaped the work done through ACII. Both these experiences have been very interesting and informative for us, as a team. Working with the artists and artisans and being part of international ecosystems of entrepreneurs and culture innovators has been very rewarding.

However, we believe that the most important outcome are the businesses started by those who were empowered through our collaboration. We are very happy we’ve been able to support them in their journey and believe that each holds an important place in the local ecosystem.

How do you see the ecosystem of startups in Albania? What other steps do you think appropriate in this direction?

We started Nji Mar, Nji Mrapsht in 2014 and we are very happy to see the ecosystem has developed quite a lot since then. The creative industries sector in particular has gained some attention in the recent years. However, a lot more needs to be done, by the members of the sectors itself and by the institution and supporting bodies to develop the sector in a sustainable way, in order for it to achieve its full potential.