IYCE 2009 Award winner

British Council is glad to announce that the winner of International Young Communications Entrepreneur award 09 is Gatis Mūrnieks from FUSE Latvia.

The finalists’ presentations took place in British Council Latvia office in February 2nd, when all 10 shortlisted candidates showed their presentations and answered to jury panel questions.

During his presentations and interview Gatis demonstrated strong entrepreneurial drive that is tied to his strong creative abilities. Gatis showed qualities, potential and passion of truly creative communication sector leader. He demonstrated FUSE business success in terms of both business growth and creative potential. He provided original ideas and the flexibility to develop these in a commercial context. He had also a strong vision of how to benefit professionally and personally from the UK tour and also had clear initiatives how to contribute back to Latvian communication sector and community. At British Council we call it “agent of change!”

You can find Gatis’ profile and his works here.

Here are some references from national jury members:

“Gatis has a great talent and ability to mix existing technologies, media and materials in fresh and surprisingly new ways. And he is not only able to come up with these innovative ideas, but also make them happen and achieve phenomenal results.”

Andris Rubīns, Head of IYXE09 award Jury
Executive Director, DDB Latvija
Representative of Latvian Art Directors Club

„Gatis breaks the semiotic conventions of Latvian advertising making the urban environment more human. As a scholar I was excited to see his marvellous bricolage: he ‘recycles’ the trivial things and recontextualises them on the streets so that the passers-by turn into co-producers of new meanings of their mundane experiences.”

Sergejs Kruks, IYXE09 award Jury member
Riga Stradiņš University Faculty of Communication associated professor

„Passionate, creative spark combined with youth and great potential for personal development and contribution to the communication sector in Latvia and abroad- this is the overall strong impression I got from Gatis presentation during IYHE 09 final in Riga.”

Arnis Sauka, IYXE09 award Jury member
Stockholm School of Economics Riga, lector, Entrepreneurship and Business Planning

Congratulations to Gatis and big thanks to all 40 of IYXE09 award applicants and 10 finalists for the inspirational presentations and great involvement!! Surely, any of you can be called creative communications entrepreneur!