The Region' largest animation and digital media festival, Animae Caribe, is staging its 14th edition of the festival from 27 - 31 October, 2015, in Trinidad and Tobago. For the first year, an experimental creative bootcamp has been added to this year' Festival, and the Caribbean Development Bank is partnering with Animae Caribe Festival in this initiative. Lisa Harding, Operations Officer (Private Sector Development Unit), at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), said that, “CDB is in full support of the Animated Ideas Bootcamp, as we believe that events like this serve to further enhance awareness of opportunities in the ICT sector for young people across the region. This is one mechanism that can be used to address high youth unemployment in the Caribbean, by encouraging the development of new skills and sensitizing the youth about new opportunities in the creative industries, and specifically the animation sector. Support for these sectors will contribute to the diversification of our regional economies, which is consistent with CDB' broader strategic objective of poverty reduction and encouraging sustainable and inclusive growth." The objective is to encourage artists, musicians, animators and writers to pool their resources for a collaborative project for the development of Caribbean animated content. Recognising a gap between training and content creation, several key stakeholders combined forces to craft a solution. The aim is to generate the development of regional content by combining the right creative skill sets with hands-on training. “We are honored to have the support of CDB for the first phase of Animated Ideas Bootcamp. This is an ingenious way to create a tangible impact on the creative sector as it pools all the necessary resources for the development of Caribbean content," said festival founder Camille Selvon Abrahams. As a regional initiative, the partnerships with institutions from the Caribbean are integral. Visiting the festival will be animators from Jamaica, Barbados, Suriname and Martinique some of whom are supported by Caribbean Export Development Agency - the only regional trade and investment promotion agency in the African, Caribbean and Pacific group. The festival team also continues to work with Caricom on the project 'Animating the Caribbean' which creates opportunities for training and development in animation and digital media throughout the Caribbean. Participants will have several key international experts as mentors for the event. This list includes Caiphus Moore, fine artist and lead designer at EA Games Los Angeles California; Jan S. Utstein, independent producer, publisher & CEO of Hurricane Entertainment; Ty Richardson, founder &CEO of YoPro Global Inc, experiential design & analysis USA & Trinidad & Tobago; Karen Pensak, director of Pensak Technologies and researcher, Creative and Innovative Economies Center, Georgetown University; Ebele Okoye, animation director and founding director of Shrinkfish Media Lab, Germany. The experimental workshop will allow the audience to participate in group ideation through the festival workshops and mentoring from the professionals then pitch ideas for animated series production. The winning group for the Bootcamp will be partnered with existing Caribbean animation studios and funded to create a pilot and a Production Bible that will be marketed through Caribbean Tales Distribution Company and other regional and international bodies.