Dr. Xin Gu is an Expert appointed by UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Diversity of Cultural Expression (since 2019). She is director of the Master of Cultural and Creative Industries (MCCI) at Monash University in Australia. She has published widely on urban creative clusters and agglomerations, cultural work, creative entrepreneurship, cultural and creative industries policy, media cities, maker culture and cyberculture. Her policy work focuses on the transformation of creative cities and the creative economy in the Global South. Dr Xin Gu has worked with culture agencies in China, Japan, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand to develop cultural strategies and cultural policies. She was the author of a report commissioned by the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) on the social aspect of cultural work and she co-authored Culture and Diplomacy in the Changing Worlds, a report commissioned by the Japan Foundation. She was awarded the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) grant looking into Australian soft diplomacy in China. Gu’s current research concerns the digital creative economy and its impact on diversity of cultural expression, cultural participation and cultural diplomacy. Her books include Red Creatives (Intellect, 2020) and Re-imagining Creative Cities in Twenty-First Century Asia (Palgrave Macmillan 2020).