Between Friday 15 and Thursday 21 April 2023, the University of Malta’s Edward de Bono Institute will be collaborating with various entities to celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Week (WCIW).
This initiative has been celebrated annually for the last twenty years in an ever-growing number of countries, with the aim of inspiring new thinking and fostering a culture for creativity and innovation.
In 2018, the United Nations resolved to include World Creativity and Innovation Day, April 21, as a ‘Day of Observance’ to encourage people to use creativity in problem-solving for all issues related to achieving the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Locally, Dr Margaret Mangion coordinates a programme of events to commemorate World Creativity and Innovation Week in the capacity of ambassador for WCIW/D.
Programme of Events
1. Monday 27 March. Critical and Creative Thinking. This event will be in the form of a workshop organised by the Edward de Bono Institute in collaboration with the Doctoral School at the University of Malta. Students enrolled on a doctoral programme are invited to attend and interact in an interactive discussion dealing with the importance and relevance of critical and creative thinking when approaching resources and writing at doctoral level. This workshop will be delivered by Dr Margaret Mangion.
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2. Thursday 13 April, a press conference will take place announcing a collaboration between the Edward de Bono Institute and two entities related to the creative industries, the Malta Crafts Foundation and the Valletta Design Cluster. During the press conference a programme of events for an activity titled Innovative Creatives will be launched.
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3. Tuesday 18 April, My Malta, My Future. This event will involve a seminar that will be organised in collaboration with the Western Region Council. Students in Year 10 (approx. aged 14-15 years) attending schools falling within the perimeter of the Western Region Council will be invited to take part in an interactive event. A plenary session will be followed by activities in groups where students from different schools will come together to address pressing social issues identified by the participants themselves. The young audience will be encouraged to think creatively to seek solutions or methods of prevention for the identified issues.
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4. 19 – 21 March. A series of lectures and workshops in creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship is planned for a group of 33 teenage students coming from France. During the workshops the students will have the opportunity to embrace and practice a number of 21st Century Skills while engaging with an entrepreneurial and creative mindset.
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5. 19 April. Sustainable Futures. A thinking project. A press conference will be held to launch a social project where the Edward de Bono Institute will collaborate with the Southern Region Council. Future oriented, this project entails a series of workshops aimed at encouraging young people to engage with what is possible. Starting with ‘What can be but is not yet here’ as a basic premise, groups of young people will be engaged to explore different scenarios related to sustainable living in the respective towns and village on Malta.
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6. 20 April. The Thrift Life. Undergraduate students will have the opportunity to experience hands on activities related to tips and tricks to be thrifty yet trendy by extending the life of existing garments. Sarah from Perla and Suzy will share her flair for upcycling. A hands-on workshop will ensure where students will learn basic techniques of stitching and mending.
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7. 20 April. Sustainable Development in Action. Students enrolled on the Diploma in Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship will have the opportunity to follow a workshop delivered by Ms Katarzyna Szczepaniak from SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities. The workshop will introduce and explore the concept of sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an interactive, creative way with the elements of art therapy and non-verbal communication that will help Students to internalise the concepts and suggest their applications.
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8. 20 April. The scientific study of creative thinking: From the brain to the creative behaviour. Prof. Sergio Agnoli from the University of Trieste and the Marconi Institute for Creativity, will deliver a lecture to students enrolled on the Master in Creativity and Innovation.
The aim of this lecture is to review some of the modern approaches to the study of creative thinking. Starting from an analysis of the role of creativity for the human society. Prof. Agnoli will then explore the brain dynamics subsuming the generation of creative ideas empathising their psychological meanings. This analysis will provide a first overview of the main cognitive functions associated with the creative thinking process and will open the possibility to introduce the role of some basic motivational systems and of emotions in the prediction of the originality of the ideas produced within a creative process. It will be a fast ride starting from the neural substrates and arriving to the actualization of creative ideas.
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9. 20 - 22 April. Innovative Creatives. A creativity festival is being organised. During these events a number of artists and artisans will interact with the public to showcase how they engage with the production of traditional products in innovative ways. A number of workshops will take place on site.
Prof. Sandra Dingli from the Edward de Bono Institute will share her experience on an EU funded project titled InnoGreen – Innovative entrepreneurs leading green businesses.
A full programme will be launched in the coming days. Interested attendees are invited to view the activities and sign up for the ones they wish to participate in.
This event will be open for the general public.
Venue: Valletta Design Cluster
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10. 21-22 April. What the Hack! Tackling Food Waste. The Edward de Bono Institute will collaborate with the Institute of Earth Systems on a hackathon addressing pressing needs to decrease food waste. This event is aimed at students attending Sixth Form.
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11. 24 April. Let’s Think! This workshop is being organised in a collaboration between the Edward de Bono Institute and NSTS - Education, Mobility, Lifestyle. A group of animateurs are invited to take the challenge and ideate innovative activities aimed at educating and entertaining foreign students who come to Malta specifically to learn the English language. A varied portfolio of ideas is aimed to be produced by the end of the workshop.
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12. 27 April. SCAMPER IT! This event is aimed at students enrolled on IOT1009 – Thinking Out of the Box will follow. Students from MCAST Institute for the Creative Arts attended a creative thinking workshop delivered by Dr Margaret Mangion. Following the workshop, the students were tasked to design period costumes using recyclable materials. Under the supervision of Ms Maria Cutajar lecturer at MCAST, the students will use SCAMPER to generate ideas to design their artefacts. This event by students for students is aimed at fostering communication and collaboration between students from the two educational institutions.
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13. 27 April. Measuring Creativity. Prof. Roni Reiter Palmon from the University of Nebraska, Omaha, USA will deliver a lecture to students on the Master in Creativity and Innovation. During this lecture the students will have the opportunity to explore a range of methods to measure creativity while gaining knowledge about the appropriateness of the different tools.
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14. 28 April. Creativity for sustainable wellbeing. A seminar for nurses is being organised in collaboration between the Edward de Bono Institute, the Mental Health Department within the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Malta Union for Midwives and Nurses. During the seminar, attendees will have the possibility to explore how creativity and wellbeing may be related through an interactive approach.
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