HundrED and Lego seeking educators and innovators ideas

In mid-November, at the HundrED Innovation Summit, a call was sent out to educators and innovators the world over, asking them to share ideas about innovations that would cultivate creativity in education settings and communities globally. 

 

The Spotlight on Creativity wants to showcase a carefully curated collection of 10 education innovations in creativity, aimed at fostering greater awareness and understanding of how creativity happens, and the role that learning through play has in building the breadth of skills needed to solve “the problems of the future”. 

 

“In an age of rapid innovation, where children will encounter unimagined advances and navigate unpredictable dilemmas, the acquisition of knowledge alone is not sufficient to enable them to survive and thrive – both in work and in life,” a Lego Foundation spokesperson said.

 

To tackle such dilemmas, children need to develop a holistic breadth of skills, of which creativity sits at the core. 

 

“Creativity can support individuals to be more engaged in learning – fostering imagination and curiosity, and ensuring individuals find learning meaningful by connecting learning goals with the world around them and things that they care about,” the spokesperson noted. 

 

In addition, they said, creativity can also have positive effects for communities, societies and economies – fostering greater efforts to find creative solutions to address collective social, economic and political issues. Climate change, they noted, is one such area where creative solutions must be found in order to be successful. 

 

As such, HundrED and the LEGO Foundation are committed to helping these innovations spread “so that eventually every child is encouraged to flourish by unleashing their creativity and helping to improve their respective worlds and our collective world.”

 

Creativity is one of the most desirable abilities for employees, with the World Economic Forum rating creativity as being of more value than either mathematical or logical reasoning. 

 

“There is an opportunity and urgent need right now to inject the power of creativity into education systems around the world (as part of a wider skills revolution). Some countries and systems are already acknowledging the benefits that fostering creativity can bring to their citizens, and are working to nurture, teach and develop creativity,” the Lego Foundation said. 

 

Submissions to the Spotlight Campaign are open until 17 January 2020. At the closure of submissions, a selection process, led by the LEGO Foundation, HundrED and the Spotlight Advisory Board will identify the shortlist. 

 

Some of the shortlist innovators will be invited to the LEGO Idea Conference in March, and the final selected innovations will be announced in November at the 2020 HundrED Innovation Summit in Helsinki, Finland.

 

Australian educators and innovators are invited to explore the Spotlight page for more information and submission details.