A really interesting TED talk by Tim Brown of Ideo in which he links the importance of playfulness to ensure creativity and particularly in the world of design
Some of the main points included:
• The importance of creating a trusted environment where people feel secure and free to try out new ideas. He gives examples of [...]

Innovation Dublin is a week long festival running from Wednesday 14th October to Monday 20th October. The festival is a key project of the Creative Dublin Alliance ( a collaborative organisation of businesses, third level institutions Government sectors and the not-for-profit sector). The idea behind the festival,is was to highlight what Dublin can be proud [...]

Voting Ends: October 8, 2009
Google’s Project 10^100, launched last year, called for ideas that would change the world by helping as many people as possible.
The huge response (over 150,000 idea submissions from 170 countries) has been grouped together into the 16 different overall themes or “Big Ideas” set out below:

Enhance science and engineering education
Create real-world [...]

A global toast to Arthur Guinness takes place on 24th September at 17:59 Dublin time. It marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the 9,000 year lease on St James’s Gate brewery. Dublin celebrations will include some outstanding music acts with all ticket proceeds going to the Arthur Guinness Fund.

IDEO, whose philosophy centres on building on the ideas of others for optimum impact, has collaborated with the Gates Foundation to create the human-centred design toolkit, an open source innovation toolkit for social impact in developing countries. To date the toolkit has been used on agricultural, medical and sanitation projects and continues to be modified and enhanced by users.

Sir Ken Robinson’s excellent TED talk on Schools Kill Creativity contends that all children have tremendous creative talent and the educational system squanders that talent by educating children to become good workers rather than creative thinkers. Ken Wantanabe, a former management consultant with McKinsey Consulting, has come up with an innovative response to this problem. His book Problem Solving 101 was written to support Japan’s children in learning how to problem solve and think critically. The book has been been a best seller for adults in Japan and internationally.

TED came to Dublin last Friday 12th June as part of the TEDx series of independent spin-off events. TEDx continues the same spirit of spreading exciting and inspirational ideas. The Science Gallery was the venue for Friday’s TEDx talk and only the fourth such event in Europe so far.

I posted on the 5th May about the collaboration of Guinness with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland .www.socialentrepreneurs.ie You may also have seen recent billboards around Dublin declaring that Everyone can be a change maker.
This is the tagline of Ashoka www.ashoka.org a global non-profit organization of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs focused on implementing solutions to the [...]

I took a shortcut yesterday that made my journey two hours longer. The irony of leaving work early “to get on the road and  beat the traffic” wasn’t lost on me.  Somehow, I missed the sign and my turn off and ended up lost, confused and unsure what direction to take.
Then I had an [...]

Infectious: Stay Away is the tag line for this innovative exhibition now showing in The Science Gallery, TCD. Ignore the health warning, it’s fantastic-Go!
Opened since 17th April, 14,000 people have already visited the “containment zone” on Pearse Street.