Location: Volta Labs, 1505 Barrington St (Maritime Centre), Unit 100, Halifax, NS

Date: Thursday, November 8, 2018

Time: Lunch and Networking: 11:40 am, Presentation: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Cost: Free (lunch – please advise of any special dietary requirements)

RSVP: Please use our Online Registration process to register by Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

NEW!  A livestream of this session is available. Please select the appropriate timeslot where details are provided. 

This event qualifies for 1 Professional Development Hour (PDH) for the Engineers Nova Scotia CPD program.

Presenter: David Holt, Principal, Context, speaking and consulting; Co-founder, Digital Cinema Labs and Associate Publisher, OptiMYz inc.

Presentation Description:

The essence of creativity is the same in all fields. It is the essential quality that moves society forward. There is no cookie-cutter formula, but there are some common elements that tend to be found in creative work.

Fields are not creative per se. All fields have master craftsmen who do not necessarily move the field forward. Creativity requires a willingness to explore beyond the boundaries of the day. There is a lot of trial and error. It usually benefits from symbolic systems like language, number/mathematics, drawings and diagrams, musical notation, maps -- and the defining element of our day, computer code.

Creativity applies to the design of organizations and business models, not just products and services, art and science. At the organizational level, two of the main tools of creativity are strategy and innovation.

This talk uses individuals and organizations as examples: in particular leading innovators in telecommunications (Bell, Marconi and Shannon) and innovative companies and their business models, including Google and Amazon.

Bio

David Holt is a writer, speaker, consultant and entrepreneur who has developed programs that help teams and organizations look at their challenges in a fresh new way. He uses examples from the history of science, technology, business and the military to illustrate the principles of strategy and innovation. As an entrepreneur he has co-founded companies in the media, IMAX documentary, renewable energy and data centre sectors. Early in his career he worked in oceanography. A resident of Nova Scotia, he was educated in the United States and France.