Aus4Skills’ two-day workshop “Creativity and Innovation” received overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants, who believed they could put what they had learned to work.
Ms Tori Dixon-Whittle, Managing Director of TDW Consulting, and a Director of Australian Chamber of Commerce, led the event in Vinh Phuc on 18 – 19 April 2017. There were seven sessions: i) defining creativity and innovation – common blocks and challenges, ii) starting with self, iii) creativity and innovation techniques, iv) creativity and innovation in action, v) creativity and innovation in context, vi) overcoming resistance to new ideas, and vii) sustainable practices and action plans.
Fort-six Australia Awards alumni and two Australia Awards Fellows from different parts of Vietnam (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Bac Ninh, Lang Son and Da Lat) participated in the workshop.
Ms Tori Dixon-Whittle, the trainer of the “Creativity and Innovation” workshop, listens to a group discussion.
Australia Awards alumnus, Dr Bui Hai Thiem (Director of Research Management Unit, Institute for Legislative Studies, National Assembly) said that the event helped him and the others to connect, be open, to have trust with each other and to share experience and knowledge.
“For example, we studied techniques of creativity and innovation. We applied those knowledge and skills based on Disney innovation techniques. First, we would start with the “Dreamer’s room” to find some crazy ideas, but then would work out some plan to realize these ideas, and then we would have some critics to review these plans,” he added.
Several Australia Awards alumni makinga group presentation at the “Creativity and Innovation” workshop.
Another participant, Australia Awards Fellow Dinh Thi Hong Phuc, Vice Director of Caritas Da Lat, said that she learned how to encourage innovation in an organization during the two-day training.
“I liked the trainer’s statement: ‘No idea is a crazy idea.’ More than once, when a person raised an idea in his or her organization, it was immediately poured cold water on before other members could fully understand it. This did not help to create innovations or big changes. So sometimes we need to accept differences,” she said.
Participants pose for a group picture at the “Creativity and Innovation” workshop.
Responding to post-event survey, 98% of the participants either mostly or completely agreed that the workshop length was appropriate and its objectives were achieved. Ninety percent believed that the training would help them to apply creativity and innovation in their work.
