World Creativity and Innovation Day 2021 is a day observed by UN. On this day we will tell you about the origin, significance of the day and 3 hacks to boost creativity and unleash your potential.
Origin
Although World Creativity and Innovation Day was recognized by the UN in 2017, its seed was germinated by creativity expert Marci Segal decades ago. It was 1997 when Segal came through a headline in a newspaper titled ‘Canada in Creativity Crisis’.
Being a student at the International Center for Studies in Creativity, Canada, Segal took it to herself to do something about it. She founded the World Creativity and Innovation Day in 2001, in Canada. For years she wrote papers, conducted events around the importance of creativity and innovation.
Later in 2017, her efforts showed its results as UN recognized the day.
Significance
The day is marked as one on which everyone is encouraged to generate new ideas, make decisions, take actions, and achieve results that would make the world a more innovative and creative place.
UN’s take on World Creativity and Innovation Day 2021
According to UN, as the world opens up after COVID-19 forced lockdowns, this couldn’t be a better time to appreciate the importance of creativity. To do so, UN along with UNESCO, WTO, WIPO, UNIDO will celebrate the day and mark the day as an important one to appreciate the world’s creative economy.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary Isabell Durant issued a statement and said, “The creative industries are critical to the sustainable development agenda. They stimulate innovation and diversification, are an important factor in the burgeoning services sector, support entrepreneurship, and contribute to cultural diversity.”
According to UN, “creative economy –which includes audiovisual products, design, new media, performing arts, publishing and visual arts– is a highly transformative sector of the world economy in terms of income generation, job creation and export earnings.”
According to a UNESCO report on culture, the world should embrace creative industries as part of economic growth strategies. These industries generate approximately $2.25 billion in revenue and also help people with 29 million jobs across the world.
3 Simple but Effective hacks to boost creativity
1. Learn Through Collaboration
Computer scientist Andrew Ng, who worked at Google and now at Baidu, believes that innovation occurs through systematic use of creativity rather than random occurrences of genius.
We have all tried hoping an idea just pops in our head. The truth is however far more boring. The best ideas come in form of sharing them, receiving feedback on them and then working on them. Only by a tight feedback loop can one act on their creative decisions and implement them.
2. Introduce a balance
Are you stuck in a creative block? Are you paralyzed by inaction and not sure what to do? Well, why don’t you try doing something new that you love so that your creativity doesn’t take a backseat?
Still don’t buy it? Well, how about an anecdote on Albert Einstein’s life! Once Albert Einstein wrote a letter to his son in which he shared an insight to him on his love for playing the piano.
“That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passe. I am sometimes so wrapped up in my work that I forget about the noon meal.”
3. Observe, understand and write the new ideas that come to you
Over the course of a person’s life, it’s not that the creative ideas would just stop coming to them, it’s more a case of them not registering them diligently.
So, when an idea comes to you, or even a figment of an idea comes to your mind, before letting it vanish, capture them in a notebook, a diary or an app on your phone. Robert Epstein, Senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in his interview with Entrepreneur website claimed that his researched has conclusively proven that preserving ideas is the most valuable way of boosting one’s creativity.
