Talking about Creativity. Another story about connecting the dots

Ways to connecting the dots are almost infinite.

It all depends on how willing you are to connect them and who you meet.

A few months ago I met accidentally through an online search on the University of Cambridge website a lecturer who was very interested in my work and in particular in Handy, my multipurpose open-source tool to slow the spread of Covid-19.

After a couple of chats, he introduced me to Sacha, an engineer who lives in Cambridge and runs a very nice alternative to in-person meetups: The Creativity meetup at Cambridge.

Cambridge Creativity was originally founded by alumni and tutors of a University of Cambridge class on creativity theory. It is now open to everyone and aims to be inclusive of all cultural and occupational backgrounds. On a monthly basis, meetups are organized around invited speakers and seminars, with opportunities to debate and meet like-minded people. The group considers creativity in a sense that applies to all forms of art but also to entrepreneurship, education, and everyday life.

When at the end of the summer I first spoke with Sacha we ended up in a long conversation that brought me to get invited to deliver a talk a few months after at the December meetup.

On Tuesday, December 8th at 6 pm, I was online with a bunch of attendees talking about Inclusive Design and creativity.

I then started my open discussion, not just a talk by asking:

Do we really know who we are designing for? Is our creative design process optimized to guarantee equity and inclusion? Do you know how to train your creativity muscles? All these questions stimulated a long conversation with several attendees and in particular with Terry, who debated on several aspects of creativity and how I developed my creative skills since I was a kid.

This talk, given during a lock-down, wasn’t only an opportunity to tell more about my background and my life path around creativity and design, but more as a way to evade the loneliness that we experience during the pandemic and to connect -virtually- with human beings.