Express Innovation: The Youth Perspective

For one whole week, Eugene Koh, a 22-year-old student, overworked his creative juices, as he toiled to complete his latest artistic work. Naturally he is jubilant to learn that his masterpiece has been selected to be published in a book. Very soon, students across Singapore will be flipping through the pages of this compilation, titled Art of Innovation.

Interestingly, Eugene Koh is not an aspiring artist. The self-proclaimed “non arts-inclined” student specialises in Biomedical Sciences at Republic Polytechnic (RP).

Art of Innovation, which features the original works of Eugene and over 40 other RP students, is the first pictorial book to be published in Singapore that relates to students’ ideas on innovation. The book contains the best collections from 4000 drawings contributed by the Republic Polytechnic students through a campus-wide drawing competition, titled I-Design”, held in November 2005. This is an extremely encouraging figure, given that Republic Polytechnic only had around 1800 students in 2005.

Many students saw the competition as a welcomed challenge, even though most had little or nil artistic background and faced frustrations and obstacles in searching for their inspiration. Eugene Koh adds, “This is not an easy task I should say, as I have to come out with a drawing that is straight-forward and able to convey my message across. Due to the lack of (drawing) practice, it took me quite some time to finally come out with the final work.”

The publication of this book is just one of RP’s many efforts in driving self-directed learning. Using visual arts and simple captions, the book provided students a platform to express their interpretations of innovation along the following themes:

• what is innovation?
• what does innovation mean to me?
• what is life like with innovation?
• what is life like without innovation?
• innovation@school
• innovation@home
• innovation@work
• innovation@leisure

Art of Innovation is the brainchild of the Centre for Innovation and Enterprise (CIE) at RP. According to Dr Lynda Wee, Director of CIE, the book aims to encourage them to think, talk, express and own their ideas on innovation. “The key idea is to produce an innovation book where the youth can identify with. Most importantly, It is a book by the youth and for the youth,” says Dr Wee.

Besides student contributions, Art of Innovation also received tremendous support from recognised leaders from various industries. They provided inspirational sayings and quotes that encapsulated their philosophies and applications of innovation. Art of Innovation will soon be distributed to all local tertiary schools and libraries across Singapore.

Eugene has high aspirations for Art of Innovation. “I have gained a lot from this project. I have learnt that Innovation is everywhere and it is for everyone. I really hope that the book can inspire younger students to come out with innovative ideas.”

It is little wonder why the book ends with this quote, “Art of Innovation. A spark to new beginnings.”

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About Republic Polytechnic

The first educational institution in Singapore to adopt the “learn by doing” approach for all its diploma programmes. Republic Polytechnic has five schools offering nineteen diploma courses in Information & Communications Technology, Engineering, Applied Science, Technology for the Arts, and Sports, Health and Leisure.

Republic Polytechnic is committed to nurturing innovation and entrepreneurial learning in an environment that develops problem-solving process skills and a life-long learning attitude.

Its holistic, broad-based curriculum, covering culture, enterprise development and cognitive processes, prepares students for an active, meaningful role in society. Republic Polytechnic strives for excellence by achieving various national and international accreditations. E.g. People Developer Standards, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, Family Friendly Employer Award, Singapore Quality Class, Singapore Innovation Class and the Singapore Health Award.

For more information, visit http://www.rp.sg

About CIE

The Centre for Innovation and Enterprise (CIE) is one of five academic centres at Republic Polytechnic. It is CIE’s role to advocate innovation and entrepreneurial development among staff and students through partnerships with industry partners, skills development, mentoring and resource support. To achieve these goals, CIE has organized the centre into four portfolios: Business Intelligence, Marketing Innovations, Financial Resource Services and Entrepreneurial Development.

In addition, CIE offers core enterprise modules for first-year students, and a range of other business electives --marketing, consumer psychology, financial accounting, business statistics and microeconomics.

In 2005, CIE launched its first diploma, the Diploma in Integrated Events Management (DIEM), in collaboration with the School of Sports, Health and Leisure, making CIE the first centre at RP to offer a joint diploma with a school.

For more information, visit http://www.rp.sg/cie

About I-Design

In November 2005, CIE initiated Innovation Fiesta, an event inaugurated to promote innovation among RP students. The innovation Fiesta comprised of three themes: I-Show, I-Share and I-Design. Each of these themes was organised with the intent of raising the awareness of innovation among students and providing various platforms for them to explore, express and share their ideas on innovation.

I-Design, the culmination of Innovation Fiesta was a Design-&-Draw competition aimed at capturing our youths’ interpretation of innovation. Our students were required to use symbols, illustrations and phrases to express their ideas on the different aspects of innovation. There was an overwhelming 4000 entries received in this competition which eventually led to the successful compilation of the pictorial Art of Innovation.

Pictures Proposed Captions

Besides student works, Art of Innovation (above) also contains the artistic works of a few teaching staff at RP, who believed in leading by example.

Alternative housing: Eugene’s work highlights the evolution of houses through the ages. In his drawing, Eugene predicts that some day, Man’s innovation may lead to the creation of houses suspended in the air, or even houses entrenched in the seabed.

English Terms	Translated Chinese Terms
Republic Polytechnic	共和理工学院
Centre for Innovation and Enterprise	创新与创业中心
Art of Innovation	创新艺术之旅
Dr Lynda Wee	黄庆娘博士
Eugene Koh	辜春达
Innovation Fiesta	创新庆典

 

Reviews for Art of Innovation

Innovation comes out of people who have the willingness of mind and heart to question, to see anew and to implement change that creates value. I have read the book and enjoyed it. It is really heartwarming to know that our youths have such interesting points of views about innovation.

Mrs Pauline Wong, Principal, Holy Innocents' High School

“Art of Innovation” captures the imagination, aspirations and desires of our youths, bursting with ideas, energy and oomph! A delightful peek into the minds of future generations.”

Superintendent (Special Projects), Schools Division, Ministry of Education

This publication is a display of innovation itself, offering fresh perspectives on its art through a rich variety of creative designs and ideas presented by RP students.

Say "innovation talk" and you would think tired cliched slogans. By expressing innovation through pictures, “Art of Innovation” has lent an offbeat humour and visual immediacy to innovation -a much welcome breath of fresh air.

The search for innovation is a never-ending journey. Developing a passion for that search is in itself a difficult exercise. The publication of ' Art of Innovation' by Republic Polytechnic is a significant and encouraging step to inspire the students to innovate, both in and outside the lecture rooms. I applaud RP for this exercise in both igniting and developing a thirst for and the recognition of innovative ideas by its students.

Zhang Bi'en, 14, Student Paya Lebar Methodist Girls' Secondary School

Through the different interpretations of innovation by the different students, I've realised that innovation spans across a wide range of ideas. In general, I've learnt that innovation is about finding a way to create something new, and keeping a creative and open mind.

Justin Low, 15, Student Zhonghua Secondary School

Though younger students like myself are imaginative, we usually feel that our ideas are too silly to be mentioned. But through reading the book and viewing the works of other students, I’ve come to realise that even the wildest ideas can be seen as being innovative, and therefore a good thing.