SynNovation

29/10/2024

Having fun sharing thinking and life skills with 9 young "mariners" at Lawhill Maritime Centre! And energising them for their final exams.
Angela Ho and Truida Prekel had the privilege of sharing SynNovation skills with final years who had won the Art of Innovation course, as an award for innovative work in the 11th grade.
Lawhill provides unique career opportunities to young people interested in maritime matters, by teaching 3 relevant subjects and practical skills as part of their studies at Simonstown High School. The shipping industry supports the centre as it provides valuable skills.

Lawhill Head Debbie Owen had had earlier exposure to SynNovation, so she wished her learners could also access some of these skills and principles.
We were inspired by seeing how much the young folks had gained from only two hours of this practical workshop. Some insights:

"There is a way to direct thoughts into plans,"
"Using 'and' and not 'but' when communicating can change dialogue."
"I am now reconsidering where things went wrong."
"We should not be afraid to believe in dreams, because we can now make them happen."

26/10/2024

Congregations collaborating on community projects - an exciting facilitation task with the SynNovation team. On 16 October Brackenfell West DRC hosted a get-together of about 60 members of 5 congregations in Khayelitsha and 3 Dutch Reformed congregations in Cape Town's northern suburbs.

All are working in partnerships to address various community needs. SynNovation was brought in to both share practical thinking, creativity and collaboration skills that could be useful in future projects, and facilitate small group planning sessions.

Angela Ho and Truida Prekel led six groups with 5 co-facilitators. Participants were pleased with the novel yet useful ideas that emerged in the fun session, and the insights they gained. The SynNers enjoyed working with very diverse and eager groups - relationship building at its best. This also links to the work Truida loves doing through Dialogue for Action network.

09/10/2023

08/10/2023

Having fun with bright people - sharing the SynNovation way to promote collaborative problem-solving and innovation with the University of Western Cape IMBM. Lu-Marie, Angela and Truida facilitated as the team of the Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics explored novel ways to enhance their widely recognised work in research, training and innovation. Prof Marla Trindade is director of IMBM.

15/07/2023

The 2022/2023 NSTF-South32 Awards event on 13 July was a truly inspiring occasion.
This was the 25th such award ceremony of the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF), since the first two awards were given in 1998. Dubbed the Science Oscars of South Africa, 17 individuals or research groups were awarded this year. There were 72 finalists (of whom 14 had been nominated in more than one category).
Truida was privileged to attend the dinner in Cape Town, there was a parallel dinner in Johannesburg, and the event was streamed.
Two points that stood out for me from a SynNovation viewpoint are the statement
* "Today's research is tomorrow's innovation." So, it will be interesting to watch the innovations that emerge from all of this top-level research. And many of the prize-winners are already serial innovators! The work of many of the finalists who didn't win is equally exciting.
* The only of the usual annual awards that was not given this year was the Innovation Award for Corporates - as there were no candidates that made it to be finalists. Sadly, this links with what research, and our SynNovation experience, has frequently shown - that while most large companies know, and say, that Innovation is essential and priority - many of them don't know HOW! We know, there are proven ways to make Innovation happen!
There were 3 finalists for the SMME Innovation award.

Among such a range of top achievers, who am I to choose favourites? But I will share the stories of four that I found extra exciting.

Besides the awards, the event was a great opportunity for all attendees who do valuable work, to network, learn about others' impressive activies, spot someone for possible future collaboration, or "me too" inspiration and courage for own intiatives .
Such events may seem like luxuries to some people - but I believe the ROI in further break-throughs and many activities that will help to address the many challenges in our country is unmeasurable.

01/06/2023

SynNovation will be hosting a public workshop on the 8th June 2023 at 08h30.

Getting Great Ideas – and Making Them Work Get ideas for improvement and innovation. Equip people with some knowledge of climate, innovation and a toolkit of some creative thinking tools for problem-solving to promote improvement through innovation.

22/04/2023

The Business Women's Association of SA grew out of 3 workshops for women managers that Truida arranged and led in 1979, when she was at UNISA SBL.
In April the team of the Cape Town branch asked Truida to facilitate a planning session to revitalise the branch by developing together a range of stimulating offerings that would meet the needs of a diverse range of business and professional women.
Hosted by Ferose Oaten, for many years chair of BWA CT and member of the BWA National team, we had fun using SynNovation tools to generate novel ideas and build them into shared action plans. And taking away some key principles of collaborative problem-solving, for own use.

30/03/2023

We had a two-hour "Art of Innovation" online thought-shop today, and also last week, for a variety of "friends of SynN," clients and new folks for a first exposure. Both sessions were productive, and great fun. We had participants from all over South Africa, and from Japan, Australia and Germany.

Melanie Harvard gives a great description on how she views the SynNovation approach. Thanks Melanie - over to her.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10161134047374668&id=565374667&mibextid=Nif5oz

05/09/2022

Unlocking Youthful Creativity - A historical SynNovation workshop held at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in 2015 brought bright young people into the SynNovation way of thinking, living and doing. Read more on our website here https://synnovation.co.za/2022/06/21/unlocking-youthful-creativity/