The innovation revolution
Re ‘Same-old’ innovation policies won’t do, May 7 The Star’s leadership in investigative reporting has led the way by exposing, analyzing and finally overcoming many transgressions made by our politicians, police, physicians, etc., and its efforts in recent years have resulted in successes on many important fronts. These positive outcomes are a testimony to the dogged perseverance of news reporters.
It is heartwarming to see the paramount importance given by the Star to innovation, a major pillar of our future success. The front-page banner headline on innovation, the article on innovation in medicine, the powerful editorial and Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains’s opinion piece are replete with practical solutions for overcoming the Canadian innovation deficit.
In order to ensure our future success, it is critical to invest time, effort and finances toward achieving transformative changes such as “blockchain technology,” advances in our banking sector, revamping the transportation paradigm and more fully exploiting artificial intelligence in key areas such as medicine, food safety, etc., rather than “tinkering with old approaches.”
While our government must take the key responsibility for providing the lead in innovation, one cannot disagree with Minister Bains about the value of forging strategic connections among businesses, post-secondary institutions, etc.
We must all actively work together as key stakeholders “to transform today’s ideas into the products and services of tomorrow.” Rudy Fernandes, Mississauga
“If we change the paradigm of education at lower levels, a light will shine on post-secondary education revealing that it is completely naked, and it will change.” JORDAN WINTERS SCARBOROUGH
The need for pedagogical innovation has little to do with the digital age, as Don Tapscott claims. Rather, it is the urgent imperative to overthrow what Paulo Freire called “the banking concept of education” that is the catalyst.
In the 1960s, the advocates of popular education were already calling for a system where students were more than mere receivers of knowledge. As Freire wrote, “Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information.”
There are similar arguments in Tapscott’s article for changing post-secondary education, but the revolution will not be digital; it will be a live exchange of ideas where learning and teaching is done by all who sit in a classroom.
Many instructors, myself included, have struggled to create inclusive, interactive and dynamic classes in lecture halls. But, ultimately, universities must redesign their physical spaces so that it is not possible to cram hundreds of units of “human capital” into one learning space.
The likelihood of that happening under a corporate administration is slim. Digital age or no digital age the real problem is still a capitalist one. Aida Jordao, Toronto
It’s always great to see this issue addressed in the media and I couldn’t agree more. However this article reads like a hypothetical scenario. In fact, the hour is much later than elucidated here; university degrees have already lost their value.
More and more hiring companies list relevant university degrees as assets, not requirements, because they have figured out through cyclical and arduous processes of hiring horrible employees how meaningless a degree can be. This is especially true in IT, where some of the most valuable employees are barely high school graduates.
The reason universities still persist is that children are still conditioned to believe that university is the best path to take. By the time students realize that they are wasting their time, and most do, they have invested so much money into their post-secondary education that many decide to bite the bullet and see it through despite the fact that the degree is a hair above useless. This means, somewhat ironically, that if it were less devastatingly expensive, fewer people would bother to finish at all.
The upside is that this devastating process forces young people to critically reassess their path at a very critical time. It is this critical assessment and, indeed, the ability to think critically at all, that we need to be encouraging much, much earlier.
If we change the paradigm of education at lower levels, a light will shine on post-secondary education revealing that it is completely naked, and it will change. Jordan Winters, Scarborough
As the incoming teacher-librarian at Regency Acres Public School in Aurora, it was great to see last Saturday’s Star dedicated to innovation.
How to create and support more innovative thinkers are topics we are currently looking at as a staff. Our goal is to create a Makerspace for our students, staff and community, so that our students will have access to the tools, time and space needed to be innovative.
We recently put in a proposal for a $100,000 grant to support our goal of creating a Makerspace that can support whole classes, so that students can work together to design, test and redesign their ideas and theories.
Our proposal can be seen and voted on at: learningproject.cst.org/ideas/1225 Robin Morrison-Claus, Aurora
Innovation and collaboration have been integral to all of mankind’s endeavours throughout our history. They are not unique to digital technology, yet the articles in the Saturday Star seem to suggest this to be the case.
Digital technology is changing our world and with it our economy. When encouraging the development of our digital technology industry, the fact that Canada is rich in natural resources should not be disregarded.
It was our innovators of the past who grew our resource industries and, as Don Tapscott mentioned, these should not be abandoned.
The Canadian economy will be strong and jobs will be created if we use all our assets and continue to work together collaboratively using our creative talents for the betterment of all Canadians. Catharina Summers, Kingston
Don Tapscott’s statement that “the Industrial Age model of education is hard to change” is an understatement. As a University of Toronto alumna, I was interested to receive an invitation to a community open-house day celebrating its 175th anniversary (circa 2002). Yes, a whole day, out of 365, and that in a publicly funded university that occupies an unsurpassed location in the heart of Canada’s largest city. I was slightly underwhelmed. It’s more than 130 years since Andrew Carnegie started a public-library-building program that remains a cornerstone of literacy and “education” worldwide.
Its libraries afforded “open access” to books regardless of class and informational or educational attainment or goals — and the sky didn’t fall. That memo still hasn’t reached universities.
Meanwhile, our universities generate daily vast intellectual capital that remains sequestered in the ivory tower, out of reach of most of the citizenry.
Until our universities ask the question — “How do we address the community’s right to access its publicly funded educational institutions and intellectual capital, as opposed to the much narrower domain of credentialing?” — they can hardly be said to be in the education business at all. Polly Thompson, Toronto
I’ve worked with developments in computer science for nearly 40 years. I can capture the essential features and functions of a piece of software or a network of machines or whatever development comes along in a single sentence. I’ve done that repeatedly and my definitions have withstood close scrutiny.
You asked Alex Tapscott “What is blockchain?” I was keen to read his answer and finally get some perspective on the technology. Unfortunately, Tapscott’s answer was essentially “Blah, blah, blah.” His answers to other questions were hardly more informative. If I got such answers in an interview, I would assume the Tapscotts didn’t know what they were talking about. It’s little better than describing what an automobile is by saying only that it moves from point A to point B.
The Star’s articles regarding the Tapscotts were a waste of a reader’s time. Is the Tapscotts’ book any better? Mirek A. Waraksa, Toronto
A challenge with moving innovation forward is that new thinking is judged against what was. People play the devil’s advocate, sometimes with glee, to criticize. What if instead the angel’s advocate came to the fore, that is, seeing potentials in new ideas and struggling to strengthen new thinking instead of swatting it away as if it were a pesky fly? Let’s face it, for innovation to occur, new ideas need a soft place to land.
Fifteen years ago, World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 -21 began in Toronto in response to a report that our nation was in a creativity crisis. The purpose for the week was, and still is, to open minds, hearts and eyes to new ideas and possibilities. It prepares people for two things among many — to be open to new ideas and to expect to hear them.
The celebration is enjoyed in over 50 countries annually. It started in Canada. Think that shows we hold a value for innovation here, at least at the grassroots level? Marci Segal, Canmore, Alta.
It is true that innovation and innovation policy in Canada and Ontario has lagged. For their part, the province’s colleges have partnered with more than 750 companies on a variety of market-driven applied research projects that help businesses, particularly small businesses, become more innovative. This results in new and improved products and production that are crucial to our long-term competitive advantage. Investments in applied research are central to the innovation solution. Linda Franklin, president and CEO, Colleges Ontario
The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will be digitalized. Kerry Lambie, Mississauga