All participants add their ideas, inspired by virtual events held around the world by local organizers in each city. The city with the most ideas will receive the award for the most creative city.
The idea is targeted to young population of kids who are below age 10 years - these are the future and growth engine for every and any economy.
India with its large base of young population will clearly benefit from this.
The idea is to basically develop the ecosystem for kids to brighten up their creativity. This ecosystem consists mainly of education institutions and schools.
Current challenges - If we look at the current education system (from India perspective) we will see that it is very conventional and does not excite creativity in student kids. Most of the teachings are either not learnt/absorbed by the students or they will not add any learning regarding life lessons as they are not practical.
For example - a person doing MBA after some work experience will be able to understand and apply its primciples in a much better way than a person who is doing MBA without a work experience.
What we can do - while on a personal level for instance at home and as parents we can definitely encourage the kids to foster their creativity but we also need some external body who can facilitate the progress and guide the students in the right direction. The schools would be the best place to practice such a thing. The conventional education system could be moved to a more practical approach based learning. Different Creative labs can be formed in the schools where real life situations can be offered as role plays on a regular basis. Basis the interest of the kids further progression of the student can be structured through that lab club. It will be somewhat similar to the Hogwart school in Harry Porter and the Creative labs/clubs can be Griffendore, Slytherin etc.
For example - Kidzania is a wonderful format where kids come and learn through role plays. It gives them a great clarity of what a person as an adult is doing. It also provides an opportunity to put their imagination at play. This will also help them decide which carrer path to be taken by them. An early interest can be generated and the kids can further build up on that. Schools can be encourages to have such creative chambers in their schools where they can teach children real life situations and let their imagination fly.
How BIC should approach it - While it is completely impossible to liason and implement it with all the schools/ institutions, however BIC teams can liason with one school in each country and try to initiate build such an ecosystem.
- One school per country where BIC is present
- Creative clubs can be formed in those school (9-10 creative clubs) who could focus on interest of students. In addition to the conventional learning which the Kid is getting they can also get an opportunity to enroll in these clubs and then progress as per their interest.
- Clubs could be targeting different real life roles - Academician, Doctor, Engineer, Painter, Logistic person etc and Kids could be exposed to real life situations so as to understand their interest. With each academic year theey have the complete liberty to switch from one club to another incase of change of interest.
The idea is intented to catch them young
The idea is also to get the best of demographic dividend which a country can get out of their young and working population. This benefit may not be immediate but will result once these kids reach their youth and are able to contribute to the economy.
A great example here could be that of China whose population is still young and in the past 2 decades the entire Chinese economy has benefitted from this yound population.
Similarly India economy is sitting on the cusp of this break out in the next one to two decades - it is the best time to target children who are still shaping up their minds and developing the understanding of this world. Let us help them in their creativity and not let it die.
