WORKSHOP

A workshop on “Creativity and Innovation” was organized by Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dronacharya Group of Institutions Greater Noida, on 9th - 10th October, 2015 at college campus. 60 students from the different branches of Engineering attended the two day workshop.

The main objective of workshop is to give an exposure to innovative minds and problem solving skills in students. Innovation is generally considered to be the result of a process that brings together various novel ideas in a way that they have an impact on society where as Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. In other words creativity implies creating new stuff by combining two or more existing ideas.

Day 1 : 9th October, 2015

The workshop was started with an inauguration ceremony in presence of the Chief Guest Dr. Radha Krishnan, President, The Consortium for Innovation (COIN), Dr. Ashutosh Agarwal, General Secretory, The Consortium for Innovation (COIN), Dr. S.K Bagga, Director, DGI, Greater Noida and Prof. D.V.Bhise, HOD, Mechanical & Civil Engineering, DGI.

Dr. S.K. Bagga in his welcome speech cited the importance of the workshop. He explained that thinking is unconventional in the sense that it requires modification or rejection of previously accepted ideas. The thinking requires high motivation and persistence, taking place either over a considerable span of time (continuously or intermittently) or at high intensity.

Dr. Radha Krishnan discussed his ideas about creativity and interacted with students for making them understand the importance of innovative minds in present world. He classified creativity as improvement which must be new or unique and have utility or value. Being creative is not goal in itself, it’s a character of an activity; it implies an exploration with the intention of creating something new with some kind. Being UNIQUE has no value in itself, unless it gives the customer something of value.

Dr. Ashutosh in epigrammatic way presented his ideas on creativity & innovation. He said creativity implies creating new stuff by combining two or more existing ideas whereas innovation is about looking at your customers & seeing things from their viewpoint, not yours. Innovation in business affair is about creating value by challenging the culture and how we do things around here. He also explained the students about “Six-Thinking Hat Process” method which can be used in a sequence to first explore the problem, then develop a set of solutions, and to finally choose a solution through critical examination of the solution set. Based on this process he gave students one problem “How Human can live on Planet Mars” to solve and come up with new innovative ideas to tackle the problem.

“Six Thinking Hats” method of brainstorming, Blue hat is to develop the goals and objectives, white hat thinking as part of developing information and facts, Red hat thinking to collect opinions and reactions to the problem, Black hat to look at the feasibility of those ideas (Practical / Realistic), Yellow hat logic applied to identifying benefits and seeking harmony and Green Hat creative ways to attack the problem (think out of the box ) and investigation.

Prof. D. V. Bhise started the second session of the day by welcoming Mr. Naveen Rampal, Consultant and Visiting Faculty, IIT Delhi. The session included the concept of brainstorming, in which students discussed about the ideas related to problems being faced by society and came up with ideas to find solutions to these problems.

Day 2 : 10th October , 2015

Prof. D.V. Bhise started the first session on second day by welcoming Dr. Nidhi Rana Assistant Professor, KIIT. The session included certain activities for the students like Trust Walking, Paper Cutting, Story Writing, Poetry Session and Painting Session.

The Trust Walk is a teambuilding activity that helps people trusting each other. A leader steers his or her partner around obstacles using verbal or nonverbal instructions. A Trust Walk Activity is an effective team building activity involving leadership and building trust, as blindfolded participants must rely on instructions given to them in order to avoid the obstacles. This activity was done under the guidance of Dr. Nidhi. As the facilitator of the Trust Walk team building activity, she was sure to scout out a safe area in advance.

In the second session students were indulged in making the clay models of the problems as discussed in previous session. Once clay models were made by the students, sociological impact of all the models were discussed by Dr. Naveen Rampal and Dr. Nidhi Rana

The workshop was highly interactive and learning experience for the students , as it motivated them to enhance their skills to tackle the different kind of problems faced in their real life by coming up with new creative and innovative ideas to solve the problems.