Thinkathon 1 week
1 week Thinkathon is a co-creation program where young people work together on current global challenges and their impact on local communities.
1 week Thinkathon is a co-creation program where young people work together on current global challenges and their impact on local communities.
According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts. If we repeat…
Just as Aikido uses the opponent’s force to defuse a potentially aggressive situation, Creative Aikido does the same. It uses ideas of others and builds upon them.
A group contract is a tool that is created to formalize the expectations of the group members. It allows participants to take an active role in setting the tone for group…
This activity will help young people to imagine the future of the world. The aim is to give them an opportunity to discuss their dreams and fears. We want them to become change makers!
What is a Thincathon? It is a hackathon without hacking and coding, it is rather about thinking and designing new ideas for their future and the futures of their communities.
In a fast changing world we observe a number of “future scenarios” offered by media, social media, influencers and people with authority. Young people (and we as youth professionals as well) might wonder which one is true, which one is fake?
In the exercise you divide young people in to a couple of groups of 4-6 participants. You tell them that they work for NASA and that they have to use their imagination to build a Mars Lander. The exercise is design in such a way to open people’s imagination and allow their creativity to flow. It is fun and on top of that helps to build teams and commitment.
Teams brainstorm on ideas of possible use of a specific item. It could be anything: a shopping bag, bandana, paper clip etc. The bottom line is that each team brainstorm on the same object. This is a competition, where the quantity of ideas counts. This is a great warm up before a real brain storming session. It can also serve as a separate energiser when your group needs to have a break and some fun for a moment. We use this activity when we observe a decrease in energy level or engagement in creativity work.
This exercise is a great way to connect ideas and build complex solutions.You can use this method when your team comes up with a large group of ideas that need to be evaluated and selected.
Creating positive futures scenarios might initially be hard for young people. To make it less abstract, we can jump start this process by observing our “positive past”. Focusing on positive “cornerstones” in the past and appreciating them can help us name them and make sure they play a role in the future scenario.
You can use this method when your team comes up with a large amount of ideas that need to be narrowed down and selected. Thanks to dot voting, you’ll give the team an opportunity to decide and select the most popular and the best (from their perspective) idea. The main rule is that each member has the same voting power, hence why we call it Democratic Dots.
This is a great interactive energizer which you can use with a group when people are tired and their energy is low. It’s an interesting variation of the game “Rock Paper Scissors”.
When you start to notice fatigue of the group when doing creativity work, the best way to support them is to take a break from the thinking activity. It’s likely they’ve hit a bit of a wall, physically and emotionally. The best idea in such a situation is to let people rest.
Just as Aikido uses the opponent’s force to diffuse a potentially aggressive situation, Creative Aikido does the same. It uses the ideas from others and builds upon them.
This group exercise works well when some of the team members are experiencing creativity blocks and are finding it difficult to come up with new ideas. Use it when ideas should be fluid, when you are looking for innovation or new solutions.
This group exercise can be done at the beginning of a creative process. It will illustrate the participants how to identify idea killers in the group – all type of…
According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts. If we repeat those negative thoughts, we think negative way more than we think positive thoughts.
This exercise can be especially helpful when a group is cynical about a subject or lacking energy. If you have members on your team who are pessimistic or who are worn out, this exercise can help take advantage of the pessimism or fatigue.