May 2016
Creativity Café helps stir up new ideas in Greater Vancouver's young professionals
Nils had a big problem. The world was coming to Sweden for his twoday ice sculpture event, and the ice was melting.
On April 14, a room ful l of Company of Young Professionals Members with the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade brainstormed, roll-played and challenged each other's ideas as they tried to solve the dilemma with outside-the-box thinking at the CYP Creativity Café, hosted at SFU's Harbour Centre.
The discussions were led by Mia Maki, CPA and FCMA, who has been mentoring entrepreneurs, start-up and early stage companies for over a decade through Royal Roads University, University of Victoria, as an independent consultant, and as an accredited mentor in the BCIC Actech VIATeC MVP Program.
The topic of the evening, sponsored by CPABC, was how and where to get those next "big ideas." According to Maki – and a wealth of research she shared with CYP Members – thinking creatively involves using all types of logic and reasoning. It requires effectuation, or focusing on what you can do with what you have, and leveraging your means to reach your goals. It's also about interact ions, informat ion gathering, intrapreneurship, having an ent repreneur ial mindset, and commitments from others.
The case study of Nils is a realworld success story: his challenges eventual ly led to the creation of the world's first ice hotel, and a partnership with Absolut Vodka.
On May 18, CYP Members will take the challenges facing Greater Vancouver's young professionals and present innovative and entrepreneurial ideas on how to address them.
Over the past three months, Members of the program have been working in teams to create short videos on how our region can attract and engage more millennials. The top videos will be shown at the event, with the winning team being crowned as the "Big Idea Champion." (View the videos and vote for your favourite video today at boardoftrade.com/bigidea.)
The May 18 event will also feature an exciting panel of speakers, moderated by the editor-in-chief of Vancity Buzz, Farhan Mohamed.
Just announced, the panellists are Janet Austin, CEO of YWCA Metro Vancouver; Michael Geller, President of The Geller Group; and Meredith Powell, co-founder of The Next Big Thing.