NCKU 2010 Culture and Creativity International Conference Began on June 21st
Tainan, Taiwan, June 21st, 2010
The 2010 Culture and Creativity: Re-examining the Innovative Power of Entrepreneurship International Conference, organized by National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), NCKU Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (3C Center), NCKU College of Planning and Design and NCKU Institute of Creative Industries Design (ICID), began on June 21st in International Conference Hall, Conference Room 1, Kuang-Fu Campus, NCKU, Taiwan.
On behalf of National Cheng Kung University, President Michael Ming-Chiao Lai first expressed his sincere gratitude towards international and national scholars who have come to attend the conference.
President Michael Ming-Chiao Lai said, “This conference is sponsored by the 3C Center at NCKU. The Center was created by the realization that we need to infuse creative designs and cultural ideas into the industrial products and service industry, and to assist in the transformation of the economic infrastructure in Taiwan, from manufacturing to more knowledge-based economy. Our industry must embrace more creativity and innovation components. Therefore, many universities in Taiwan, including National Cheng Kung University, have taken the initiative to encourage students to study, specifically, the application of creativity and innovation, particularly industrial design.”
President Lai also mentioned, “We can see Eastern influences in high fashions and architecture designs. How to incorporate various cultural elements into an industry is a challenging issue. Also, how to blend all the new consciousness together requires careful thought and experimentation. But this trend is unavoidable. As you walk on our campus, perhaps this morning, you probably have noticed that it has the historical relics, including all the stone gates and the stone walls from the Qing Dynasty. You probably have also seen historical buildings from the Japanese Showa period, buildings from the pre-industrial period of Taiwan and modern buildings of the current era. All this represents the old and new, local and foreign cultures, which together give life to our current campus today. This cultural mixing will be typical of the future enterprises everywhere.”
Vice-President for Academic Affairs Ming-Jer Tang stated, “This kind of symposium is very important for the university. We want to educate students with higher creativity and innovation. Therefore, we established the so called 3C Center. The first thing I did when I took the post of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs was to create the 3C Center. We wanted to offer creativity courses to all university students. I was pleased that after 3 years, approximately 600 undergraduate students have taken the courses. We noticed that many students began to put efforts into research projects to create innovative works. The result is very fruitful. After 3 years of work, our students have become more creative.”
Dean Feng-Tyan Lin of College of Planning and Design revealed, “The mission of the College of Planning and Design is to study the creativity, intelligence and sustainability concerning but not limiting to the urban planning, academic design and industrial design, which are the three departments in the college. We also have master and doctoral degrees in the all-English Institute of Creative Industries Design (ICID). We have the mission to expand and to study the creativity of design and planning. We believe every discipline or every field requires creative thinking. Creativity comes from corporation in the interexchange between different disciplines and different cultures. Thus, today, we invited many distinguished scholars from different countries and we hope to stimulate more creativity from this symposium.”
Prof. Chi-Yue Chiu of Division of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said, “There’re two dimensions of creativity assessment, which are novelty and usefulness. Usefulness is not productivity. It’s to inspire people to create, innovate and produce new ideas. For few people, creativity is individual creativity. For most people, creativity is collaborative creativity. Creativity should integrate the efforts of individuals and create ideas that are accepted in the market.”
Prof. Chi-Yue Chiu pointed out, “There’re two sources of cultural influence on creativity. Culture shapes the motivational and cognitive profiles of the creators and it influences the lay theories of creativity and the criteria community members and experts use to assess the creativity of individuals or products. Recent evidence from comparative anthropology shows that apes also have culture. What sets human and ape cultures apart is the unique human capability to reproduce and cumulate cultural knowledge.”
Prof. Chiu further explained, “Some orangutans at Kutei of Indonesian East Kalimantan Province, on Borneo Island, learned to build a cover on their nest during bright sunshine, but they do not pass this knowledge on to the next generation. Because orangutans do not accumulate modifications of their invention over time, this primitive practice of providing shelter from the sun has been around for millions of years. By comparison, human culture is cumulative. When humans discover a piece of knowledge, they start from there and go on. In human societies, once the wheel is invented, the new generations do not have to invent it again. Instead, they build on it and invent the carriage, and then the motor vehicle. This uniquely human process is referred to as ratcheting, and is the engine for human cultures. Cultural complexity ensues from ratcheting. Through ratcheting, sophisticated cultural knowledge and complex cultural practices evolve over time.”
Prof. Chiu also mentioned, “Culture is directly implicated in at all stages of the creativity process. Existing knowledge in the culture provides the source of inspiration and the reference for evaluating the originality of ideas. Culture also affects the outcomes of the creativity process through its effect on the social and psychological processes. At the socio-cultural level, it can change lay theories of creativity, promote a long-term orientation, manage factors that could evoke intellectual centrism and reduce conformity pressure.”
The scientific inventions, cultural creativity and technological innovations, future smart living designs and development of the future social well-being all collectively focus on the pursuit of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. However, could different culture breeds different creativity-generated process and different creativity value? How do the different cultures blend and diverge to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship?
To explore these issues, National Cheng Kung University hosted this culture and creativity workshop, in which the international leading scholars in the fields of culture and creativity are invited as keynote speakers to introduce contemporary issues and opinions on culture and creativity, and management of innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition, these scholars are also invited to exchange views in forums with local scholars in the fields of psychology, design, engineering and management and local entrepreneurs to arouse more sparks on culture and creativity and to push forward the international interchange for local culture, creativity research and local practice.
The 2010 Culture and Creativity: Re-examining the Innovative Power of Entrepreneurship International Conference on June 22nd invited Chair Prof. Jhing-Fa Wang of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, to give a speech on “From Green to Orange: Humanitarian Technology,” Executive Director Jing-Jyi Wu of Foundation for Scholarly Exchange(Fulbright Foundation), National Cheng-Chi University, to give a speech on “Creativity and Innovation,” Prof. Fiona Lee of Management and Organizations, University of Michigan, to give a speech on “Biculturalism and Creativity,” as well as Assistant Prof. Isabel Ng of Fudan University, Assistant Prof. Yih-Teen Lee of University of Navarra and Visiting Associate Prof. Thomas Fischer of Institute of Creative Industry Design, National Cheng Kung University, to give a speech on “Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.”
The 2010 Culture and Creativity: Re-examining the Innovative Power of Entrepreneurship International Conference, organized by National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), NCKU Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (3C Center), NCKU College of Planning and Design and NCKU Institute of Creative Industries Design (ICID), began on June 21st in International Conference Hall, Conference Room 1, Kuang-Fu Campus, NCKU, Taiwan.
On behalf of National Cheng Kung University, President Michael Ming-Chiao Lai first expressed his sincere gratitude towards international and national scholars who have come to attend the conference.
President Michael Ming-Chiao Lai said, “This conference is sponsored by the 3C Center at NCKU. The Center was created by the realization that we need to infuse creative designs and cultural ideas into the industrial products and service industry, and to assist in the transformation of the economic infrastructure in Taiwan, from manufacturing to more knowledge-based economy. Our industry must embrace more creativity and innovation components. Therefore, many universities in Taiwan, including National Cheng Kung University, have taken the initiative to encourage students to study, specifically, the application of creativity and innovation, particularly industrial design.”
President Lai also mentioned, “We can see Eastern influences in high fashions and architecture designs. How to incorporate various cultural elements into an industry is a challenging issue. Also, how to blend all the new consciousness together requires careful thought and experimentation. But this trend is unavoidable. As you walk on our campus, perhaps this morning, you probably have noticed that it has the historical relics, including all the stone gates and the stone walls from the Qing Dynasty. You probably have also seen historical buildings from the Japanese Showa period, buildings from the pre-industrial period of Taiwan and modern buildings of the current era. All this represents the old and new, local and foreign cultures, which together give life to our current campus today. This cultural mixing will be typical of the future enterprises everywhere.”
Vice-President for Academic Affairs Ming-Jer Tang stated, “This kind of symposium is very important for the university. We want to educate students with higher creativity and innovation. Therefore, we established the so called 3C Center. The first thing I did when I took the post of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs was to create the 3C Center. We wanted to offer creativity courses to all university students. I was pleased that after 3 years, approximately 600 undergraduate students have taken the courses. We noticed that many students began to put efforts into research projects to create innovative works. The result is very fruitful. After 3 years of work, our students have become more creative.”
Dean Feng-Tyan Lin of College of Planning and Design revealed, “The mission of the College of Planning and Design is to study the creativity, intelligence and sustainability concerning but not limiting to the urban planning, academic design and industrial design, which are the three departments in the college. We also have master and doctoral degrees in the all-English Institute of Creative Industries Design (ICID). We have the mission to expand and to study the creativity of design and planning. We believe every discipline or every field requires creative thinking. Creativity comes from corporation in the interexchange between different disciplines and different cultures. Thus, today, we invited many distinguished scholars from different countries and we hope to stimulate more creativity from this symposium.”
Prof. Chi-Yue Chiu of Division of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said, “There’re two dimensions of creativity assessment, which are novelty and usefulness. Usefulness is not productivity. It’s to inspire people to create, innovate and produce new ideas. For few people, creativity is individual creativity. For most people, creativity is collaborative creativity. Creativity should integrate the efforts of individuals and create ideas that are accepted in the market.”
Prof. Chi-Yue Chiu pointed out, “There’re two sources of cultural influence on creativity. Culture shapes the motivational and cognitive profiles of the creators and it influences the lay theories of creativity and the criteria community members and experts use to assess the creativity of individuals or products. Recent evidence from comparative anthropology shows that apes also have culture. What sets human and ape cultures apart is the unique human capability to reproduce and cumulate cultural knowledge.”
Prof. Chiu further explained, “Some orangutans at Kutei of Indonesian East Kalimantan Province, on Borneo Island, learned to build a cover on their nest during bright sunshine, but they do not pass this knowledge on to the next generation. Because orangutans do not accumulate modifications of their invention over time, this primitive practice of providing shelter from the sun has been around for millions of years. By comparison, human culture is cumulative. When humans discover a piece of knowledge, they start from there and go on. In human societies, once the wheel is invented, the new generations do not have to invent it again. Instead, they build on it and invent the carriage, and then the motor vehicle. This uniquely human process is referred to as ratcheting, and is the engine for human cultures. Cultural complexity ensues from ratcheting. Through ratcheting, sophisticated cultural knowledge and complex cultural practices evolve over time.”
Prof. Chiu also mentioned, “Culture is directly implicated in at all stages of the creativity process. Existing knowledge in the culture provides the source of inspiration and the reference for evaluating the originality of ideas. Culture also affects the outcomes of the creativity process through its effect on the social and psychological processes. At the socio-cultural level, it can change lay theories of creativity, promote a long-term orientation, manage factors that could evoke intellectual centrism and reduce conformity pressure.”
The scientific inventions, cultural creativity and technological innovations, future smart living designs and development of the future social well-being all collectively focus on the pursuit of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. However, could different culture breeds different creativity-generated process and different creativity value? How do the different cultures blend and diverge to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship?
To explore these issues, National Cheng Kung University hosted this culture and creativity workshop, in which the international leading scholars in the fields of culture and creativity are invited as keynote speakers to introduce contemporary issues and opinions on culture and creativity, and management of innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition, these scholars are also invited to exchange views in forums with local scholars in the fields of psychology, design, engineering and management and local entrepreneurs to arouse more sparks on culture and creativity and to push forward the international interchange for local culture, creativity research and local practice.
The 2010 Culture and Creativity: Re-examining the Innovative Power of Entrepreneurship International Conference on June 22nd invited Chair Prof. Jhing-Fa Wang of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, to give a speech on “From Green to Orange: Humanitarian Technology,” Executive Director Jing-Jyi Wu of Foundation for Scholarly Exchange(Fulbright Foundation), National Cheng-Chi University, to give a speech on “Creativity and Innovation,” Prof. Fiona Lee of Management and Organizations, University of Michigan, to give a speech on “Biculturalism and Creativity,” as well as Assistant Prof. Isabel Ng of Fudan University, Assistant Prof. Yih-Teen Lee of University of Navarra and Visiting Associate Prof. Thomas Fischer of Institute of Creative Industry Design, National Cheng Kung University, to give a speech on “Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.”
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