Never mind “outside the box”, this year’s Innovation Summit will have participants literally thinking outside the building.
Between presentations from some of the most successful innovators in South Africa and the world, delegates will be invited to explore, experiment and imagine at South Africa’s first Innovation Laboratory.
Bedouin-style tents set among the trees and fountains of the IDC Convention Centre in Sandton will function both as an interactive exhibition space for South Africa’s most inventive companies and an ideas factory fuelled by collaborative creativity.
Organisers of the summit describe the Innovation Lab as “a place of playfulness, interaction and experimentation; of smells, tastes and sounds as well as exciting visual displays”.
Pioneer of open innovation Jan Van Mol, who founded the global online ideas factory, Ad!dict Lab, has been commissioned to launch the laboratory concept in South Africa.
Van Mol will be running idea generation workshops for delegates and lending his expertise and international network of innovative thinkers to solving real-life business challenges for participating organisations. The value placed on useful new ideas is immediately apparent from the generous rewards on offer.
The SAB Foundation will provide a total of R2 million in funding for the most innovative and sustainable solutions for improving the lives of our most marginalised citizens — the women, youth and people with disabilities living in rural areas.
Anglo Platinum is putting up R300,000 for the ‘big idea’ which will add more value or create new uses for the versatile platinum group of metals.
All exhibitors big and small have bought into the playful and experiential spirit of the Innovation Lab where piles of beer crates, panels made of alternative building materials and inflatable paper cushions or “dunnage bags” will be available to build and furnish their display areas.
Sasol will be contributing a fully-stocked perfume laboratory where companies can conjure up unique blends that represent the “smell” of their brands.
The power and appeal of collaborative creativity will also be demonstrated by the Vaal University Technology’s i2P project which helps to generate ideas and bring them to physical reality through its 3D prototyping machines.
Among the fascinating examples of home-grown creativity on display will be working models of trucks and cars created from packaging materials by the Kasi3 team in Soweto and radios built into unusual casings, including waste materials and even gourds, by Solomon.
This article originally appeared in the Mail & Guardian newspaper as an advertorial supplement