JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Putting the human imagination to work

by

20131123

"The all-in­clu­sive vi­sion which the Gov­ern­ment has for T&T is pros­per­i­ty for all, with­in a frame­work of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment," said Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment. "Sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment calls for cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion. Hu­man imag­i­na­tion is an in­ex­haustible source of cre­ativ­i­ty," he added. Tewarie gave open­ing re­marks at the sec­ond pan­el dis­cus­sion in a se­ries of ac­tiv­i­ties planned in the lead-up to the VI­II Amer­i­c­as Com­pet­i­tive­ness Fo­rum (VI­II ACF), which will be held in T&T in 2014. The theme of the VI­II ACF is The Hu­man Imag­i­na­tion at Work: Dri­ving Com­pet­i­tive­ness, Pow­er­ing In­no­va­tion.The pan­el dis­cus­sion was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the pub­lic to en­gage in con­ver­sa­tion with four cre­ative lead­ers who were in­vit­ed to speak about the top­ic of the hu­man imag­i­na­tion at work. The pan­el­lists were Steve Ou­ditt, a UWI lec­tur­er, artist and de­sign­er, Nicholas Lok Jack, an ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of As­so­ci­at­ed Brands Ltd and the pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion, artist LeRoy Clarke, and Camille Selvon Abra­hams, a teacher and founder of both Full Cir­cle An­i­ma­tion Stu­dio and the An­i­mae Caribe An­i­ma­tion Fes­ti­val.

Ou­ditt ex­pressed the view that what might fu­el the imag­i­na­tion is the ques­tion of why."Ask­ing why gives us new knowl­edge and the abil­i­ty to face fu­ture chal­lenges. 'Why' is the plat­form that we need to evolve," he pro­posed. It is a plat­form up­on which some de­sign­ers around the world are al­ready op­er­at­ing. Ac­cord­ing to Ou­ditt, de­sign­ers with "re­al imag­i­na­tion" are ask­ing the why ques­tion and en­vi­sion­ing ways to solve so­cial is­sues. He drew the au­di­ence's at­ten­tion to The De­men­tia Dog project, an ini­tia­tive in the UK that us­es dogs to help peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness main­tain their rou­tine and re­mind them to take their med­ica­tion. "We do not need an­oth­er chair or ta­ble de­signed," he said fur­ther.Lok Jack shared his ex­pe­ri­ences as a child who imag­ined he was Spi­der-Man and Mac­Gyver. "As a child your imag­i­na­tion goes wild and you think that ma­tur­ing means con­strain­ing that imag­i­na­tion," he said. Yet imag­i­na­tion has a key role to play in busi­ness. He de­scribed what he called cor­po­rate imag­i­na­tion as that which com­pris­es in­di­vid­ual ex­pe­ri­ences, aca­d­e­m­ic train­ing, a con­sid­er­a­tion of so­ci­ety's needs and the com­pe­ti­tion or dri­ve to do bet­ter.

Selvon Abra­hams fo­cused on imag­i­na­tion in the class­room. She raised the is­sue of the need for teach­ers to en­cour­age stu­dents to imag­ine them­selves rather than em­u­lat­ing what they see on tele­vi­sion or in for­eign video games. "Where are we on the screen and what are we giv­ing to the world?" she asked. "We don't just want to take. We should be cre­at­ing," she added.She gave de­tails of a Math for An­i­ma­tion project de­signed at UTT. The project asks stu­dents to cre­ate a city us­ing math­e­mat­ics–a task that, she said, has raised the pass rate in the sub­ject at the school. To put the T&T imag­i­na­tion to work, Selvon Abra­hams rec­om­mend­ed teach­ing stu­dents to be au­then­tic and fear­less even when fac­ing fail­ure, for a lack of suc­cess can be used as a step­ping-stone to im­prove­ment.Clarke ex­posed those in at­ten­dance to the idea of what he saw as the men­tal­i­ty and at­ti­tudes that func­tion as a rock stand­ing in our path and the need for imag­i­na­tion to move it."We do not ex­er­cise much imag­i­na­tion in our space. The rock is so high we can­not get over it. It is so wide we can­not get around it. It is so heavy we can­not get un­der it."We have to un­der­stand that we are the dif­fi­cul­ty. We are the rock. We have to get past our­selves," he shared. "The ques­tion of imag­i­na­tion needs imag­i­na­tion to deal with it," Clarke added.

For in­for­ma­tion about up­com­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and next year's fo­rum vis­it com­pet­i­tive­ness­fo­rum2014.gov.tt or plan­ning.gov.tt


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Lesley Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Lesley Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Lesley Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Father Anthony Abraham, centre, alongside Jesus Explosion coordinator Lesley Taylor-Gouveia, left, Kerry Ragoobarsingh and Father Ian Taylor, right, pray over the congregation during Jesus Explosion 23 at the Cheryl F Greaves Auditorium, Bishop Anstey High School East, Trincity, on July 19.

Jesus Explosion 23: Visiting priest feeds RC faithful

Yesterday
Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Courtesy Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League

Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen, right, presents Israel Khan, SC, with the Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League Street Recognition Award while Rajah congratulates him during a ceremony at the St Augustine South Recreation Ground two Sundays ago.

Courtesy Aneal Rajah Windball Cricket League

Israel Khan honoured by community cricket league

Yesterday
SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa chairman Eudaine Garcia meets Guyana President Irfaan Ali

SSCasa steps up Caricom collaboration after summit

2 days ago
Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

ANISTO ALVES

Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

Then acting Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Barry Padarath, right, toasts with Argentina Ambassador Gustavo Martinez Pandiani during the Argentine National Day function at the Renassaince Club Room, The Renaissance at Shorelands, on July 9.

ANISTO ALVES

Argentina wants to export world-famous beef to T&T

2 days ago