Technology with a Perspective
---The First Year of ITRI Creativity Laboratory
The ITRI Creativity Laboratory was established on March 22, 2004. Its mission is to nurture an environment for out-of-box thinking and diversified perspectives in addition to those of science and technology. The Lab aims to foster original insights leading to revolutionary inventions and applications that address issues of societal concern in health, leisure, learning, and communication. Its mission is to generate, evaluate, demonstrate creative ideas, and collaborate with ITRI's existing mechanism towards realization, all through intensive interactions with the industry.
Core Concepts
- Discovering the power within
- Self-actualization is the original driving force for creativity. Great achievements stem from the passionate driving force within oneself.
- Fostering insights of needs
- Insights into human and societal needs are the origin of creativity. New values can only be created through understanding the needs and providing deep support for potential customers.
- Inspired through Diversity
- The catalyst of creativity lies in the interaction of perspectives across disciplines. Perspectives are more valuable than IQ.
- Driven by the Industry
- Industry is the key driving force for innovation. Their market sense and professionalism are the foundation for value creation.
Human Resources
By the end of 2004 the Creativity Lab consisted of ten researchers with technology-related backgrounds who also each possessed an additional emphasis in humanity, such as literature, psychology, anthropology, marketing, innovation methodologies and management, science fiction and popular culture observation, architecture, design, and the arts.
The Lab keeps recruiting talents with multi-disciplinary backgrounds and interest in technology and society.
Projects
Collaborations with techno-artists was the first attempt to absorb different perspectives from technology's "extreme users" and create innovative applications. This year the Creativity Lab connected the Opto-Electronics & Systems Labs with Image in Motion Theater Co. Integrating live dancers with real-time position sensing and real-time 3D image rendering produced a spectacle "Imagine Kung Fu."
Getting into technology's cultural and social impact was a demonstration on the reflection of RFID technology. What happens when technology developed for "objects" was used on "human?" "Cargo CEO" was a humorous rendition of technology going astray.
Two processes to cultivate innovation were being developed and tested and shall become two of the important core competence of the Lab: (1) Cross-disciplinary brainstorming to stimulate new concepts and ideas, and (2) Observation and understanding of needs.
NEXT Consortium
The Creativity Lab is working with her first strategic collaborator, MIT Media Lab, to establish a platform "NEXT Consortium" for multidisciplinary and cross-industrial collaboration, to discover and nurture talents, to develop methodologies for team creativity, and to create an environment and culture for creative thinking and realization. The consortium is based on the core concepts of "diversity" and "risk-sharing," resolving to enable the industry to move from "Made in Taiwan" to "Created in Taiwan." By the end of 2004, eight companies from diversified industrial backgrounds signed LOI to join the consortium.