Creativity is about more than creating beautiful works of art. It means having an entrepreneurial eye to ask the right questions that generate novel ideas, and it means putting those ideas into practice. Each day, we as humans have a choice to either stay the course or to push the envelope of our own understanding, beliefs and biases. When we give ourselves freedom and permission to blaze new trails, amazing things can happen.

Looking beyond reading, writing and arithmetic, creativity is one of the critical 21st century skills that will help Canadians push forward and innovate for good in an everchanging world. It’s a skill that’s seen by the work of the Inspired Innovators.

Zoe Clarke is a CST Graduate Award recipient. She is passionate about pursing her PhD in Computational Biology specialization in the department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. Clarke wants to connect the medical and ecological community, by developing new technologies in genetics and genomics. She knows it takes work to understand science, but creativity is needed to apply that processed data to the world around us and determine the best applications for research.

Dr. Pineau is a 2019 Governor General’s Innovation Award Laureate. She is a leader in the innovative application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning to develop personalized and robot-assisted health care. Dr. Pineau developed a set of AI systems called reinforcement algorithms to create treatment strategies that are personal to each person’s needs and to predict and prevent health care moments like epileptic seizures. She uses curiosity and creativity in her innovation and everyday decisions to determine the better path towards social needs.

Creativity is stemmed by an innate curiosity. It’s used to develop innovative ideas that make things better. It’s part of the recipe that helps innovators find a better path and better way. Whether developing new technologies that help human patients or creating new ways of supporting animal species, creativity creates endless possibilities to keep working towards a goal of innovation. It allows innovators to remain resilient, become great innovators and global citizens and make the impossible possible.

This blog post is one in a series of Inspired Innovator blogs, through Canadian Scholarship Trust Foundation’s partnership with the Rideau Hall Foundation. We hope you’ll follow along as we share more about the Inspired Innovators and the 21st century skills they’re using to succeed in today’s rapidly evolving world. Tune in to our social channels @CSTConsultants and @cstspark or follow along at @RideauHallFdn and @Cdn_Innovation for more innovation news.