Whether a future career involves navigating a global health crisis or finding solutions to societies most pressing issues, fostering a culture of innovation means sharing our ideas and thinking outside the box to find new solutions to pressing issues. Critical thinking is a key skill needed for innovation success.

Critical thinking means evaluating information and arguments with a close eye, finding patterns and connections and constructing meaningful knowledge that can be applied in the real world. It’s part of fostering a culture of innovation to make things better, and it’s a crucial 21st century skill that will help this generation and future leaders innovate for good in an ever-changing world. Critical thinking is a skill exhibited by the Inspired Innovators.

Grace Jin is a CST Graduate Award recipient. Jin has had a life-long interest in human health and physiology and post-secondary education in those fields. She is interested in finding systemic solutions that addresses public health and mental health supports across multi-sector organizations. Through her work and life experiences, she’s noticed that many organizations and groups aimed at supporting at-risk populations are either under funded or unable to communicate with each other and share knowledge solutions that could lead to better support. Jin hopes to apply her skills in the future to develop innovative policies to improve health equity, service coordination and the quality of mental health care delivery for all Canadians.

Sweet Dreams is a Governor General’s Innovation Award Laureate. As part of the Sweet Dream team, June Draude’s work in childcare and child services led her on a path to find an alternative solution to taking children into care, benefitting families, children and taxpayer dollars. Using an innovative financing tool, she developed the first social impact bond in Canada to help families in need. Through critical thinking Sweet Dreams has been able to help families across Saskatoon.

When critical thinking is applied to innovation, ideas are shared, and knowledge becomes widely understandable to support solutions that lead to success. It is need in a complex world where our future generations will become great leaders and great innovators, to find ways to innovate for good.

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.