Creativity and Peace: Teens Collaborate in Peace it Together

[29 June 2009 - Advertising Age] Fleming Creative Group, a Vancouver-based print/digital design agency, discovers how creativity and peace-building go hand in hand. Catherine Winckler, partner and creative director, explains. ... Can creative exploration contribute to peace? Can filmmaking become a mechanism to break the cycle of hate? Can a camp on Canada's West Coast effect change among youth in the turbulent Middle East? Like many who learned of Peace It Together's unique peace-building program of dialogue through art, we were intrigued by the possibilities. Since 2004, the not-for-profit has been bringing together Palestinian, Israeli and Canadian teens to collaborate in small, mixed-cultural groups, assisted by renowned volunteer filmmakers, editors and writers. In an idyllic camp setting, away from conflict yet still very much in the face of each other's preconceptions and prejudices, the youth produce short films about personally relevant issues. The result: a body of work that finds its way into their home communities and around the world, casting light on the conflict and educating in the process. More

Can governments till the fields of innovation?

[20 June 2009 - New York Times via Innovator Insights] This New York Times article briefly surveys the emergence of innovation agendas in government, aimed at addressing fields like energy, the environment, and healthcare as well as tackling issues in economic development and industrial policies. The United States, for example, is using the Bureau of Economic Analysis to develop statistics that "uniquely measure the role of innovation." Additional indications of national interest in innovation policy include Great Britain's Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, and Finland’s plan to become a major competitor in developing software and services, relating in particular to medical monitoring and preventive health. More