Skills for innovation: The FOODBOWL

Innovation draws on a broad range of personal skills and attributes. Angus Brown, Business Development Manager at The FOODBOWL, shares his perspective on skills that are commonly possessed by innovative people. He explains how learning about innovation can help foster these skills in young people.

Follow-up activities

• Explore other stories to compare the range of skills for innovation identified. Do any of the skills identified by Angus overlap with those in other stories? Has Angus introduced any additional skills not identified in other stories?

• Compile a list of the skills for innovation identified in this and the other stories (similar skills could be grouped together). Do you agree that the skills identified are important? Are there other skills you would add? In small groups, discuss and agree on five key skills for innovation. Justify why your group considers these skills to be the most important for innovation.

Transcript

Angus Brown
Successful innovators often share common personality traits and skills. They are driven. They know what they know and what they don’t know, and they often seek advice. They push the limits and themselves to see where they can get their product to. They’re tenacious. They don’t give up, and they do lots of reading and lots of research around how their product could look and what they could do to make it better.

It’s extremely important for young people to develop skills for innovation, certainly by questioning the rules, to think that anything’s possible – we need to push our boundaries and think outside the box, but we also need to check that that idea is valid in the market. Talking with friends and families and strangers about your particular idea and seeing what they think about it is often a good way to check whether you’re on the right track.

We can foster innovation with young people by showing them examples of what true innovation looks like and what process that company or person took to create that innovative product.

Acknowledgements
Angus Brown, The FOODBOWL
Chris Cullen, Culley’s
Heather Baker, Little Angels
Rebekah Hay, Hakanoa Hand-made
Grant Ryan, YikeBike™
Footage of YikeBike™, courtesy of The Royal Society, TVNZ 7 in partnership with the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
Zealong Tea
Revolution Fibres
Scion