Revised and Updated Friday, April
15, 2016
WELCOME to NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog, Nigeria’s
premier educational blog on CREATIVITY & INNOVATION. NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog is published as an online portal of fourteen (14) concatenated blogs interspersed
with bespoke live, face-to-face activities and media events to democratize and
popularize everything CREATIVITY and INNOVATION.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog publishes
informative
and articulate posts based upon empirical principles, grounded in theory and
better practice but without allowing theoretical conceptualizing get in the way
of easily digestible and accessible knowledge and lessons sharing.
The specific aim,
in the short- to mid-term, of the NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog is to advocate for a culture enabling CREATIVITY and
INNOVATION, at policy level, promote the propagation and fostering CREATIVITY
and INNOVATION by making the topics of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION more popular,
at individual and community levels, in order to increase Nigerian
wit African publics’
awareness, knowledge, understanding and practice of the topics. This
commitment entails delivery of offerings that educate, inform and propagate the
concepts of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION and their relevance and application in
the Nigerian public/social sphere.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog, in the long-term, aims to engender the
consciousness of value creation by the exercise of imagination, creativity,
empathy and innovation.
The Vision and the Conviction That Powers the Publication of NAIJAGRAPHITTI
BLOG
The vision which drives the publication of NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog is to contribute toward evolving a
Nigeria re-positioned to take the full advantage of the AGE of CREATIVITY and
INNOVATION in order to achieve its creative potential and economic prosperity.
The conviction that drives NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog is
the possibility of exploiting the concepts of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION to add
value to Nigeria as a nation, in areas of national inventive capacity, economics,
social development, leadership and political governance; to develop citizens
with enhanced problem solving skills and exercising great critical judgement;
to create wealth and maximize our potential is a phenomenon which time has
come.
To
create real and sustainable wealth, Nigeria and her citizens must tap into
individual creativity and the collective creative potential as other countries
have done. Firstly, Nigeria would turn a corner, as all our performance indices
would improve: the link between CREATIVITY and INNOVATION in economic
development is well documented (and we have published some on this blog). Secondly, the quality of our leadership would
improve (creative thinking and problem-solving proficiencies make for more
effectual and qualitative leadership).
In terms of the individual, the vision of the
NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog is to empower
individual with lessons sharing, information and motivation to develop their
ideas and to turn a moment into an opportunity to secure financial security and
economic freedom while adding value to Nigeria as a whole.
A Yoruba
adage says some people stand in their own neck of the woods and consider that
their father’s farm must be the biggest in the world. This proverb makes
allusion to limited vision; you may stay in your own corner and think all that
is happening there is all that can be. NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog is calling out to all
blog posts readers and website visitors to RELOCATE – mentally that is, to different
world, A CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT, where your father’s farm may become diminished
in stature and size but where you will gain better and illuminating perspectives
as you learn from what others are doing.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI BLOG’s Mission
The Publisher
and Managing Editor was inspired to start-up NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog on the theory that Nigeria and Nigerians were paying
lip service to the propagation and fostering CREATIVITY and INNOVATION thus not
benefitting from the propagation and fostering of the two closely related
concepts.
What is the proof Nigeria is paying lip
service to CREATIVITY and
INNOVATION?
The
most egregious evidence is that the larger percentage of African countries’
education systems including Nigeria’s generally lack effective strategy to
ignite students’ imagination, foster their creative drive, stimulate innovative
thinking and generate implementable new ideas which are vital to long-term
economic interest of the country. In Nigeria, as a direct result of this and
other vital factors, the country remains marooned at the periphery and not in
the mainstream of the dynamic global economy in which three national assets — the
capacity for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, the capacity for
problem solving and a skilled, versatile and highly adaptable workforce — play
vital roles and provide a decisive edge. Yet in order to be competitive and
succeed in today’s economic climate like other players, Nigeria, as a
developing country with lowly diversified economy, needs a well-educated,
technically proficient workforce in all sectors and for nearly every
occupation, including entry-level positions. Additionally, Nigeria lacks
workers who possess a deep, expansive knowledge in a broad range of subject
areas as well as advanced numeracy, reading, writing and computational skills
which other countries in the global north have made cornerstones of their own
development strategy. Nigeria is yet to integrate science, technology
and innovation into the nation’s national socio-economic development process.
In terms of knowledge production, Nigerian academics proliferate in the
business of acquiring esteemed positions and prizes while producing pedantic,
often superfluous, research/publications rather than pursuing original discoveries,
inventions and innovations.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog’s mission would be implemented
through a five-prong approach.
The first prong is to operate and manage a user-friendly
and accessible website publishing articles and posts on core topics which could
be original, invited and/or
sourced/curated.
The second prong of the NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog’s
mission is to advocate for Nigeria and Nigerians to prioritize CREATIVITY and INNOVATION in practice by direct
lessons sharing with website readers as well as teachers, educators, parents,
creativity enthusiasts and other key influencers to become more educated on the
rudimentary elements of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION.
The third prong of the NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog’s
mission is to promote a culture of enabling CREATIVITY and INNOVATION in private and public sphere in Nigeria, empower
individuals, organizations and public institutions with information and
knowledge that will increase their capacity to create and innovate.
The fourth prong of the NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog’s
mission is to promote traditional and cognitive apprenticeships in order to
facilitate Nigeria’s renaissance in culture-based creativity.
The fifth prong of the NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog’s
mission is to contribute and encourage research into creativity.
The Subject Matter of NAIJAGRAPHITTI BLOG
The fourteen concatenated blogs publish areas of focus which pertain to or are
influenced by CREATIVITY and
INNOVATION.
The areas of
focus are namely Parenting for Creativity, Creativity for National
Transformation in Nigeria (formerly Building A Creative Nation), Creativity and
Innovation, Science and Technology News, Design, Social Entrepreneurship,
Fiction, Nollywood, Palaver Tree Commentary, Graphitti News and 1@Africa
(news/current affairs, political commentary, leadership, politics on African
affairs and development).
Additional core
topics published in NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog are namely creativity, its pertaining concepts (including
creativity in culture, critical thinking, initiative, problem solving, risk
assessment, decision taking), innovation, innovation systems, technical and
vocational education, national inventiveness, cultural and creative industries,
and productivity.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog treats select topics drawn from a number of relevant disciplines due to scholarly interest in creativity
such as fields like education, psychology, cognitive science, science,
technology, philosophy, theology, sociology, linguistics, entrepreneurship,
business studies, and economics, covering the relations between creativity and
general intelligence, mental and neurological processes, personality type and
creative ability, creativity and mental health; the potential for fostering
creativity through education and training, especially as augmented by
technology; and the application of creative resources to improve the
effectiveness of teaching and learning.
In addition,
issues which are topical to the culture of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION, like
cultural evolution/revolution, leadership, governance, institutional
development/public institutions management and the flow/ebb of popular culture
etc, will be considered as contexts to the blog’s core topics.
However, for
the sake of variety, the blog will also tackle topical and cross-cutting even
if we deviate slightly, as long as there are pertinent lessons for our quest.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog would disseminate information, lessons and learning
on multidisciplinary CREATIVITY and INNOVATION. These activities would be
carried out through online media platforms publishing, blogging, social media
events, bespoke workshops and research. The blog would challenge people to become more creative and
innovative by offering an internet-driven, experiential learning platform for knowledge
sharing and interaction on CREATIVITY and INNOVATION as well as related
concepts. The blog's foremost methodology would be primarily by publishing blog
posts (original, invited and sourced/curated) and bespoke live and social media
events.
What a Blog on CREATIVITY and INNOVATION Can Do for You!
NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog can spur a
reader or hobbyist or an amateur researcher or teacher/facilitator to garner
knowledge in all matters related to CREATIVITY & INNOVATION.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog focuses particular attention
on creativity development in children and early child development.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog would advocate for the introduction of teaching creativity and its
pertaining concepts to the Nigerian education and curriculum across several
disciplines in its broadest ramifications in order to affect several aspects of
Nigerian life as we know it today.
The blog would seek to bridge the gap for
readers/website visitors between Nigeria’s formal and informal learning systems
which research has proven are, in their current form, not effectively tailored
for its graduates to gain and deploy active imagination, creative thinking and
problem solving skills.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog would hopefully support prospective hobbyists in gaining a
skill/competence in any area pertaining to CREATIVITY and INNOVATION.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI
Blog hopes, with the passage of time, to provide sufficient motivation to
stimulate and encourage public discussions on CREATIVITY and INNOVATION within
MULTIDISCIPLINARY contexts while challenging poor social attitudes toward
creativity.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI
is determined to help the Nigerian citizenry harness their creative potential
by contributing toward overcoming the breach of Nigeria’s lack effective
strategy to igniting learners’ imagination, fostering their creative drive,
stimulating innovative thinking and generating implementable new ideas which
are vital to long-term economic interest of the country.
Welcome
onboard!
Kenneth
Nwachinemelu David-Okafor
Managing Editor/Publisher
