Monday 9 May 2016

ABOUT NAIJAGRAPHITTI CREATIVITY & INNOVATION BLOG

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