Innovation: Creativity

This PARC Forum invited expert talk is part of a special series with 10 speakers on 10 aspects of innovation… because we’re celebrating the “Power of 10” years of practicing open innovation (since being incorporated as an independent subsidiary in 2002)! View other talks in this series here. If you’re not already a member of the PARC Forum invited expert series mailing list, you can sign up for advance announcements via email or feeds here.

Creativity often feels like a mystery. Whether we are struggling to generate fresh ideas or staring at problems with no solutions in sight, that “spark” of creative genius often seems out of reach. Tina Seelig will reveal a set of tools and conditions that we each control — our “Innovation Engine” — that allows us to increase our own creativity and that of our teams and organizations. Just as the scientific method demystifies the process of discovery, there is a formal process for unlocking the pathway to invention. 

Presenter(s)

Tina Seelig is the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) and the Director of the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) at Stanford University's School of Engineering. She teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the department of Management Science and Engineering and within the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.

Tina received the Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering (2009), recognizing her as a national leader in engineering education. Other honors include the National Olympus Innovation Award (2008), and the Stanford Tau Beta Pi Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2005).

Dr. Seelig earned her PhD from Stanford University School of Medicine, where she studied Neuroscience. She has been a management consultant, multimedia producer, and an entrepreneur. Seelig has also written 16 books, including The Epicurean Laboratory and Incredible Edible Science (Scientific American), What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (HarperCollins), and most recently, inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity (HarperCollins). She also wrote a series of 12 educational games called Games for Your Brain (Chronicle Books).