Wellington – 07 Mar 2023: The Wellington-based School of Innovation run by Creative HQ has seen a significant increase in people studying innovation in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. To meet the steadily growing market demand, Creative HQ now offers more content, courses and qualification than ever before.
Wellington’s innovation hub is continuously building out their programmes, adjusting to the growing demand of Kiwis and also internationals to innovate and learn. Starting off with only two workshops for around 25 people in 2019, Creative HQ’s School of Innovation has soon grown into their most successful programme with hundreds of successful graduates from within New Zealand and overseas already.
Creative HQ defines innovation studies as a discipline which people use to enhance their work, learn skills to launch and start their own ventures, and build a mix of soft and hard skills that support entrepreneurship.
Dr Colin Kennedy, Creative HQ’s Chief Innovation Officer, says the programme aims to demystify innovation for its students who are increasingly keen to innovate following the pandemic.
“As a skill set, innovation helps our people, businesses, and communities to become more creative, productive and agile in the face of our changing world, so it’s exciting to see more people learning to innovate off the back of the pandemic,” says Dr Kennedy. “By demystifying innovation, we’re teaching aspiring entrepreneurs how to understand challenges, turn them into opportunities, and set up businesses for success.”
Today the School of Innovation offers five professional development courses. It teaches skills spanning the principles of innovation and how to apply them to your work, mentoring, and how to facilitate group innovation across an in-person and online setting.
Dr Kennedy says that an inadvertent side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been that more Kiwis are willing to take risks in entrepreneurship, which may be contributing to the spike in innovation studies post-pandemic.
“The impact of the pandemic is being felt keenly across Aotearoa. Today more New Zealanders are taking career risks, like launching a startup and pursuing their own ventures, which we see as a factor in our increased student intake.”
Dr. Colin Kennedy
Chief Innovation Officer, Creative HQ
Jota Firmin, Te Wānanga o Raukawa, has completed three School of Innovation courses and has since then implemented new ways of working both in the classroom and remotely.
“Since 2020 the education sector’s model has been turned inside out and educators were forced to upskill quickly on how to integrate new and innovative ways of working to ensure we could continue to support our tauira (students),” says Firmin.
“We learnt from the pandemic that we needed to be prepared to work remotely, and that hybrid learning environments are the way of the future, so I signed up for a School of Innovation Certificate in Online Facilitation. The course helped ensure that I’m well equipped to continue fostering innovation in online environments for my team, so we will always be able to meet the needs of our students.”
“The Certificate of Certificate in Workshop Facilitation taught me valuable skills on how to get to the crux of a problem so novel solutions can be developed. The team agrees that we’ve been more likely to come up with novel approaches to problems than we would have previously and that’s a skill not only relevant in our work but in life generally,” he continues.
Dr Kennedy explains, “Human beings have always been creative and excelled in finding solutions to problems. During the pandemic when everything came to a standstill, people found a lot of time to reflect on what they wanted to do with their careers and lives. Now it feels like the reins are off, and people can explore innovation.”
What’s next?
Dip your toes in the innovation world with our Certificate in Applied Innovation, take the next step by learning how to confidently facilitate workshops (both in person and online) or get your team through intensive innovation training with our T7 Masterclass.
Our innovation training and professional development workshops help people approach projects in new ways, increase productivity and learn problem-solving skills. Keep ahead of the curve of workplace changes and new ways of working.
