“If you do not design the future someone or something else will design
it for you.” Edward de Bono

For the fifteenth consecutive year the Edward de Bono Institute at the University of Malta is holding The Edward de Bono Seminar. Around sixty people from ten different countries are participating in this year's Seminar, which is being conducted by Professor Edward de Bono himself. Professor Alfred J. Vella, Pro-Rector, University of Malta, will deliver the opening address.

Seminar participants will hear Professor de Bono speak about his renowned methods and why he claims that the human brain is designed to be “brilliantly un-creative”. The main question which Professor de Bono deals with concerns possibilities and designing for the future. Technological and social change is all around us and is causing us to re-think traditional ways of doing things. Professor Edward de Bono motivates his listeners to seriously consider moving from regular problem solving situations towards designing the future and unleashing their potential for creativity. This can be done by using specific methods which release us from conventional thinking and which lead us towards fresh solutions and new ways of thinking.

A number of prestigious international awards have been conferred on Professor de Bono. The University of Dundee has conferred the Degree of Doctor of Law (LLD) on Edward de Bono for his contribution in the field of human thought. In his Laureation address Professor Malcolm Horner acknowledged Professor de Bono’s efforts when he said that Professor de Bono has dedicated his life to ‘teaching the world to think’ since 1983. This recognition of Professor de Bono’s efforts was further recognised as Professor Horner stated: ‘For a university which is committed to thinking what nobody has thought, to weaving entrepreneurship and creativity into its very fabric, it is entirely appropriate that we should choose as a role model a man who is a beacon of creative thinking.’

The University of Advancing Technology (UAT) has awarded the Leonardo da Vinci Medallion to Professor Edward de Bono. According to UAT President Dominic Pistillo, both Edward de Bono and Leonardo da Vinci are representative of the innovative approaches to thinking which are central to UAT's core learning strategies: ‘At UAT, we strive not only to provide an enriching educational environment, but to raise the bar with innovation, systems thinking and programming that will carry us through the 21st century’.

Professor de Bono was invited to address the Leaders in Dubai Business Forum last November. Other keynote speakers included Michael Eisner, the former chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, General Colin Powell from the US and strategist C. K. Prahalad.

There are few people who can claim to have invented a word which has become part of language, but Edward de Bono is one of them. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Lateral Thinking as ‘a way of thinking which seeks the solution to intractable problems through unorthodox methods or elements which would normally be ignored by logical thinking.’

Born in Malta, Professor de Bono graduated in Medicine from the University of Malta. In 1995 Professor de Bono was awarded the Order of Merit by the President of Malta, the highest honour that Malta can bestow. His lectures are in consistent demand by global business, government and education leaders – from 3M and BT to Rolex IBM, DuPont, Prudential, Siemens, Shell, NTT, Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson, Ford, Microsoft, AT&T, Saatchi and many more.

One of the worlds most recognised authorities on creative thinking and innovation, Professor Edward de Bono has helped millions of people worldwide to think in new ways – from school children to senior executives. His methods are implemented in organisations of all sizes because of their simplicity and their power to change thinking behaviour, increase productivity, foster team-building and evoke profitable innovation. In Malta his methods are used by both management and workers in large organisations and SMEs, by government departments, lawyers, University students, teachers, children with behaviour problems, children with special needs and children in state, private and church schools.

Summing up his view on thinking, Professor de Bono states: ‘We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place’.

Thanks to the support of Professor Edward de Bono, the Institute that bears his name at the University of Malta has established itself as a world-renowned teaching and research centre in these past years. In 2004 it launched an innovative postgraduate programme, a Master of Arts in Creativity and Innovation, and there have been three intakes to date. In December 2006 a proposal which the Institute had submitted for EU funding was approved. This is an ERASMUS curriculum development project which will design and pilot a new Masters Program in Innovation and Foresight (eInnForM) together with the University of Teesside (UK), the University of Potsdam (Germany) and Turku School of Economics – Finland Futures Research Centre (Finland). The Edward de Bono Institute for the Design and Development of Thinking at the University is coordinating partner for this exciting and challenging project.

Contact Person: Dr. Sandra M. Dingli Ph.D.
The Edward de Bono Institute, University of Malta
Email: instituteofthinking@um.edu.mt
Tel: 21 323981; 2340 2434; 9984 2422;
Mobile: 9984 2422