Creativity Foundations for Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Artists

Have dreams of becoming an inventor, entrepreneur, or artist? Success in these dreams rely on an individual’s creativity ability, and unfortunately there are not many opportunities to develop this. (Yes, creativity is a skill, not an inherent trait).

The interactive experience of this course will enable you to develop these skills that underlie all creative work, such as ideational fluency, associative thinking, comfortableness with rejection, tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and growth mindset.

I believe students learn best through doing. I limit lecturing and rely most heavily on impactful interactive experiences that are customized to the group dynamics of the class.
I am allergic to BS, and there is a lot of BS in the creativity field. Creativity has 50 years of research behind it, and my goal is to deliver transformational experiences to you based on my knowledge of what works from the scientific literature.

Class will be composed of ten 1-hour interactive sessions that build upon one another, and will prepare you to use popular creative techniques & processes most effectively. You can find the session outlines here.

No prerequisite knowledge needed, all skill levels welcome. In fact, it’s better if you come with an open mind.

No supplies necessary, but there are optional & recommended books you can obtain for use as reference.

https://youtu.be/gG81pYp9460

Teacher's Bio: With a contagious enthusiasm for solving problems that matter in ways that actually have impact, Alex is an inspirational force to all who work with him. Alex has designed and taught a 3-credit course, “STS 3580: Creativity for Invention,” for multiple semesters to undergraduates, and has facilitated hundreds of workshops on the creative process worldwide. He holds a current credential in Creative Problem Solving from the Creative Education Foundation. For the last 8 years, Alex has worked to build educational experiences at the University of Virginia to enable inventors, entrepreneurs, and artists to pursue their dreams as a full-time profession. Whereas the nation has stagnated in terms of the rate of new entrepreneurs, Alex’s programs quadrupled the amount of students going full-time on their dreams, and put UVA in the spotlight with a 4-year streak winning the ACC InVenture Prize. Previously, Alex has pursued multiple entrepreneurial ventures, ranging from a translational research endeavor developing a point-of-care rapid diagnostic for bacterial infections that can be used in low-resource settings, ta magazine highlighting the accomplishments of student entrepreneurs around the world, and he was in the prestigious Y Combinator startup accelerator in Summer 2019. When not teaching creativity, Alex is creating a hybrid accelerator/venture capital fund.
Style of Offering: Interactive - Via Zoom
Max Attendance: 15
Date and Time : TuTh 7-8pm for 5 weeks starting June 28
Signup Deadline: 24 Hours in Advance