Theme: Destructive Creativity

With destructive creativity we mean new, creative, innovative solutions and ideas that arise out of a destructive, negative environment. The “destructive” encompasses these difficult environments that eventually led to conflicts and the necessity to look for new solutions. Examples can be as straightforward as war or natural disasters, but also more subtle such as uneven playing fields due to gender inequality, religious conflicts or personal setbacks.

The “creativity” refers to original solutions that have changed or aim at changing this destructive situation through new technologies, new educational institutes or new channels, for example. There’s an important difference with the more known “creative destruction”. Creative destruction refers to the case where an old technology is replaced and an industry destroyed by a newer one.

The difference with our topic is that we start from a situation of conflict which then leads to a new idea. The fact that there is first a conflict or difficult situation is important to understand how much it required from the people involved to come up with their solutions.

Salle Dupréel
44, Av. Jeanne
Ixelles, Bruxelles-Capitale, Région de (fr), Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest (nl), 1050
Belgium

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez is a professor of strategic change and project management at several business schools (Duke CE, Instituto de Empresa, Solvay, Vlerick). Author of the book The Focused Organization, Antonio has been featured in several magazines, including Singapore Management Institute, Business Strategy Review and The Economist. He is a regular keynote speaker at international events, where he speaks on strategic transformation and focus.He specializes in running workshops with senior executives to increase their focus and improve their strategy execution dexterity.

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez is a professor of strategic change and project management at several business schools (Duke CE, Instituto de Empresa, Solvay, Vlerick). Author of the book The Focused Organization, Antonio has been featured in several magazines, including Singapore Management Institute, Business Strategy Review and The Economist. He is a regular keynote speaker at international events, where he speaks on strategic transformation and focus. He specializes in running workshops with senior executives to increase their focus and improve their strategy execution dexterity. Antonio has an MBA from London Business School and his education spanned Germany, Mexico, Italy, USA, Spain and the UK.

Bart Preneel

Prof. Bart Preneel is a full professor at the KU Leuven, where he heads the COSIC research group, that is a member of the iMinds Security Department. He was visiting professor at five universities in Europe. He has authored more than 400 scientific publications and is inventor of 5 patents. His main research interests are cryptography, information security and privacy. Bart Preneel has participated to more than 30 EU projects. He is a member of the Permanent Stakeholders group of ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) and of the Academia Europaea. He has been invited speaker at more than 100 conferences in 40 countries. In 2014 he received the RSA Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics.

Céline Bouton

Céline Bouton is passionate about social economics and has been working in different structures of that field in Belgium and abroad (Canada, Thailand). She worked for 4 years on the ground as a micro-credit adviser for a start-up that provides micro loans and training to people with more ideas than financial means. Céline initiated the MakeSense community in Brussels, an international movement dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs solve their challenges. Through active design-thinking, methodological workshops and networking events, she wants to promote innovation and other ways to produce, create or consume and set up the examples. She thinks we all are change makers and we simply need to be connected to each other and to our local environment to act globally.

Christian Vanizette

The socials and environment challenges are global and at large scale. The time is running to answer them and we need radical new solutions to solve them on time. As a result, disruptive thinking is mandatory. Around the world, innovative social entrepreneurs are developing ideas in health, environment and employment. Those are examples of what can be done. However it is not enough to change the world, everybody (government, companies, volunteers) is responsible to engage in a disruptive way, to challenge status quo to be able to spend hundreds of summer on our beautiful planet.

Emma Cahill

"5 years ago, I was 21 and ready to conquer the world of showjumping and veterinary medicine and was setting off on an adventure abroad. 4 and a half years ago, I was 22 and facing 11 months in a hospital bed, fighting against impossible odds to walk again and recover some small parts of a life after a horse broke my spine. If you'd told 21 year old me what I was up to now, she'd be so excited to get there. If you'd talked to 22 year old me, she would have never dared believe you. Strangely, sometimes, I can tell you I'm in a better place after it although I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. My journey of taking something awful and making it into something better..."

Laura Hemmati

Laura is a political speechwriter and motivational speaker. Originally from Scotland, Laura works in Brussels. She was recognized for her work on female leadership by U.S. President Barack Obama last year and believes universal education is a vital prerequisite for full participation in every society.

Naziha Mestaoui

A Belgian-Tunisian artist and architect based in Paris whose unique work merges space, imagery and technological innovations of the digital era to create innovative immersive and sensory experiences. After being a member of the Electric Shadow Duo with exhibitions in the MOMA in New York, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Photography in Tokyo, the Contemporary Art Biennale in Sevilla, Sao Paulo’s SESI, Shanghai’s MOCA, she launched a solo artistic career in 2011 establishing herself as an artist at the cutting-edge of future-realist art. Today, Mestaoui is recognized as an avant-garde artist who personifies an altruistic vision of art and insists that nature be at the very heart of cultural issues.

Pierre-Emmanuel Noel

Pierre-Emmannuel Noel is a Senior Banker at the Europeanment Bank, the EU’s Bank, where he leads team of analysts, engineers, economists and lawyers to finance infrastructure projects in Western Europe notably in the energy, renewable energy, urban regeneration (SmartCities) and education sectors. He previously worked at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and with law firm Freshfields. He holds degrees from ULB (JD), Duke University (LLM) and the London Business School and teaches “Infrastructure Finance” at SciencesPo Paris.