World Creativity and Innovation Day is celebrated on April 21 in order to raise awareness around the importance of creativity and innovation in each aspect of human development. The main objective of celebrating the day is to encourage people to use new ideas, make new decisions and do creative thinking.
History:
The World Creative and Innovation Day was founded on May 25, 2001, in Toronto, Canada. The founder of the day was the Canadian Marci Segal, who was studying creativity in 1977 at the International Center for Studies in Creativity. She decided to generate the day after she read the headline 'Canada in Creativity Crisis' in the National Post. According to her, if people start using their natural ability to generate new ideas and take new actions and achieve outcomes, it would make the world a better place to live.
She organised the first Creativity and Innovation Day in April 2002 with the help of colleagues to encourage people to let go of their creativity. Following its success, several communities, countries from all over the world joined in celebrating it.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution to celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Day on April 27, 2017. The UN-designated 21 April as World Creativity and Innovation Day recognizing "citizens and organizations in more than 50 countries around the world already observe this day, which was first commemorated on April 21, 2002."
The first World Creativity and Innovation Day was celebrated by the United Nations in 2018.
Significance:
The UN says that innovation should be done keeping in mind every section of society. It lays emphasis on creativity and culture as it does not only yield economic value, but also have a significant non-monetary value that contributes to inclusive social development.
It also added that mass entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation can help in creating employment and provide new momentum for harnessing a country's economic potential.
Today, UNICEF also lauded the efforts made for the Rohingya refugees. Taking to Twitter, the organisation shared a video in which people with special abilities can be seen describing how a new convenient to use toilet is helping them in day to day life.
On World Creativity and Innovation Day, check out how these disability-friendly latrines are changing the game for Rohingya refugee children. #WCID @UNICEFinnovate pic.twitter.com/oQAorxCv7B
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) April 21, 2020
The video has been captioned as, “On World Creativity and Innovation Day, check out how these disability-friendly latrines are changing the game for Rohingya refugee children. #WCID @UNICEFinnovate"
At a time when the entire world is battling the coronavirus pandemic and most of us have been spending our time under lockdown, this period should be utilised to take a step forward and channel our inner creativity, thus give way to innovation.
