Emer Beamer: THNK is Minecraft for grown-ups

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Article by: Emer Beamer

Community Executive Program Narratives

Emer Beamer: THNK is Minecraft for grown-ups

This article was originally published on Emer's blog.

 

Among the second participant group of THNK's Creative Leadership program is Emer Beamer. She wrote a post today about her experience after finishing the second module in her THNK journey. She talks about forum expert guests she had a chance to connect with and what her week felt and looked like. You can read her full blog post here.

 

Emer is a social innovator and educator. She is co-founder of Butterfly Works, co-creation studio. Her focus is on designing digital education and personal growth programs for low income youth in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

 

About her experience she writes:

 

"Some of the novel moments on this roller coaster included: meeting fab people such as Esther Wojcicki a new role model for me, the fiercely engaged Princess Maxima and the charming Ravi Naidoo; gaining deep insights into my accelerator project during a session of meditation, then hands-on creation; and best of all getting to know the fabulous group of people known as the THNK participants.

 

A typical day at THNK, if there is such a thing, is a feast for a Learn-o-holic like me. It starts with Andra’s ‘Body and Mind’ lesson, which is kind of like playing with magic, the magic of the invisible field of energy between people and how to influence and change it. After that – and it’s only 9 o’clock – we either work on our challenge project or the Quest team may have some other surprise in store for us. During the Challenge we work on one of two themes: ‘The Future of Education’ or Carbon Reduction using M2M technologies using tools, which are a mash-up of Design thinking and Socratic questioning. In the evening we have a ‘Forum’ where we get to meet wonderful people and question them in-depth

 

Emer Beamer
Emer Beamer
Founder & Designer
Designathon Works
"A typical day at THNK, if there is such a thing, is a feast for a learn-o-holic like me."

The 10 days were further sprinkled with ‘Quest’ activities, which included amongst others, a number of high energy improv sessions;  making a 1-minute video with another participant on your top three achievements; an active workshop on the art of storytelling and reflecting on your Accelerator Project. Personally I love the Quest parts the best. The total THNK program being largely directed towards facilitating the growth of each participants accelerator project, it is just the injection of playful investigation I need right now.”

She also touches on our drive to co-create this program and get the gift of feedback from our participants, “Not that everything is perfect in the program design, yet, I guess you could say that THNK is in beta, there are some hiccups in the program delivery and design, which we get to chance to give feedback on (or vent on as the case may be) via the daily feedback forms. And that’s something I really appreciate about THNK, the faculty want to learn and improve the program, so open discussion is ongoing.”

Emer puts it this way, “So what’s this got to do with Minecraft? Well, both THNK and Minecraft have a number of building blocks, some instructions and an ‘Interesting Form of Freedom’ for you to create your own fantasy in. And grown-ups basically don’t play enough (at least this one). At THNK we get to do this with a group of people who hail from every part of the world, bringing a wealth of cultures, experiences and curiosity with them.  I love for example watching Ellen joyously investigating, or Sharon pondering quietly before sharing her broad wisdom or Gunter throwing sand in the machine. I’ve already worked in Team Holland-Taiwan and Team Dodgy whose motto was ‘If’s it’s not Dodgy it’s not Real’ and had a singsong that would do the Irish proud.”

Emer is one of the many inspiring leaders who participated in the THNK Creative Leadership Program.

To discover opportunities to co-create, join the THNK Creative Leadership Program. Visit the program page to find out if you qualify or download the program brochure.