Source: www.rta.ae
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) will be holding the maiden edition of its Creativity Week from 10 to 13 November 2013 as part of RTA efforts to nurture a work environment conducive to creativity and boosting the culture of innovative thinking among RTA employees.
H.E. Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of the RTA, said: “Creativity and innovation are key drivers of the development and progress of any entity, and the RTA has charted out a an innovative strategy based on a comprehensive assessment of a host of practices and processes. Such a strategy is focused on setting a creativity team comprising an elite bunch of RTA employees who have the competence to enrich the RTA with innovative & creative ideas. The team attends to reviewing the strategic challenges confronting the RTA, and exploring means & methods of overcoming them besides proposing innovative concepts capable of bolstering RTA’s business environment.
“The RTA has recently established an Innovation Section that caters to enhancing RTA’s creative and innovative drive, leading creative activities, raising the awareness of leadership, administrative and technical practices necessary for figuring out innovative solutions within RTA’s business domain, promoting the innovative thinking among employees, leveraging & updating a central database for all studies & deliverables of research, development and innovation activities to make them accessible to RTA agencies & sectors, besides overseeing the implementation of projects related to the application of innovative solutions within RTA job sphere, and managing relevant activities & initiatives related to innovation and creativity.
“The Creativity Week comprises a host of events including the Creativity Club; which is platform for introducing the club and its activities, and a training workshop entitled (Challenge Your Brain) for RTA employees and affiliates of the Creativity Club about the skills of innovative thinking during which ideas will be developed to cope with RTA’s strategic challenges and issues. The Week also includes the Creativity Cinema where a one-hour movie will be shown about one of the innovative ideas, Innovative Race; which is a number of visual presentations relating to concepts for developing electronic systems and smart-phone applications, and a showcase for innovative concepts of RTA projects,” elaborated Al Tayer.
“The Week concludes by honouring the winners in the Design Your Idea contest where participants use Lego pieces to propose creative solutions encouraging the use of public transport. The Lego approach is considered one of the new and smart methods used by organizations, teams and individuals for supporting thinking, communication and problem-solution. It is based on the knowledge theory through linking the hand and mind; which is a conclusion of scientific researches in the fields of business, development, management, psychology and learning. The competition, which features the participation of 16 employees, aims at motivating employees to innovate through the feature of linking the hand with thinking, epitomizing the thoughts of participants in models depicting the gist of their ideas in a creative manner, and fostering an interactive, positive and competitive environment reflected in the interactive games learning method; which was proved by studies to be effective in the work environment,” added Al Tayer.
For her part, Ms. Laila Mohammed Faridoon, Director of RTA Chairman of the Board and Executive Director’s Office, said: “The RTA has set out the innovative and creative framework with the aim of coping with all challenges facing RTA business, meeting customers’ needs and processing complex operations. All authorities and agencies seek to raise the par on the creativity and innovation for the benefit of their customers through adopting initiatives based on improving the efficiency, minimizing the cost, increasing productivity at lower costs, meeting sustainable development needs, measuring up to the rising aspirations of customers and keeping abreast of the fast moving developments.
“The RTA has conducted an accurate analysis and assessment of its internal processes and practices covering five fields namely: the corporate culture, human resources, business processes, management of innovative concepts and measurement & assessment mechanisms. A map has been drawn depicting the maturity path of each filed comprising of five levels: corporate recognition, nurturing an innovative environment, leveraging the innovative environment, institutionalization of creativity (drive towards corporate innovation), and sustainability of innovation. The RTA has developed a work plan in order to shift the maturity path of creativity in the RTA to the third level by the end of 2011, fourth level by the end of 2012 and the fifth level by the end of 2013,” said Faridoon in a concluding remark. More info
