Edward De Bono
" It is no longer inspiration, or being creatively talented. Anyone can be creative-provided they learn and develop their skills."
Edward de Bono was born in Malta in 1933. He attended St. Edward's College, Malta and then the University of Malta where he qualified in medicine. He proceeded, as a Rhodes Scholar, to Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained an honors degree in psychology and physiology and then a D. Phil in medicine. He also holds a Ph. D. form Cambridge and an MD from the University of Malta. He has held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge and Harvard.Dr de Bono is regarded as the leading international authority in conceptual and creative thinking and in the teaching of thinking as a skill. He originated the term 'lateral thinking' and is well known for the deliberate creative techniques associated with it and for the powerful Six Thinking Hats method. His instruction has been sought by governments and by the foremost companies throughout the world such as IBM, Siemens, Du Pont, Prudential, AT&T, Ciba-Geigy, Ford, British Airways, British Coal, NTT (Japan), Ericsson (Sweden), Total (France), etc.
Edward de Bono's special contribution has been to take the mystical subject of creativity and, for the first time in history, to put the subject on a solid basis. He has shown that creativity was a necessary behaviour in a self-organizing information system. His key book, 'The Mechanism of Mind' was published in 1969. In it he showed how the nerve networks in the brain formed asymmetric patterns as the basis of perception. From this basis, Edward de Bono developed the concept and tools of lateral thinking. Although de Bono does not acknowledge any theoreticalantecedents for lateral thinking, it seems closely related to the Gestalt theory of Werthimer.
What is so special about Dr de Bono is that instead of his work remaining hidden in academic texts he has made it practical and available to everyone, from school children to senior executives in major corporations .
Dr de Bono designed and runs the CoRT Thinking Program, which is internationally the most widely used method for the teaching of thinking on schools and is in use in many countries around the world. He is the founder of the Cognitive Research Trust, and the International Creative Forum, which brings together many of the leading corporations of the world. He is the founder of SITO (Supranational Independent Thinking Organization) which was set up as a sort of Red Cross to provide additional and creative thinking on problems and issues. He also set up The International Creativity Office in New York to help UN member countries generate fresh ideas.
Dr de Bono has written 56 books, 5 of which are also translated to Turkish, and is also published in 35 languages. He has made two TV series 'De Bono's Course in Thinking' for the BBC, and 'The Greatest Thinkers' for WDR Germany.
He currently owns and lives on an island in Venice, where he runs international seminars.
Some internet sources about Edward de Bono:
Edward de Bono's Official Site
Dr Edward de Bono's Creativity Application and Facilitation Software Web Page