Creative thinking will help us to navigate our way out of this crisis – Claudia Cavalluzzo

We are all wary of using the word ‘opportunity’ during this emergency. But what’s the alternative, wonders Claudia Cavalluzzo

The Glasgow Distillery is producing and bottling hand sanitiser (Picture: SNS Group)

As we settle into a reality that has nothing to do with normality, we wonder how long this disruption to our lives will last. At the beginning, it felt surreal. Several weeks in, it still does.

In the flood of social media updates, scientific experts’ articles and world news channels, I desperately try to look for positive cues, for signs that, despite the loss of lives and hardest financial crisis since the great depression, we are going to be ok.

Many businesses, charities and support organisations like Converge have been asking themselves what we can do to help to mitigate the damage that this new but not unknown virus has caused to so many. We have all wrestled with ‘business as usual’ versus pivoting approach.

Claudia Cavalluzzo, Director, Converge

During this medical, economic and existential crisis, communities are playing a central role.

The sense of community has been heightened by this emergency, in some cases created from scratch and it is one of those ‘good things’ that this pandemic will have gifted us. Communities are essential for survival, for support to the vulnerable and local businesses.

Communities, like the academic one, have come together by setting aside any real or perceived competitiveness to join forces, talent and resources to provide a strong response to the outbreak. This isn’t something we can solve in isolation. Collective thinking and collaboration can only make us stronger.

Something else that I have always known as being important and I now find vital is creativity. Creativity fuels innovation, and both thrive in times of crisis and constraints. The best creations emerge from trying to solve a problem and we are not short of them these days!

There are the old problems, whose solutions now need to be re-invented, and new problems that have emerged from this unprecedented situation. It is the creative minds, the ‘out-of-the-box’ thinkers who hold the key to our future. And this is good news for entrepreneurs. In times like this, where speed of thought and action are of the essence, bureaucratic barriers are being broken, and creative thinking can be brought to life quickly and efficiently.

We have seen large organisations adapting their manufacturing facilities to make ventilators, distilleries producing hand sanitisers and early-stage companies using 3D facilities designed to produce prosthetic limbs re-deployed to make PPE.

As well as impacting existing companies, the Covid-19 era will also give birth to several new businesses. I have heard in several occasions friends and acquaintances considering moving the launch of their new business forward, as the Coronavirus outbreak represents an opportunity not to be missed.

This is because consumers are embracing new behaviours as a result of the lockdown, and some of these changes will be permanent. This is the case for many sectors such as digital, med-tech, online delivery and many more who are seeing an unprecedented surge in demand.

The standard approach won’t meet the standards any more. It is new ideas, fresh models and lateral thinking that will succeed. Fortune favours the bold as they say.

We are all very wary of using the word ‘opportunity’ during this emergency, we don’t won’t to seem ignorant or negligent. But what’s the alternative? Sit and wait this one out and wallow in fear?

Certainly, that’s not what entrepreneurs do. Entrepreneurially minded individuals are naturally driven to see opportunities where others see problems, a very handy trait during a crisis like this one.

At Converge, we have seen so many university students and staff apply their creative minds and talent to solve global problems and we are confident that many more will come to the fore, they will respond to this call to arms and work together to (re)build our economy and society.

That’s why we need to invest in new talent and bold ideas, we need to work extra hard to keep inspiring the brilliant minds that reside in our world-class universities and provide support to the pipeline of emerging businesses necessary. This an essential element of our economy.

I have recently learnt that word ‘crisis’ in Chinese is Wéijī and it’s composed of two characters signifying “danger” and “opportunity”.

Something else that China has taught us!

Claudia Cavalluzzo, Director, Converge