It was good to see a strong focus on education at Davos this year. One session at the Annual Meeting that I particularly enjoyed discussed the addition of creative and artistic education to the traditional STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) agenda. John Maeda, Carol Becker, Justine Cassell and Tomas Saraceno made a compelling case for the benefits of cross-fertilization between arts and sciences.

Artist Tomas Saraceno showed an inspiring example of how science can help art achieve its creative goals and, along the way, create new science. Carol Becker, Dean of the School of the Arts at Columbia University, talked about how the arts helps develop, what she calls, the “particularity” of the person. The idea of individuality and unique creative contribution would seem to have a role in both the arts and the sciences.

The overall conclusion from the session was that creativity has an essential role to play in education, whether for the purposes of enhancing technical innovation or for creating well-rounded graduates who can truly contribute to society.

For more thoughts on why design is a perfect lens through which to look at the tensions in education, read my World Economic Forum post here.

(Posted also on my LinkedIn Thought Leader blog)