Nurturing your child to be innovators in the 21st Century

Inventors are not born. They are nurtured. What would you feel if your kid came up with an idea, product or service that would change the lives of millions? Pretty amazing right? 

Think along the lines of the creators of the tissue paper, zipper, safety pin, radio, TV, the humble toothpick... and the list goes on and on...

How do we inspire our young ones to become inventors and motivate them to have a vested interest in making their world a better and more creative place?

Here are some ways in which ideas are formed and nurtured:

The Piggy Back
Often several people will invent the same thing at the same time. Why? Because something already existed that inspired the inventors. For example, the Internet, inspired many inventors to come up with social media sites. Facebook and Twitter are two inventions that exist because of the Internet.

The Incubator
Some ideas need time to “cook”.  Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, started thinking about how to organize files on his computer ten years before he invented the WWW. By 1990, he had how invented HTML, the “language” of the WWW, figured out how to give each website its own address, and created the first web browser.

Reinventing The Wheel
Many inventors realize that existing inventions can be used to perform other tasks. Johannes Guttenberg, inventor of the printing press in the 1400s, incorporated a machine called the screw press that crushed grapes to make wine in his new invention.

Happy Accidents
“Happy Accidents” are invention ideas or discoveries that are made when people least expect them. Many things we use and enjoy today came about this way. Post-it Notes, ice cream cones, chocolate chip cookies, and even potato chips are a few examples!

The "Aha! Moment", otherwise known as the "Eureka! Moment"
This involves first being stuck on an idea and then relaxing your mind to let the solution surface. This can happen at the oddest times – in the bath, during a walk or even watching the clouds roll by. Scientist Albert Einstein was riding a bus when he came up with the idea of “special relativity”, to solve a theory he had been working on for years about space and time.

Coming up on the JLPC calendar is the "Young Innovators" workshop series (July to Sept 2013) which aims to inspire kids from 6yrs to 12yrs to become innovators in the 21st Century. Details coming up real soon! Watch out for it!

Last Call For Registrations To The Young Entrepreneurs Camp - 4th to 7th June 2013!

Hear ye! Hear ye! Registration for The Young Entrepreneurs Camp (for kids 7yrs to 15yrs) will be closing this Friday 24th June. Please do send in your registration forms by then or earlier if you can, if not done so yet.

What an exciting month of May it's been, and it's almost over too! Where has the time gone! We've got a good number of sign ups and enquiries about our camp, and received wonderful feedback from our previous participants and their families too! A BIG thank you to them for sharing their thoughts. We will certainly take all your feedback and suggestions to mind and applying them to our upcoming camp in June.

To add to the buzz of activities, JLPC has been featured on a number of websites this month too and here are the links to them. DO share with your friends and family!

"Encourage Entrepreneurship From A Young Age" by Felicia Chin from sg.theasianparent.com (http://sg.theasianparent.com/encourage-entrepreneurship-from-a-young-age/)

"JLPC Encourages Entrepreneurship From A Young Age" by Fiona Lim from kidlander.sg (http://sg.kidlander.com/highlights/jlpc-encourages-entrepreneurship-from-a-young-age/)

"Taking The Plunge by Lorraine Paul for FlexiWerks (http://flexiwerkz.com/archives/taking-the-plunge-by-lorraine-paul)

"June Holidays - The Young Entrepreneurs Camp" by Wong Meiling for Universal Scribbles  (http://www.universalscribbles.com/) 

Calling all young entrepreneurs...

We're counting down to the start of camp and preparations are now underway to make our June entrepreneurship camp at Victoria Junior College as successful, if not more so, than last year's Super Spies camp. Do check out our events listing (2013 Events) for details of The Young Entrepreneurs Camp and programme highlights. 

And to give you an idea of what we did back then in Nov 2012, take a look at this video:

Meantime, here's what a couple of moms of our past participants have to say about JLPC's Entrepeneurship Camp.

“What I liked about the camp was that it encouraged kids to think “out-of-the-box”, challenged them to communicate and collaborate with one another and really helped to strengthen their interpersonal skills. I was also very impressed by the presentation that the boys had to make at the end of the workshop and the enthusiasm they exhibited throughout the 5-days period.” – Wong Meiling, mother of 2 kids aged 9yrs and 7yrs.

“Christian would come home every day really excited and give me hints about what he was building because it was a secret. I could see the pride he had that he played a part in those inventions. On the reveal day, am always amazed at the kids' creations. Definitely a thumbs-up experience. Can't wait for my younger daughter to attend!” – Mandy Goh, mother of 4 kids, aged 8yrs, 6yrs, 3yrs and 7months.

“What I look for in holiday programmes is how much I think my kids will enjoy the activities and whether in having fun learning new skills and new things, they become more confident and creative in their thought process. To me these experiences are priceless as I believe that the love for learning is nurtured best through games and exploration activities. My 12 year old thoroughly enjoyed herself at the JLPC entrepreneurs camp last November. Now my 7 year old girl who is finally of age to participate is so looking forward to going to the same camp. I think what is most unique about the JLPC programme is that it allows children of different age groups to come together to learn concepts in a novel and creative way.” - Luana Lim, Mother of 3, ages 13yrs, 7yrs and 6yrs