IBM Israel Research Seminars

The Eight-Dimensional Methodology for innovative thinking is a systematic approach that stimulates innovation by effectively using both sides of the brain. It is a unified approach that builds on comprehensive problem solving knowledge from industry, business, marketing, math, science, engineering, technology, and daily life. The different dimensions, namely Uniqueness, Dimensionality, Directionality, Consolidation, Segmentation, Modification, Similarity, and Experimentation provide leaders, managers, and other problem solvers with new insights and thinking strategies to solve everyday problems they face in the workplace.

The new methodology:
- Looks at problems systematically
- Enhances creative power and innovative skills of problem solvers
- Helps to generate unique “out-of-the-box” unexpected and high quality multiple solutions
- Stimulates innovation by generating more and better ideas quickly
- Increases productivity of the idea generation process.

Problems are not constrained to a particular profession or subject, and may be used by individuals and teams. The methodology works extremely well in brainstorming sessions. It is easy to teach, learn and use. The nature of the methodology makes it inter-departmental, inter-disciplinary, regionally unconstrained, and thus nationally applicable with the promising potential to be adopted by engineering and science colleges nationwide.

About the Speaker
Dr. Daniel Raviv received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1987 and M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in 1982 and 1980, respectively. He is currently a professor of Electrical Engineering at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida.

With more than twenty years of innovative teaching and high-tech industry experience, Dr. Raviv developed a fundamentally different approach to teaching “out-of-the-box” problem solving. For his unique contributions he received the prestigious President’s Leadership Award, the Award for Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching, the Faculty Talon Award by the Alumni Association in “Recognition of Exceptional Leadership, Commitment, and Service to FAU Students”, an Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology, and the 2005 FAU’s Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award.

Dr. Raviv has been working with the National Inventors Hall of Fame on several national educational programs, and was the Keynote Speaker prior to the Induction Ceremony, where he shared his philosophy on the processes of invention and innovation with more than 60 inductees. He conducts innovation workshops nationally and internationally to various audiences at different universities, institutions, and businesses. Dr. Raviv is a co-holder of a Guinness World Record, and his major research interests are in vision-based autonomous navigation (driverless cars), active vision, and innovative thinking.