To feed the innovating spirit, engineers and scientists need ongoing collaboration – both inside and outside their organisations.
According to Tracey Drew, senior environmental scientist at SRK Consulting in Cape Town, an in-house innovation workshop is now a valuable annual event for SRK experts to share their technological inventions.
“While many of us are generating or improving tools and applications to aid our work, we may often not be aware of others working on similar initiatives,” said Drew.
The idea of the workshop was sparked by a global SRK Practice Leaders meeting in 2015, which highlighted the value of the ‘culture of innovation’ within the group.
“Each year, we bring together SRK specialists in a range of disciplines to talk about their innovation projects – which usually leverage digital technology,” said Drew. “This leads to the sharing of insights and even practical assets like code for applications.”
During the meetings, delegates found that they solved many of the challenges in their projects by drawing on the work of others. While 16 delegates gathered at last year’s event, numbers this year were over 30 – and even included an SRK expert from Argentina.
The environment is informal – to foster the flow of ideas – but the workshop is driven by a packed agenda of inputs and discussion. This also opens the door for more general engagement about promoting efficiency and innovation within the organisation.
Read the full article in Mining Review Africa
