How the Ona Project was born?
For the last 20 years we have been working on innovation, and on many occasions we have seen how inquiring and innovative girls and boys can be. In fact, there are prominent examples of extremely innovative solutions to real problems that have been thought up by children. There are numerous projects based on this concept, trying to see how a child’s mind can find solutions to real problems that are quite different than the solutions adults give. For this reason, about three years ago we started to keep a list of some real issues that affect us, but we don’t pay too much attention to. We wondered “how would kids themselves think about it?” The results are the 20 questions Ona ponders in this book. At the end of the text, we have included 20 solutions: how to solve each one of the 20 “problems” Ona wonders about in a way that has already been proposed and developed in the real world. Therefore, there are two ways to use this text.
First of all, it can be used simply as a story to tell our children or grandchildren (when not for them to read themselves). If you use it this way, the idea is to ask the children how they would solve these issues. Or secondly, you can also use it within the context of learning about innovation in companies, to see what solutions professionals can come up with to the problems that Ona has detected. If you want to use it this way, it can be useful to contrast the ideas everyone proposes with the 20 “solutions” at the end of the book. We hope it is enjoyable, and helpful. Because… why innovate if it is not useful, and fun?
