Jen, Neil, RJ, Josie, Dana, Kelly, Olathe, Stacey, Melissa, Samantha, Arthur, Nick, Angela, Greg, Donna, David, Julie (in order of acquaintance), and the Perimeter Institute team:
Innovation150 was a one-year affair, but I still would like to thank you again for the priceless experience in 2017 at SNOLAB in Sudbury, ON, and especially for reminding me, through the Innovation150 Canadian Life Hack Contest, of the true meaning of innovation as defined by the former Governor General of Canada in Inside the Perimeter Magazine: Spring/Summer 2017 as follows.
DJ: "Innovation is a very broad term, but at its simplest it's doing things better. Usually it means taking an existing idea and crafting it in a certain way that improves a process, an institution, a technology. Innovation comes from the Latin innovate which means to refresh or to alter. It's very interesting, that notion of a refresh - of looking at things from a fresh view or angle, and doing it a little bit differently. Very often innovation is a series of steps, not a light bulb going on at a particularly time. It's a series of light bulbs or flashes that are built upon."
Thanks to the encouragement from @innovation150_canada, i.e., "The contest officially closed June 9 (2017), but keep sending us hacks!", I have continued to create and document my life hacks in #CanadianLifeHacks on Instagram (260 life hacks so far), taking special advantage of my being poor and lazy. They are mostly junk after junk, but I would be pleased if 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of them inspired some Canadians to see the merits and say, e.g., "If Simon could do it this way, I can do it better!"
I sincerely appreciate your making me realize that life hacks are an epitome of continuous improvement with occasional quantum leaps, the mentality of forward-looking attitude that should apply to any field of human endeavour for progress towards a better civilization. Applying such concept to education should be as important as teaching students "how", "why" and "why not" rather than "who", "what", "where" and "when", for developing constructively critical thinking.
So, my spirit of innovation lives on forever. A friend of my daughter's calls my house a museum because of all the life hacks. You are quite welcome for a visit if you can dare to taste Agar-O (solid wine), to drink TeaVin (tea + wine), and to eat Quinolent GREEN (pucks), Quinolent ORANGE (curry), etc.
Original: "It's a sweet story of a creative young woman who's afraid to share her work with the world until her dog helps her to break out of her shell."
Analogy: "It's a sweet story of Simon who's afraid to share his life hacks with the world until Innovation150 helps him to break out of his shell."
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
