Intersections

Shiva Subramaniam
Adapted from THE MEDICI EFFECT by Frans Johansson
Peter’s Café

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Eastgate Building, Harare

• Harare’s largest commercial centre

• Designed by architect Mick Pearce
• Uses no air-conditioning and almost no heating
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Eastgate Building, Harare

• Uses the same heating/cooling principles as termite

mound; Saved $3.5 million on a $36 million building
• Uses less than 10% of the energy of a conventional
building its size
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Chef Marcus Samuelsson
• Chef and co-owner of
the globally renowned
Aquavit restaurant
• Youngest chef ever to
receive a three-star
restaurant review from
The New York Times
• Recognized by the
World Economic
Forum as one of the
“Global Leaders for
Tomorrow” (GLT)
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Chef Marcus Samuelsson
• Born to Ethiopian parents in
Addis Ababa
• Orphaned at 3 years, and
adopted by a young Swedish
couple from Gothenborg
• Travelled to different countries
as a child, as his father was a
geologist
• Exposed to a range of cultures
• Learned differently
• Reversed assumptions and
took on multiple perspectives
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Enigma
• Secret code used very successfully
by the Germans during WW II to
plan attacks
• Allies were helpless as they were
unable to break the code
• Allies created a code-breaking
group comprising not just
cryptologists, but mathematicians,
scientists, classicists, chess grand
masters and crossword addicts
• Together this diverse group broke
the formidable, seemingly
unbreakable ENIGMA 7
Parkour

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Cirque du Soleil

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The Power of Intersection
• The Intersection is the perfect
environment for:
– Widely different ideas to come
together
– Lots of different ideas to come
together
• The number of ideas/combinations
increases beyond those in a single
area when we:
– Break down associative barriers
– Step into the Intersection
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Developing Intersections
▪ Can we create new solutions using new
intersections?
▪ What could be new subjects that we could
learn?
▪ What related, yet unusual, subjects can
help us in our work?
▪ What questions should we store in our
minds to precipitate serendipity?
▪ Can we, therefore, be deliberately
creative?
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