hi I’m Sarah and I’m Amal and together
we’re the founders of da vinci group to
whom it might not seem obvious we’re
partners in life as well as in business
happy wife happy life this is a pleasure
so let me start off with telling you a
bit about what we do here in da vinci
group right so we use the tenets of
neuro education and censorial art
platforms deliver content preschoolers
now you may be wondering what has that
got to do with the topic that we are
here to talk about now let me start with
explaining what neuro education is so
neuro education is a field of study
under neuroscience and what it tells us
is it’s learning about how the brain
optimally learns
so what neuro Education says is if I
were to engage senses and then if I
would introduce new idea of content the
brain biologically wires differently
alright these are your neurons your
brain cells they are wiring differently
they will allow you to recall
information faster right now the UK and
the US have pumped in over a billion
dollars to really understand how the
brain biologically learns and they have
done MRI studies and found evidence show
that if I would engage sensors the
brains connect differently allowing us
to create a longer-lasting learning
process
now amou has got a clinical
neuropsychology background all right now
I’ve got a neurobiology background and
what we did was we went one step further
to really understand what some of these
mediums are and we have identified three
main art platforms that allow the brain
to be excited at a level where we are
able to create that engagement to create
a longer-lasting learning process that’s
my cue to change mic and then I’ve got
three devices okay
is this better shouting scream okay so
yeah so what we do is we use clay
process drama and jazz music as
platforms to deliver content okay so
let’s take for an example how many of
you have played with clay before awesome
how many of you have played with
play-doh before okay great awesome so
now the difference between clay and
play-doh is clay has multiple textures
to it so for example in ten minutes
clay would be come from wet soft squishy
and cold to drier powdery and harder
whereas play-doh right in the ten
minutes remains the same so you start
with soft squishy oily and at the end of
ten minutes you remain with soft squishy
oily so what happens in the brain when
this happens is right for play-doh the
neurons fire rapidly initially because
there’s a new texture and then it
plateaus or levels out with clay on the
other hand right your brain gets really
excited it’s like fireworks so your
neurons are firing rapidly and in
constant bursts because the textures are
continuously changing all right so when
the brain is at this level and then when
you pair content or some sort of concept
the wiring is very different in the
brain all right the experience of
creating is very different now to the
audience okay if I were to ask you what
was the most challenging subject that
you experienced in school what would you
say
yeah great because I found that
challenging as well so okay so there I
was in secondary school and seated at
the back of my class and my middle aged
math teacher was rambling on about this
triangle which I had no clue about and I
was wondering why am I even here and
then I turn over and I see my
friend doodling on a textbook and then
my mind sort of wonders to what am I
gonna have for dinner is chicken gonna
be on the menu and before I knew it
class was over and we were assigned a
homework and I got nothing out of it now
here’s the twist if my math teacher had
given us each a lump of clay before we
started and then sort of said okay I’m
gonna teach you how to make say an ice
cream bowl and here’s the twist okay I’m
gonna ask you to decorate this pot with
things that you learn from the lesson
all right I you can decorate it with
maybe a triangle an equation or anything
at all I would have totally remembered
this experience and the learning so
essentially this piece of artwork
becomes an extension of your
understanding and once it’s fired glazed
and upon becoming a functional piece of
pottery as you keep using it it taps
into the memories that you created
during the learning process it’s like
for example looking at a photograph
imagine 10 years ago when you were at a
heightened emotional level at your
wedding or your graduation and you come
across it some years later and you look
at this snapshot that snapshot can
actually retrieve memories of a series
of events that happened before and after
and that’s the ability of the biology of
learning so which means in designing our
programs we were not just looking at the
psychology of learning we were also
looking at the biology of learning now
this is the cool part right so I’m when
I have been running this business for
six years and we made a very very
interesting observation and that is we
saw a really stark contrast with in
conventional classroom learning versus
our sensory base and evidence back
programs so what we saw in the children
in our classroom was that they were far
more self expressed they were far more
creative and exploratory in nature
versus the typical classroom environment
we saw them Pro we saw them flourish we
saw them expand as tiny little human
beings and we saw this Express in over
90% of the 12,000 children we have
worked with in the last six years and we
got curious so these are the children
from our classrooms I keep being so
animated and alive so we got really
curious I’m curious enough to bring the
University of Helsinki from Finland on
board to do a research collaboration
with us so this was to further support
and confirm the findings that we have
found in our classroom that such
situation really allows for thriving so
Sarah and I brace the cold and the
blizzards and Linlin to make this happen
the brain cognitive Research Institute
of Helsinki is now embarking on a unique
research project with us to study
cortisol levels in hair samples of the
children we are working with so high
levels of cortisol in indicates high
levels of stress and vice versa
so this would be really really exciting
because it shows a correlation between
reduced stress levels and our unique
methodology which we now call the neural
IDI method so when were in Finland was
minus 42 degrees and it was not fun and
that’s how curious we were right now in
da vinci group we not only run programs
for children we actually run programs
for adults as well so given what we
found what was going on with kids we
decided to look at what’s really going
on with adults so we wanted to find out
how adults actually perceive thriving as
now before doing that let’s see what
hi when I wave okay great so I want to
ask you a question your name okay okay
when I say the word thrive
th RI ve yeah what are the first five
words that come to your mind
good plan plant shirt what you said
food already
Bella umbrella ok fine full ok thanks
joining hey thanks for contributing to
my experiment so that’s our son his name
is Jorden sworn a hobby or so clearly in
his future the phone definitely is part
of thriving right so let’s just look at
what the word thrive actually mean like
definition wise right now if you were to
look at what’s out here some of the
synonyms you will see would be flourish
prosper grow to succeed and so on so
forth now to me and amou at least write
the word thrive means abundance
it means prosperity it means really
looking at something amazing and then
thriving with it
it’s a beautiful word and we really
wanted to know how this would impact
with others right so we did a little
experiment now this is a disclaimer it’s
not an accurate population sample size
or anything else so but we decide to
have some fun with it
right so we went around asking people
what are the first five words that come
to your mind when we say the word thrive
ok so this is what some of the words
that came up we have bloom prosperous
risk achievement encouragement
flourishing struggling abundance and so
on so forth
and one key word stood out for 90% of
the people was surviving so it’s really
interesting to see how we may have
collapsed thriving with with surviving
we go into a state of surviving because
of certain pressures or stressors that
are usually external so pressures like
you know family life work so on and so
forth that we may be at the effect of
thriving on the other hand is really
about freedom self-expression
abundance so while this may have a real
psychological implication to it we
cannot deny the biological basis of
thriving so through our programs we
strive to make a difference to create
thriving individuals so let’s look at a
scenario two people meet for the first
time and then a beautiful friendship
blossoms through that through this
friendship there is love this
communication there is growth this
expansion and many other aspects that
you would attribute to thriving now so
let’s break it down to the psychological
basis and the biological basis
psychology says that within the first 30
seconds of meeting someone you would
have made some preliminary impressions
that then form the basis for your future
behavioral interactions from which
moving forward you create memories so
from of biological perspectives that a
lot of things that’s going on around
inside your body right we have
neurotransmitters firing within neurons
we have dopamine we have endorphins
firing through and now what’s really
going on is if you were to look at the
neurons themselves right and with this
interaction a new neuronal pathway is
being created now with more and more
interaction this neuronal pathway gets
strengthened that ultimately leads to
what we call a biological imprint so it
is not just the psychology part that
works together but there’s a biology
part that comes together as well to
create what we are right now a network
of biological imprints now this is we
have this is happening when you’re
interacting as individuals with peers
with groups and ultimately how the
society functions as well so there is a
real biological basis as to how a
community thrives now if you were to
look at a surviving community versus a
thriving community there is a real
biological basis difference and what we
are saying is the future is about how we
are going to crack this code
so we decided to go back to the data
that we have collected with the adults
that we have worked with with all the
various programs we did and this is what
some of the facts look like so we’ve
done about 200 programs for adults we’ve
engaged about 2,000 over dots through
the course of this program it’s an
inquiry facilitated program where the
participants go through different topics
and then they come in looking in various
ways all right and then we have an end
state about them being really excited in
the life we’re talking about real state
change right so what we are saying here
is thriving is an actual paradigm shift
now this participants who walk into our
program they come in looking disengaged
disinterested excited happy whichever
which are we right but ultimately what
happens is when they touch clay they
seem to come alive the state really
changes they smile a bit more right they
interact a bit more and before you know
it there’s almost a festive like
atmosphere that’s being created they
become jovial and they go on to actually
create greater cooperation amongst team
members during the program now we also
decided to do a post program interview
with this organization that we worked
with right so we decide to go back to
them and ask them so what’s been it what
has it been like and a lot of them came
back to us and say that there’s been
long-lasting impact with their team
members with regards to how they have
been interacting with one another and
some of the common words that showed up
during the feedback session was like
heightened awareness and engagement
greater creativity and a lot more
cooperation amongst their teams and
their peers so this was some of the
findings that we had so what how data
suggests is that if we can couple our
biological experiences with positive
habits and actions that promote thriving
there are real practical implications to
it this can be achieved in many ways
what we’ve done right now is barely
scratched the surface of this
methodology
large MNCs are now looking to marry
their professional development programs
with sensorial elements to tap into this
biology neuroscience is making waves in
the public sectors and the corporate
sector to focus on individuals thinking
creative individuals so that they can
create thriving organizations there is
evidence for the scientific basis of
thriving evidence comes from research a
real change can be brought upon society
when we focus on the biology of our
behaviors it may no longer just be a
concept a whole new applicated process
can be invented to promote thriving if
we as a society can actually find a way
to understand how these patterns work
from a biological perspective as well
thriving will then be accessible to
everybody we will continue to show that
we need to invest a lot more in
understanding our biological patterns
that lead to thriving so as you have
seen there is a compelling need for us
to really understand the biological
basis of thriving now there is a lot of
work that needs to be done this is not
going to happen overnight this is gonna
be one conversation at a time
one child at a time one class at a time
one adult at a time one workshop at a
time now thank you [Applause]
we’re the founders of da vinci group to
whom it might not seem obvious we’re
partners in life as well as in business
happy wife happy life this is a pleasure
so let me start off with telling you a
bit about what we do here in da vinci
group right so we use the tenets of
neuro education and censorial art
platforms deliver content preschoolers
now you may be wondering what has that
got to do with the topic that we are
here to talk about now let me start with
explaining what neuro education is so
neuro education is a field of study
under neuroscience and what it tells us
is it’s learning about how the brain
optimally learns
so what neuro Education says is if I
were to engage senses and then if I
would introduce new idea of content the
brain biologically wires differently
alright these are your neurons your
brain cells they are wiring differently
they will allow you to recall
information faster right now the UK and
the US have pumped in over a billion
dollars to really understand how the
brain biologically learns and they have
done MRI studies and found evidence show
that if I would engage sensors the
brains connect differently allowing us
to create a longer-lasting learning
process
now amou has got a clinical
neuropsychology background all right now
I’ve got a neurobiology background and
what we did was we went one step further
to really understand what some of these
mediums are and we have identified three
main art platforms that allow the brain
to be excited at a level where we are
able to create that engagement to create
a longer-lasting learning process that’s
my cue to change mic and then I’ve got
three devices okay
is this better shouting scream okay so
yeah so what we do is we use clay
process drama and jazz music as
platforms to deliver content okay so
let’s take for an example how many of
you have played with clay before awesome
how many of you have played with
play-doh before okay great awesome so
now the difference between clay and
play-doh is clay has multiple textures
to it so for example in ten minutes
clay would be come from wet soft squishy
and cold to drier powdery and harder
whereas play-doh right in the ten
minutes remains the same so you start
with soft squishy oily and at the end of
ten minutes you remain with soft squishy
oily so what happens in the brain when
this happens is right for play-doh the
neurons fire rapidly initially because
there’s a new texture and then it
plateaus or levels out with clay on the
other hand right your brain gets really
excited it’s like fireworks so your
neurons are firing rapidly and in
constant bursts because the textures are
continuously changing all right so when
the brain is at this level and then when
you pair content or some sort of concept
the wiring is very different in the
brain all right the experience of
creating is very different now to the
audience okay if I were to ask you what
was the most challenging subject that
you experienced in school what would you
say
yeah great because I found that
challenging as well so okay so there I
was in secondary school and seated at
the back of my class and my middle aged
math teacher was rambling on about this
triangle which I had no clue about and I
was wondering why am I even here and
then I turn over and I see my
friend doodling on a textbook and then
my mind sort of wonders to what am I
gonna have for dinner is chicken gonna
be on the menu and before I knew it
class was over and we were assigned a
homework and I got nothing out of it now
here’s the twist if my math teacher had
given us each a lump of clay before we
started and then sort of said okay I’m
gonna teach you how to make say an ice
cream bowl and here’s the twist okay I’m
gonna ask you to decorate this pot with
things that you learn from the lesson
all right I you can decorate it with
maybe a triangle an equation or anything
at all I would have totally remembered
this experience and the learning so
essentially this piece of artwork
becomes an extension of your
understanding and once it’s fired glazed
and upon becoming a functional piece of
pottery as you keep using it it taps
into the memories that you created
during the learning process it’s like
for example looking at a photograph
imagine 10 years ago when you were at a
heightened emotional level at your
wedding or your graduation and you come
across it some years later and you look
at this snapshot that snapshot can
actually retrieve memories of a series
of events that happened before and after
and that’s the ability of the biology of
learning so which means in designing our
programs we were not just looking at the
psychology of learning we were also
looking at the biology of learning now
this is the cool part right so I’m when
I have been running this business for
six years and we made a very very
interesting observation and that is we
saw a really stark contrast with in
conventional classroom learning versus
our sensory base and evidence back
programs so what we saw in the children
in our classroom was that they were far
more self expressed they were far more
creative and exploratory in nature
versus the typical classroom environment
we saw them Pro we saw them flourish we
saw them expand as tiny little human
beings and we saw this Express in over
90% of the 12,000 children we have
worked with in the last six years and we
got curious so these are the children
from our classrooms I keep being so
animated and alive so we got really
curious I’m curious enough to bring the
University of Helsinki from Finland on
board to do a research collaboration
with us so this was to further support
and confirm the findings that we have
found in our classroom that such
situation really allows for thriving so
Sarah and I brace the cold and the
blizzards and Linlin to make this happen
the brain cognitive Research Institute
of Helsinki is now embarking on a unique
research project with us to study
cortisol levels in hair samples of the
children we are working with so high
levels of cortisol in indicates high
levels of stress and vice versa
so this would be really really exciting
because it shows a correlation between
reduced stress levels and our unique
methodology which we now call the neural
IDI method so when were in Finland was
minus 42 degrees and it was not fun and
that’s how curious we were right now in
da vinci group we not only run programs
for children we actually run programs
for adults as well so given what we
found what was going on with kids we
decided to look at what’s really going
on with adults so we wanted to find out
how adults actually perceive thriving as
now before doing that let’s see what
hi when I wave okay great so I want to
ask you a question your name okay okay
when I say the word thrive
th RI ve yeah what are the first five
words that come to your mind
good plan plant shirt what you said
food already
Bella umbrella ok fine full ok thanks
joining hey thanks for contributing to
my experiment so that’s our son his name
is Jorden sworn a hobby or so clearly in
his future the phone definitely is part
of thriving right so let’s just look at
what the word thrive actually mean like
definition wise right now if you were to
look at what’s out here some of the
synonyms you will see would be flourish
prosper grow to succeed and so on so
forth now to me and amou at least write
the word thrive means abundance
it means prosperity it means really
looking at something amazing and then
thriving with it
it’s a beautiful word and we really
wanted to know how this would impact
with others right so we did a little
experiment now this is a disclaimer it’s
not an accurate population sample size
or anything else so but we decide to
have some fun with it
right so we went around asking people
what are the first five words that come
to your mind when we say the word thrive
ok so this is what some of the words
that came up we have bloom prosperous
risk achievement encouragement
flourishing struggling abundance and so
on so forth
and one key word stood out for 90% of
the people was surviving so it’s really
interesting to see how we may have
collapsed thriving with with surviving
we go into a state of surviving because
of certain pressures or stressors that
are usually external so pressures like
you know family life work so on and so
forth that we may be at the effect of
thriving on the other hand is really
about freedom self-expression
abundance so while this may have a real
psychological implication to it we
cannot deny the biological basis of
thriving so through our programs we
strive to make a difference to create
thriving individuals so let’s look at a
scenario two people meet for the first
time and then a beautiful friendship
blossoms through that through this
friendship there is love this
communication there is growth this
expansion and many other aspects that
you would attribute to thriving now so
let’s break it down to the psychological
basis and the biological basis
psychology says that within the first 30
seconds of meeting someone you would
have made some preliminary impressions
that then form the basis for your future
behavioral interactions from which
moving forward you create memories so
from of biological perspectives that a
lot of things that’s going on around
inside your body right we have
neurotransmitters firing within neurons
we have dopamine we have endorphins
firing through and now what’s really
going on is if you were to look at the
neurons themselves right and with this
interaction a new neuronal pathway is
being created now with more and more
interaction this neuronal pathway gets
strengthened that ultimately leads to
what we call a biological imprint so it
is not just the psychology part that
works together but there’s a biology
part that comes together as well to
create what we are right now a network
of biological imprints now this is we
have this is happening when you’re
interacting as individuals with peers
with groups and ultimately how the
society functions as well so there is a
real biological basis as to how a
community thrives now if you were to
look at a surviving community versus a
thriving community there is a real
biological basis difference and what we
are saying is the future is about how we
are going to crack this code
so we decided to go back to the data
that we have collected with the adults
that we have worked with with all the
various programs we did and this is what
some of the facts look like so we’ve
done about 200 programs for adults we’ve
engaged about 2,000 over dots through
the course of this program it’s an
inquiry facilitated program where the
participants go through different topics
and then they come in looking in various
ways all right and then we have an end
state about them being really excited in
the life we’re talking about real state
change right so what we are saying here
is thriving is an actual paradigm shift
now this participants who walk into our
program they come in looking disengaged
disinterested excited happy whichever
which are we right but ultimately what
happens is when they touch clay they
seem to come alive the state really
changes they smile a bit more right they
interact a bit more and before you know
it there’s almost a festive like
atmosphere that’s being created they
become jovial and they go on to actually
create greater cooperation amongst team
members during the program now we also
decided to do a post program interview
with this organization that we worked
with right so we decide to go back to
them and ask them so what’s been it what
has it been like and a lot of them came
back to us and say that there’s been
long-lasting impact with their team
members with regards to how they have
been interacting with one another and
some of the common words that showed up
during the feedback session was like
heightened awareness and engagement
greater creativity and a lot more
cooperation amongst their teams and
their peers so this was some of the
findings that we had so what how data
suggests is that if we can couple our
biological experiences with positive
habits and actions that promote thriving
there are real practical implications to
it this can be achieved in many ways
what we’ve done right now is barely
scratched the surface of this
methodology
large MNCs are now looking to marry
their professional development programs
with sensorial elements to tap into this
biology neuroscience is making waves in
the public sectors and the corporate
sector to focus on individuals thinking
creative individuals so that they can
create thriving organizations there is
evidence for the scientific basis of
thriving evidence comes from research a
real change can be brought upon society
when we focus on the biology of our
behaviors it may no longer just be a
concept a whole new applicated process
can be invented to promote thriving if
we as a society can actually find a way
to understand how these patterns work
from a biological perspective as well
thriving will then be accessible to
everybody we will continue to show that
we need to invest a lot more in
understanding our biological patterns
that lead to thriving so as you have
seen there is a compelling need for us
to really understand the biological
basis of thriving now there is a lot of
work that needs to be done this is not
going to happen overnight this is gonna
be one conversation at a time
one child at a time one class at a time
one adult at a time one workshop at a
time now thank you [Applause]
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