Lateral thinker Edward de Bono offers Bidaya students an insight into his famous methods towards thinking

Dr. De Bono who is originally form Malta, one of the world's oldest civilisations offered 20 Bidaya students an insight into his methods on lateral and vertical thinking.

As one of the world's leading authorities on the process of thought, Dr. Edward De Bono spent time with the student's discussing the Six Thinking Hats technique, a model he devised to explore different perspectives towards a complex situation or challenge. The purpose of this technique is to help individuals adopt various perspectives on a subject that they may not normally embrace.

Dr. Edward de Bono commented, 'I took the students through the formal techniques of lateral and creative thinking, these tools can be used deliberately to generate new ideas.'

The six different hats are denoted by colour, each one forming a various perspective for a particular situation, for example: the white hat is neutral and presents the facts of the situation; the green hat is creative and generates the ideas; the yellow hat is optimism, listing the benefits and the black hat is negative, pointing out any possible drawbacks.

Amina Taher, Executive Director, Corporate Communications, Zabeel Investments said, 'Bringing authorities like Dr. Edward De Bono to our students is part of our promise to develop their skills, using the best talent and facilities possible. Dr. de Bono's reputation and credentials are second to none in his field, and exposing the Bidaya members to his innovative discourse on thought and thinking development can only help them in problem solving and creative thinking.'

She continued, 'A good education is inherent to one's success and at Bidaya we want to ensure that our students think and work in innovative ways, enabling them to become future business leaders in the UAE. Edward de Bono is a man who is greatly respected across the globe, to witness his methods and techniques first hand, is an invaluable experience fort these students.'

Renowned for his prolific writing about lateral thinking, Edward de Bono is known as one of the very few people in history who can be said to have had a major impact on the way we think. In fact he is said to be the best-known thinker internationally. To date he has written 75 books translated into 34 languages, which apart from the obvious includes Arabic, Bahasa, Urdu, Slovene, Turkish.

Examples of some of De Bono's works includes: Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step, The Dog-Exercising Machine, Practical Thinking, Lateral Thinking for Managers, The Greatest Thinkers; The Thirty Minds That Shaped Our Civilization.