Griffith University

Nigel Collin

Nigel Collin is a champion of creativity which means he works with organisations to help them lead their creative people to get results. After fifteen years in the creative sector Nigel realized the challenge with creativity is not in finding creative people, or teaching your people to be more creative. It’s in knowing how to lead your creative people, harness their genius and direct it towards viable outcomes.

For nine years Nigel owned and ran Absurd Entertainment an Entertainment design company, before passing the baton on in 2004. He worked on a multitude of corporate and public events including the 2000 Sydney Olympics and Paralympics, The Sydney Royal Easter Show 1997 to 2003 and was Show Director for Australia’s largest-ever corporate event in Sydney in 2005. Many companies across a myriad of industries including IT, Entertainment, Design, Events, Marketing, Finance, Pharmaceuticals, Government and Telecommunications have benefited from Nigel’s experience and expertise. He has studied organizational creativity at The Walt Disney Company, USA and sat on the roundtable for the Queensland Governments 'Year of Creativity'. Nigel is a CSP, the highest designation offered by the National Speakers Association of Australia. His work has taken him throughout Australia, and around the globe.

Tony Ryan

A former teacher, Tony is an educational consultant and writer, and offers professional support to school organisations throughout the world on issues such as lifelong learning, quality classroom practice…. and enthusiasm for just being alive. He has presented numerous keynotes and workshops at state, national and world conferences in the past fifteen years. Tony also has been engaged as a teacher-in-residence in over 400 schools throughout several countries. In this role, he teaches extensively, and offers guidance to teachers with their everyday practice.

He is a prolific author of books on effective thinking and learning. These books include The Ripple Effect, Thinkers Keys for Kids, Mindlinks, Brainstorms, Thinkfest and The Clever Country Kits. His latest update of the Thinkers Keys features an exciting Pack of colourful strategies.

He is an ambassador for School Aid, a non-profit organization that encourages thousands of schools to co-ordinate their fund-raising activities for major local and global disasters. School Aid also provides invaluable assistance to schools in the encouragement of active citizenship opportunities.