"First, I would introduce Edward de Bono's
thinking courses in all schools."

- Paul MacCready, Ph.D.

Edward de Bono is a pioneer in the field of the teaching of thinking in education. He first wrote the CoRT program in 1972 and the Six Thinking Hats for Schools program in 1991. These programs are now the most widely used programs throughout the world for the direct teaching of thinking as a curriculum subject. They are used in the USA, China, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and in many other countries (Dr. de Bono had a special meeting in January 2005 with the President of India, H. E. Dr. Kalam, to discuss major projects including the training of 1,000,000 teachers to teach thinking in villages and communities.).

This widespread use of Dr. de Bono’s material across different nationalities and cultures is due to the simplicity and robustness of the materials. The material can be used by teachers with widely differing backgrounds and qualifications.

In 1996 The European Creativity Association surveyed their members across Europe to ask who had most influenced them. Dr de Bono's name came so far ahead that they requested the official naming committee of the International Astronomical Union (in Massachusetts) to name a planet after him. So DE73 became EdeBono.

What is unusual about Dr. de Bono is that he works in the field of education and also for business and government organizations. He has worked with such corporations as IBM, DuPont, Hoechst-Celanese, and many others.

During his research, de Bono found that the human brain operates as a self-organizing information system. From this basis, he developed the concept and tools of Lateral Thinking, which makes creativity no longer mystical and out of control. The CoRT program includes lateral thinking tools.

Dr. de Bono was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and has held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Harvard. He has written over 65 books in the general area of thinking. There are translations into thirty-eight languages including Japanese, Hebrew, Finish, Russian, and Urdu.

Many corporations around the world are now providing employee training in Dr. de Bono’s Thinking methods and will be pleased to learn about schools that are equipping students with robust tools that can be used in the work place—thinking skills are life skills. Here are some examples of how companies dramatically improved their productivity and their bottom line using de Bono thinking tools:

• The Eurhythmics rock group posted a note of thanks to Edward de Bono on the cover of a best selling LP.

• The United Kingdom reduced unemployment from 3 million to 1 million.

• Motorola developed and brought to market the first PDA/MP3 Player.

• Boeing navigated through and avoided a deadlock between management and its labor union.

• 3M developed market-breaking product innovations—such as: Duct Tape targeted for women.

• ABB went from $0 to $60 million in profit in just 2 years in the country of Syria.

• Dupont benchmarked every creativity process on the market for its Creativity Center. Dr. David Tanner, former technical director of DuPont, says that “the de Bono Techniques were the most useful” to DuPont. For example, an employee’s suggestion — the reengineering of a manufacturing process for Kevlar® — eliminated nine steps in the process, leading to savings of $30 million as a result of using Lateral Thinking™ techniques.

Dr. de Bono is currently number 40 on Thinkers 50 List—the most influential business thinkers in the world. Check out the list: http://www.Thinkers50.com

He is the Inventor of the world's first human and solar-powered aircraft and car, President of Aerovironment Inc. Monrovia, CA.

"First I would introduce Edward de Bono's thinking courses in all schools."

Professor David Perkins has conducted a detailed research in de Bono’s CoRT® course. In his book called “Outsmarting IQ - The Emergence of Learnable Intelligence (1995) “, he wrote:

"It is reasonable to conclude that CoRT (one of de Bono's thinking programmes) has considerable impact on thinking… Also, there can be some impact on general measures of intelligence and on school performance… CoRT is straightforward, ingenious, and quite easy to apply. Intelligence can be taught by CoRT."

"Dr. de Bono's innovative thinking methods have been tried and tested by many pupils and professionals, and they do seem to help people to be more creative and original. I saw the system in action at an impasse during a seminar of Nobel laureates. When a Random Word (one of de Bono's thinking tools) was injected into the discussion, the problem was quickly resolved."

"It is a function of clarity of de Bono's approach that his thinking course works well with school children or executives."

Quite frankly, his tools work. They are practical, proven and often yield powerful results when applied.