“A necessary condition for creativity is to let the mind wander unfettered by the rigidities of accepted knowledge or conventional rules.” 

——C.R. Rao

X-idea workshop is supposed to be a major event on INASCON 2019. In this workshop, participants including students and experts will team up into several groups based on their interests on specific “grand challenge” topics. A list of candidate topics will be shared online before the conference, so that all participants can dive into them and choose their favorite topic in advance. During the workshop, senior researchers and students will work intensively on generating creative ideas that may bring cutting-edge progresses on the topic, and eventually co-develop these ideas into promising research proposals for cooperative research or innovation projects in the future.

X stands for the unknown. We believe that every leading scholar has met puzzles so challenging that he or she hesitates to report in traditional conferences or assign to his or her PhDs. We hope to offer them a platform to discuss the puzzles with students of various backgrounds. Because of their “innocence”, the students may not be limited by existing knowledge and may raise some amazing ideas. 

X also stands for cross-disciplines. We believe that students with different background knowledge could view the same problem from different perspectives. When they work together, it will be possible for them to raise innovative ideas that have never been thought of.

The challenges are proposed by invited scholars and will be put on a specially designed website for "X-Idea"(http://www.teep-cloud.com). The scholars will upload books and articles concerning the challenges on the website. All the participants can download these materials and make comments. These materials will provide a very basic background for students to join the discussion during the conference.

To ensure the quality of discussion, participants will be divided into several groups according to the challenges they are interested in. All participants could choose only one challenge on the "X-Idea" website and join the group accordingly. Notice, there will be a maximum number of members of each group. During the workshop, only group members could follow the discussion on the chosen challenge.

We strongly encourage participants to read the recommended materials and think about the challenge beforehand. The more you prepare, the more likely you will get some amazing ideas during the conference. Participants could share their thoughts with each other even before the conference on the website. We also set the prize for the active participants in the process.

The "X-Idea" workshop consists of four parts:

General Introduction (July 15th, afternoon): 

Invited scholars will briefly introduce the challenges to all participants. (10-15 minutes for each challenge)

Session One (July 16th, morning): Literature Review and Brainstorming

First, scholars will introduce the challenges thoroughly and participants will focus on previous works concerning the challenges. Then, students will brainstorm ideas about the challenges through designed activities. Their ideas may be naïve and even ridiculous, but they should keep trying. 

Session Two (July 17th, afternoon): Summarizing and Deeper analysis

After the long brainstorming process, participants will gather their ideas and choose the most creative and the most feasible ones. They will try to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the ideas.After that, they will prepare for the final presentation. 

Final Presentation (July 18th, morning): 

Different groups will present their ideas in the conference and the most creative ideas will be awarded.