Innovation and Optimism: Wodonga and Albury at Centre

Tomorrow (Wednesday) AWISE.World -The Albury-Wodonga Innovation Summit & EXPO – will welcome ‘That Optimism Man’ Victor Perton as opening keynote speaker and moderator of its innovation and optimism panel.

Victor Perton’s new book “Optimism: The How and Why” was released last week in paperback and Kindle to celebrate the launch of the Centre for Optimism.

With Australia falling behind in global innovation rankings, Perton’s argument is that innovation relies on optimism at its core. At its simplest, optimism is an expectation that good things will happen and that things will work out in the end.

Australia is caught up in a “fog of pessimism,” Perton argues. “While governments have imported the Silicon Valley and Israeli structures of start-up incubators and VC shark pitches, they haven’t focused on promoting the core culture of San Francisco and Israel – that is ‘Optimism.”

“Success entails lots of experiments, modification and change – new products and services aren’t perfect till they have been tested with customers and accepted the feedback of the customer.”

Capturing the essence of decades of research, Victor asks people “What makes you Optimistic?” He has asked that question of people from ditch-diggers in India to Presidents and Prime Ministers. He urges people to ask that of themselves, their friends and family.

“The best leaders are infectious optimists and lead their teams to discover greater optimism, resilience and self-mastery,” he says.

AWISE is run in conjunction with the Victorian Innovation Festival.

Victor Perton

/Public Release.