Ace Christian F. Serraon, a member of the Laboratory of Electrochemical Engineering (LEE), attended the TRIZfest-2018 held last September 13-15, 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal. He attended workshops on the use of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) for patent circumvention strategies, as well as Creative Imagination Development (CID). In addition, he has also participated in plenary sessions with talks held by representatives from companies such as Vivo, Samsung and GE. These companies have teams practicing TRIZ within their operations.
TRIZ, or the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, is a way to solve and define problems which was developed in 1946 by Genrich Altshuller in the then-Soviet Union. The method was developed by studying patents and determining from there innovative solutions to problems. This method allows for a structured approach to solving problems which is key in developing new ways of solving emergent problems particularly for technical system. In particular, a key concept for TRIZ is looking at contradictions and resolving them instead of doing a trade-off.