16. STEAM: Powering the Digital Revolution

As the digital revolution continues to drive the world’s evolution in the ‘Information Age’, it is generally accepted that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills will be crucial for humanity to be able to tackle many of the grand challenges that lie ahead and for enabling the kind of innovation the world’s economies require to grow. However it is now being questioned as to whether this somewhat singular focus on STEM skills alone, at the expense of a diminishing focus on the more creatively centred arts subjects, will deliver the many needs of a resource-stretched world. This chapter argues that the time is right to promote the concept of STEAM where the more traditional arts and humanities subjects are blended with the STEM. It reflects on the lessons from history by looking at some of the world’s greatest innovators who were practitioners of STEAM and whose many breakthroughs were enabled by a combination of the creative and innovative processes. It goes on to describe how diversity in the workplace, which is an accepted catalyst for business improvements, can be optimised by the application of a STEAM agenda by enterprises.