The Creativity Forum is an initiative of Flanders District of Creativity, or Flanders DC, a government agency founded in 2006 that works to stimulate business and entrepreneurial creativity in Flanders. In other words, "preparing Flanders for the creative, innovation-driven economy. Cross pollination between traditional and creative sectors; making the former more creative and the latter more entrepreneurial," says Koen Peeters, communications manager of Flanders DC.

Previous editions of the event have featured speakers like John Cleese, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Wired magazine's Chris Anderson. This year, all the speakers are female. "We used the financial crisis as inspiration," explains Peeters. "We've all heard it said: if there had been more female thinking at the top, the crisis might have been less severe. We want to spotlight the more right- brained, holistic, long-term thinking of women, giving it a platform to show us innovative ways of looking at securing our future."

Among the nine speakers are four inspirational Belgian women, including Dorien Aerts, online communication consultant for anaXis software; Diane Nijs, developer of the "imagineering" concept - researching the value of imagination in business - and director of the Imagineering Academy in Breda, the Netherlands; sister Jeanne Devos, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for her work on behalf of domestic workers in India; and Marleen Temmerman (shown above), the Ghent-based professor, gynaecologist, politician and recent nominee to head the United Nation's newly formed UN Women agency.

Temmerman is a self-proclaimed duizendpoot (centipede). "It's a pity there are only 24 hours in a day," she says to me with a perfectly straight face. She sleeps an average of six hours per night and starts her day at 7.00, looking after patients, delivering babies, giving lectures and attending senate meetings. She also regularly ferries between Belgium and Africa, a continent to which she lost her heart while living in Kenya in the mid-1980s. She now heads the non-profit International Centre for Reproductive Health, with headquarters at Ghent University.

"I'm always curious to look over the wall at what the others are doing," she says in regards to her participation in the Creativity Forum. "You can learn so much by looking at worlds other than your own. We can find lots of theoretical knowledge in books, but we can never learn as fast or in as much depth as we do when sharing experiences across industry boundaries. Children always ask: why? They are insatiably curious about everything around them. I am still driven by that same desire. I want to know why something is a certain way and what mechanisms drive its workings."

Temmerman not only wants to change the world, she puts change in motion. The next questions after "why", she says, is "how". "How can we change things? How can we best achieve what we want to achieve? Finding the answers requires a mind that is open to new ways of thinking and creating - that is how I define creativity."

Temmerman's presentation will be about what the Flemish need to do to put themselves on the world map. "It's known that the Flemish are hard workers, great organisers and have a broad vision of the world. We are able to develop great products - be it chocolate, cheese or academic programmes, yet when it comes to promoting them, we all too often push ourselves off the first row."

Temmerman says that women's social roles lead to creative thinking. "We have to learn to multi-task and combine a million priorities if we do all the things we want to in life. Women are always looking for solutions, and that takes plenty of creative thinking."

Creativity Forum
21 October, 8.30-20.00
Waagnatie Rijnkaai 150, Antwerp
www.flandersdc.be