Celebrate Dr Edward de Bono

Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono (19 May 1933 – 10 June 2021)was a Maltese physician and commentator. He originated the term lateral thinking, and wrote many books on thinking, including Six Thinking Hats.
Educated at St. Edward’s College, Malta, he then gained a medical degree from the University of Malta. Following this, he proceeded as a Rhodes Scholar in 1955 to Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained an MA in psychology and physiology. He represented Oxford in polo and set two canoeing records. He then gained a PhD degree in medicine from Cambridge University.
De Bono held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard. He was a professor at the University of Malta, the University of Pretoria, the University of Central England (now called Birmingham City University) and Dublin City University. De Bono held the Da Vinci Professor of Thinking chair at the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Arizona, US. He was one of the 27 Ambassadors for the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009.
The originator of the term ‘Lateral Thinking’, de Bono wrote 85 books with translations into 46 languages. He taught his thinking methods to government agencies, corporate clients, organizations and individuals, privately or publicly in group sessions. He promoted the World Center for New Thinking (2004–2011), based in Malta, which applied Thinking Tools to solution and policy design on the geopolitical level. His book The Use of Lateral Thinking (1967) was described as one of the 12 most influential books since World War II by The Sunday Times.
Starting on Wednesday 8 September 1982, the BBC ran a series of 10 weekly programmes entitled de Bono’s Thinking Course. In the shows, he explained how thinking skills could be improved by attention and practice. In 1995, he created a futuristic documentary film, 2040: Possibilities by Edward de Bono, depicting a lecture to an audience of viewers released from a cryogenic freeze for contemporary society in the year 2040.
Convinced that a key way forward for humanity is a better language, he published The Edward de Bono Code Book in 2000.
This session is to talk about his work

Start: 16 April 2026

End: 16 April 2026