Young entrepreneur Regina Kgatle grew up in Hammanskraal in Gauteng, where she was surrounded by entrepreneurs: her parents and grandparents own and operate arcade games machines in township areas. Today, she has combined her familiarity with the machines, her Engineering degree, and her passion for education into a smart business concept: Educade, an educational arcade machine loaded with games that support the primary school curriculum. 

“There is a lot of a play-and-learn culture in how people engage with arcades,” says Regina. “Also, I loved them because they're accessible, and you can take them anywhere. For example, we took some to Makapanstad village early in our journey, where some households still have no smart phones and have limited access to internet. Because of how we package our games in consoles, it makes people want to try it out. Mostly, individuals will request to play even before we ask if they'd like to play - I am trying to build products that speak for themselves.”

Regina believes that what makes Educade stand out, is that it is specifically aimed at South African children, caters for youngsters from various backgrounds, and is designed around the South African curriculum. Regina and her team turned the love of youngsters for mobile phones and gaming into a positive.

“I also get a lot of pleasure seeing that children enjoy my games, and voluntarily want to continue playing,” she says.  Most importantly, she is happy that the embedded educational concepts relating to maths, life orientation and educational content in their games are getting through to the children.

“We are ultimately getting the underlying educational concepts through to them.”

She is particularly encouraged by the reaction of educators when they first encounter an Educade console. “It is always pleasing to see the educators catching on to our vision without much persuasion. I initially thought there would be a big need to teach educators, but they simply ‘get it’ and share in the vision.”

Because users of the arcade consoles are now asking for a mobile phone version, she is now also looking into taking the concept to smartphone platforms: “I feel like Educade has organically grown to a point where we a significant input in the mobile gaming space,” she says.
 

As for a larger roll-out, Regina says they have been approached by a large network provider. Current plans include roll-outs in cooperation with the Western Cape Government, UCT SHAWCO, and a project in partnership with the Cape Town Mayor's office. They are also working with the City of Johannesburg.

“I'm very agile in my approach, so the mass roll-out might even come from something we can't project at the moment. Things turn around very quickly in this industry – just think of something like Pokemon Go.

“Alongside our main project, we are also aiming to host a number of long-form game jams with a next generation of game makers to foster mentorship and knowledge sharing around STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) literacies. We argue that games can aid in demystifying technical systems. These sessions will be hosted in underrepresented areas to cultivate skill development centres and move the centre of the production of these games to South Africa over the coming years,” says Regina. "There is so much that is still coming, and I'm all excited for the impact we hope to have!”

Finally, she has some advice to other young people with creative, innovative ideas about how to take their ideas into reality and to become innovative entrepreneurs: “Research, but also DO.” She adds there are “tools all over the internet that help you research and do, and there are many people on social media who can also help through their blogs, tweets and websites.”

Stay updated on their plans at Facebook (67gamesSA or Educade) as well as Twitter (@67gamesSA), and their the 67games.org blog or website at http://educade.co.za/

“The most innovative people and businesses who are going to perform best in this competitive world are those who aren’t afraid,” so says Claire Jowell, a marketing and business consultant for social enterprises, speaking at the Design Human Capital Forum convened by CCDI at Open Design.

This August the DHCF took place as part of the Open Design Festival at City Hall, with the theme: ‘What are the core design-related skills needed by industry to drive innovation?’

The three speakers - Rael Futerman (UCT d-school); Cor Shutte (independent consultant); and Claire shared their ideas on what they consider to be the critical design-related skills for success in the rapidly changing 21^st century workplace. 

In his presentation, Rael focused the four aspects that make up a design-thinking mindset. These are:

• Adopting a more human-centric approach - moving away from designing and marketing a product to engaging with people and discovering their needs and aspirations

• Having a ‘discovery-driven mindset’ and shifting from problem-solving to problem-finding - moving from trying to solve the problem at hand to adopting the more expansive approach of exploring the issues that gave rise to the problem

• Being able to take into consideration the different perspectives and suggestions in diverse teams and combining them to frame a challenge that addresses people’s needs and aspirations

• Being able to create new knowledge and grounding it in creative ways

In her talk, Claire drew on the World Economic Forum 2016 Jobs Report which identified creativity, critical thinking and complex problem solving to be the top three skills that will be needed in business by 2020. Other core skills she touched on were the ability to observe and try to understand the context of a problem, the willingness to experiment and not be afraid of failure.

Cor Shutte outline four core skills as being able to accurately capture a client’s brief; the ability to make complex things simple; being able to extract hidden value in challenging projects and situations; and the ability to remove one’s biases and understand what is really valuable in the customer-centric environment.

The Design Human Capital Forum (DHCF) is a quarterly meeting of design educators, government and industry to address issues and opportunities in design education. It is one of the activities of the CCDI’s Design Support programme which focuses on design education and developing the design education pipeline.

Watch the videos of the talks here:

           

We recently chatted to Anne-Marie Hanna, a video producer and content manager who is currently completing her MPhil in Inclusive Innovation at the UCT Graduate School of Business. Anne, who currently works with the Design Thinkers Academy, has a passion for social innovation and the developing world and spent the bulk of 2015 exploring her interest around how alternative narrative frameworks and story creation processes can inform innovation.

What is your understanding of Human-Centred Design?

It is my understanding that Human-Centred Design is still fairly new in terms of how it is understood and how well known it is in the mainstream. It is more practice based, than theory based, and in that way it has not fully pollinated as a standard and accepted design practice. Human-Centred Design is the practice of design, whereby the end ‘user’ of a product, process or service is placed at the very heart of the 'design process'. The intention is to deconstruct power in the design process – the consumer becomes the ‘expert’, and the designer becomes responsible for ‘translating’ real needs.

It places a lot of focus and importance on the ‘voice' of the people or person who is being designed for and relies on interviews, observations and interaction with those who will be impacted by the outcome of the process. It is shifting processes from ‘designing for’ to  ‘designing with’ and in theory replacing the act of  ‘interpreting’ what people need with really ‘understanding’ what they need – by asking them first. This approach is becoming increasingly more important, in order to find solutions that are relevant, sustainable and suitable for the context in which it is being applied.

Where do you see a gap when designing with people?

For a truly human-centred approach to take place, it requires the designer to really hold the space for end users to be the ‘experts’, and to facilitate a process whereby they feel comfortable enough to share their honest feelings, fears, thoughts and needs. I think that it is very seldom that enough attention is paid to truly understanding how to authentically achieve this. Creating a space where ‘deep truths’ can surface is challenging for everyone involved.

Why is deep listening a challenge?

This is not only difficult because it requires the designer to understand him/herself in an entirely new way, seeing things completely free of any bias or assumptions of their own, but also because it requires the people who are part of the process to really know themselves. They are required to identify their needs, and to be able to communicate that. It bridges the gap between being passive recipients of imposed design-solutions, and having agency and ownership over their own story.

This is a challenge for two reasons. Firstly, it asks the ‘user’ to communicate what their real fears, thoughts, opinions, needs and desires are, and for the designer to understand and translate those accurately. Secondly, it means that before they can share these needs and desires, the users need to identify what they really think and feel, and that is not always easy. In fact, that is the hardest part.

Do we have real ‘agency’ over our own stories?

Globally, we are a culture of consumers who have become so used to being told what we ‘want’ or ‘need’, and we adopt those stories as our own. We are also consistently exposed to the same stories or types of stories in various contexts, and in framing our own stories we do so by adopting the same stories we have come to associate with certain contexts, perpetuating realities without questioning them. They become ‘fixed’ narratives. For example, we understand that when it comes to sexy brands and products we ‘advertise’ and when it comes to social causes we ‘raise awareness’.

When it comes to commercial products or ideas we ask for ‘investment’ and when it comes to social good we ask for ‘donations’. We frame our stories within certain environments the way we have come to understand those environments and in doing so we powerfully influence the systems that govern our reality.

Additionally, the strains and stresses of everyday life leave very little space for us to really connect with what it is that we truly feel, fear, think, want, or need. Whether we are sleep-deprived mothers, burnt out business owners or confused youth with too many choices, it can be challenging to separate ourselves from the ‘fixed stories’ we have come to claim as our own and truly create the space and time to connect with what our deepest needs and desires truly are. Consequently, we often have no real ‘agency’ over our own stories. In the context of social innovation where the design process is about addressing challenges like poverty and resource scarcity, the people at the heart of that process operate in survival mode. Being asked to identify what they really want and need, let alone communicate it, is often something they have not experienced before.

Is there a need for mindfulness in the process?

Human-Centred Design practitioners understand their research phase to be rooted in ‘deep listening’, in being ‘empathetic’ towards the people who share their stories with them, and to be ‘mindful’ as they immerse themselves into the various contexts – making sure to see and experience things without judgement or bias. What comes from these insights are what shape the stories they use to inform prototyping and iteration phases in Human-Centred Design. However, in order for them to imagine truly new systems, products and services, it is critical that the practitioners are not limited to being informed by insights that are rooted in ‘fixed stories’, locked in the experience of existing systems.

Is there a place for storytelling when innovating?

Absolutely. I believe it to be the heart of innovation. I believe it is essential that we gain a deeper understanding of how we might regain a sense of true agency over the stories we tell. In learning how to create the space for deep truths to emerge, from a place that is authentic and meaningful for those who are part of the process, we will truly innovate.

How can a service design approach help local textile artisans create a sustainable future? Francesco Mazzarella, PhD Researcher at Loughborough Design School (UK) and CPUT (SA), was in Cape Town recently to explore some solutions through engagement with local artisans. He believes that the current economic and environmental crisis is building momentum for designers to challenge the linear “take-make-dispose” model and explore sustainable strategies, services and systems.

Tell us about your research

My service design approach intends to encourage textile artisans to become a sustainable community, co-design collaborative services and scale up innovations from within an enabling ecosystem. As part of my PhD journey, from April to June 2016, I embarked in a new experience in Cape Town. Armed with the intention to map the current state of the art of the textile artisanal sector in Cape Town, I conducted a Participatory Action Research project to co-design a strategy that could boost local sustainable development.

A scoping activity with diverse stakeholders (i.e. artisans, support organisations, educators, retailers, consumers) allowed me to discover that Cape Town used to be a textile-manufacturing cluster, but in the last decades most production has been outsourced due to economic issues, and not many fabric manufacturers are active locally. Therefore, contemporary textile artisans struggle to find new supplies for their collections.

On the other hand, this challenge has become a driver for starting up businesses around (screen or block) printing on available base cloth in order to differentiate products over local as well as overseas competitors. This challenge has thus opened up the opportunity for local artisanal textiles, used both for homeware and apparel, leveraging an abundance of local design talent.

A storytelling study was conducted as initial discovery phase of my research process, followed by brainstorming around the artisans’ visions for a sustainable future, and co-creation of a strategy and service, leading to the proposition of local textile artisanship. Throughout my research journey in Cape Town, I have collaborated with a group of eight artisanal businesses using printing techniques to locally make small batches of textile and fashion products (i.e. Bbellamy & Bbellamy, Fabricnation, Indigi Designs, Lichen & Leaf, Shine Shine, Skinny LaMinx, Township, TryAnglez).

What are some of the challenges for the textile artisanal sector in Cape Town?

Through my research project, it emerged that the main issue for textile artisans in Cape Town is finding local fabric manufacturers, as well as skilled CMT teams (i.e. Cut Make & Trim), because this information is held by competitive business mindsets. The artisans have also discussed the closure of craft colleges leading to the disappearance of heritage crafts and the difficulty in finding skilled people.

Some of the key challenges for Cape Town textile artisans:

What are some of the solutions developed through the co-design process with artisans to help the sector towards a sustainable future?

A middle-up-down platform for sharing was co-designed, grounded on trust relationships, to sustain local textile artisans to organically flourish, locally and beyond. We expressed the need to co-design an open access offline forum and offline platform for sharing information about manufacturers, CMTs, retailers, support organisations, etc.

Future direction outlined by Cape Town textile artisans:

At the core of the system we placed the textile artisans, joined together as “Weaving the Threads”.

To move things forward, we outlined the need to gather informed consents (e.g. under the Creative Commons open licence) and inclusively share contacts. This would constitute the basis for setting up an open database of – classified and archived – information throughout the textiles supply chain (covering the supply of fibres, yarns, fabrics, dyes, manufacturers, printers, CMTs, fringe sectors, retailers, trade shows, support organisations, and other potential employees) to be accessible online (e.g. via a website and an app) and delivered through print-outs at meetings. To manage the database, we discussed the need to hire an admin person, potentially through an apprenticeship programme created with CPUT. Besides the database as a passive source of information, the artisans suggested to set up a collective blog to actively showcase their profiles.

Beyond its online dimension, the service was designed to have also physical touchpoints, such as quarterly meetings – to be held at the artisans’ studios, opened in turns – for sharing experiences and curating upcoming events. For example, a collective exhibition and sales event was suggested to be jointly curated, yet allowing the artisans to set their own individual stands. The artisans identified also the need for sharing a salesperson at international trade shows to enrich the database. Finally, together with the launch of an activism campaign on social media to engage a wider audience around the “Weaving The Threads” collective, we have also proposed to set an annual committee meeting to gather feedback and revise the strategy and action plan.

The model proposed was that of a non-for-profit organisation benefiting not individual businesses but the artisans’ collective as a whole, in the long term. We have envisaged that the service would benefit the proactive and self-sustainable collective of textile artisans, in partnership with CCDI and CPUT. The cost of delivery – still to be assessed – could be covered through crowdfunding as well as corporate and governmental grants, while the surplus would have been re-invested in the organisation of collective trade shows.

Finally, we have co-designed a manifesto as a value anchor for the artisans to gather together as a collective, leveraging a call for responsibility, trust, relationship, collaboration, openness, diversity, inclusivity, meaning, mindfulness, and self-sustainment.

At the end of the process, stakeholders came together at the conversation “Weaving the Threads of Cape Town Artisanal Fabric”. This session served as a prototype of a forum for sharing information and setting the strategy for the sustainability of the collaborative service. This conversation has opened up a platform for expression of insights and concerns, which has been followed up through the use of social media, making interesting topics emerge. This online communication is enabling posting requests for mutual support, as well as keeping each other up-to-date regarding the latest events for the community to participate.

My research project has envisaged that addressing social challenges within the local textile supply chain would lead to nurturing a sense of responsibility and agency. We believe that joining the efforts to build a collaborative system would open up local alternatives in terms of job creation, enhanced environmental sustainability and revitalised craft heritage. We wish this is just the beginning of a collective action for crafting a sustainable future for the Cape Town artisanal fabric.

If you want to know more about this project, check out the short video by Faisal Oluwole, student at CPUT here

More about Francesco:

Francesco describes himself as a systemic thinker with a pro-active and curious mindset, shaping his role as a service designer activating social innovation and holistic sustainability. Originally from Italy, he lived and worked (as design researcher, teaching assistant and practitioner) in Italy, the Netherlands, Brazil, Hungary, the UK, and most recently in South Africa. After a BSc in Industrial Design and an MSc in Ecodesign, both awarded from the Politecnico di Torino (in Italy), in 2014 he moved to the UK to pursue a full time PhD at Loughborough Design School, funded by the AHRC Design Star CDT. Email: F.Mazzarella@lboro.ac.uk

Curious about the Steve Jobs factor? Ever thought of creating a super hero from a roller skate, breaking apart a toaster to see how it was designed or inventing your own computer game? Imagine no further. Tthese experiences and a host of other innovations that address everyday challenges and how design and innovation can change lives will come to life at Open Design Cape Town 2016, which takes place from 10 to 21 August at Cape Town City Hall and across the city.

Now in its fourth year, Open Design 2016 is a 12-day citywide festival of talks, exhibitions, workshops, tours, activations and interactive experiences that explore how design links the building blocks of a sustainable, inclusive society: through innovation, community building and education.

With over 140 mostly free events on the programme, and collaborations with global and local brands, Open Design 2016 brings design and innovation to life.

Its key features are Talk100 discussion sessions, which cover topics such as our readiness for the fourth industrial revolution and inspiring a new generation of change makers to build better communities; an Innovation Summit where a panel of local and international thought leaders will guide a discussion on “Creating a City of Opportunity for All”; educational events, such as the Designing Careers High School Programme; and Dine with Khayelitsha, a platform to bridge the gap between the different cultures living in urban centres and township communities.

Open Design creative director Y. Tsai explains: “Design is no longer the exclusive domain of the privileged elite. It touches every part of life, addressing basic human needs in multiple applications across every sector that make up our social fabric. It has been used to transform healthcare, business, transport, urban development, agriculture, education, housing, technology, music, public spaces, communication and technology ‒ among others. This approach, called human-centred design, is gaining a global focus for competitive business and socio-economic development.”

The festival takes place in two stages, with events, expos and workshops at Cape Town City Hall from 10-16 August and citywide activations from 17-21 August.

Key features of events in the City Hall hub between 10 and 16 August include:

• The annual Talk100 sessions which pose key questions such as – What qualities do we need in future business leaders and social entrepreneurs? Are we ready for the fourth industrial revolution? What does it take to build a community? Is health the new wealth for our cities? What are the latest tech experiences and how do they impact us? (Thursday 11 August)

• The Designing Careers High School Programme featuring presentations by top tertiary design schools on design-related study and career options; meet, greet and learn from an iconic South African designer and other activities to enable learners to appreciate the value and impact of design in everyday life.

• The One Stop Design Shop exhibition showcasing the top tertiary design schools which runs for the duration of the festival (11 – 19 August), as well as the Open Day workshops and talks. (Saturday 13 August)

• Opportunities to test the latest tech crazes, including augmented reality and gaming, virtual reality and 3D scanner demonstrations and experiences, which run between Thursday 11 and Tuesday 16 August; and a 24-hour game jam where you can witness game development students hone their craft (Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 August).

• Take a journey with The Better Living Challenge exhibition towards design-led innovation for low-income housing. (Thursday 11 to Tuesday 16 August)

• Open Design Movie Nights screened at the Labia Theater which will raise thought-provoking issues ranging from the impact of the clothing industry in “The True Cost” (Friday 12 August) to the African Premier of the first full feature on crowd funding,  “Capital C” presented by Thundafund”(Thursday 11)

   

  Citywide events between 17 and 21 August include:

   

• Dine with Khayelitsha in which township households host local and internationalguests over conversational dinners that facilitate interaction on themes ranging from social issues to innovation, leadership, entrepreneurship and sustainability. (Friday 19 August)

• The Architecture Open Studios, in partnership with Cape Institute for Architecture. The general public will have a rare opportunity to view the creative spaces of some of the leading architectural practices in Cape Town. (Wednesday 17 August)

• Design Garage, a showroom space hosted by Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). The new Design Garage showroom and shop supports emerging designers by showcasing and selling their fashion, textiles, graphics, jewellery and other industrial design products. The initiative sources products from students and alumni of the university’s design programmes. (Wednesday 17 August)

   

  Festival partners include the City of Cape Town, the National Department of Arts and Culture, the Cape Craft and Design Institute, Red Bull Amaphiko, #cocreateSA and Cape Town Tourism, among others.

   

  “Open Design Cape Town opens up unique opportunities in the design sector for many talented and creative young people,” says Councillor Garreth Bloor, the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Economic Development. ”Part of the City’s strategy is to ensure that events are inclusive and that we provide opportunities. Open Design also serves to counter seasonality which is experienced during the colder winter months and to entrench Cape Town’s position as a year-round, value-for-money events destination.

   

  “The City of Cape Town is proud to be a sponsor of this event and we would like to encourage creative minded people to attend the many free events.”

   

  Open Design is open to everyone, whether they are new to design or already see design and innovation as critical to designing a better future world. While some festival events are ticketed, most events are free to attend. External event hosts can submit their own events on the

  Open Design website www.opendesignct.com and apply to be included in the 2016 online programme.

   

  For more information and a full festival programme log onto

  www.opendesignct.com or follow @OpenDesignct on Twitter, Opendesignct on Instagram and Opendesignct  on Facebook.  The official hashtag is #ODCT2016.

An initiative of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s (CPUT) design department, the Design Garage will have its launch on 17 August, during the Open Design Festival this year.

The Design Garage is a business and retail space where emerging designers can showcase and sell their products. The showroom will display products from fashion, textiles, jewellery, graphics and industrial design disciplines, and the space has also been created to allow multi-disciplinary products and projects to be shown.

The Design Garage originated to provide a platform for design students to bridge the challenge they face between final prototyping and small-scale production, and entering the market. During the start-up phase, CPUT alumni and other emerging designers are encouraged to use the space to commercialise their products.

Located on busy Roeland Street, the Design Garage falls within Cape Town’s design precinct and will serve as a nodal point to bring young designers and potential clients, retailers and mass product producers together. Products will be for sale during the day, while the in-house coffee shop facing Roeland Street will provide a dynamic space where the public and students can interact.

In addition to its retail function, the space has been designed to accommodate shows, exhibitions and special events such as seminars, mini-conferences and film screenings. This supports the goal of the Design Garage in becoming a flexible multi-disciplinary design space.

Planning is also underway for a second stage to the project, which may include business incubation spaces for emerging designers, and a clean production lab for short-run manufacturing.

The Design Garage will be officially opened on Wednesday, 17 August at 18h00, at 80 Roeland Street.

Any queries or expressions of interest in renting the space or selling product can be directed to the Design Garage manager, Pieter Cilliers, on cilliersp@cput.ac.za.

A leading Human Centred Design (HCD) and customer-centricity consultancy on the African continent, Future by Design, has produced an HCD Toolkit that’s especially appropriate for an African context, and intended for application where rapid results are needed.

Drawing on local narrative, symbolism, social norms and visual cues, they have packaged the process in an easy to use format that they hope will encourage more businesses and designers to get to know their market and unique context.

According to Iain Bryant and Ulrich Meyer-Hoellings of Future by Design, within most companies teams do not have days or weeks to spend workshopping new products or services. 

“Our unique process brings senior client teams and customers face to face to repeatedly deliver actionable prototypes within two days using a full Design Thinking process based on our myHCD Toolkit,” say the pair.

“This myHCD method incorporates the user or customer as an active participant in every step of the design process. Our approach is adept in designing products and services for first world applications, yet our Afro-centric approach is equally relevant in designing solutions for the bottom of the pyramid in some hard to reach places.”

Iain and Ulrich add that there is a vast amount of money invested into Africa by US-based donors like the World Bank and large NGO’s into solving complex innovation challenges in healthcare, financial inclusion or agriculture.

While there are a few well known Western toolkits used as the main playbooks for human-centred design efforts across many emerging markets, the pair saw the need for a home-grown response to some of the challenges in applying these toolkits to wicked problems encountered on the African continent.

“Solutions from the existing Western toolkits are often not geared to our unique local contexts and practices, which may help to explain why so few HCD projects have achieved sustainable scale and traction beyond the ‘seed stage’ intervention by foreign expert teams.”

In their effort to address this, they partnered with the likes of Mugendi M’Rithaa (President, World Design Association), Janine Johnston (The Shift) and Emma Dicks (Innovate SA) to incorporate different perspectives to inclusive innovation.

The toolkit was designed to embrace the natural propensity in African contexts towards collaborative practices, and also incorporates the context-specificity and nuances of the rich tapestry of cultures, languages and designerly ways of being, knowing and doing.

“The interesting result is that the HCD Africa Toolkit has proved itself equally at home in the boardrooms of Sandton and the dusty roads of rural Africa,” they add.

For more visit: http://futurebydesign.co.za/myhcd/

This month we caught up with Social Fabric SA, a project that believes that the collective creativity of South Africans – designers, artists, makers and thinkers – can pull together to breathe new life into an industry worth re-building. Find out how they are creating a network of thinkers, artists, designers, tertiary institutions and textile manufacturers who are open to collaboration. Through this network they hope to inspire more curiosity around local textiles, cross pollination of ideas and in turn, more commercially viable products that will eventually lead to the creation of sustainable jobs for more South Africans. 

What is Social Fabric SA?

Social Fabric SA is a project bringing together artists, designers and South African textile manufacturers to collaborate and start re-building the embattled textile industry through the development of a design-led innovation pipeline. 

How does the Social Fabric SA project work? 

Textile Host: Identify a key South African textile and invite a local manufacturer of that textile to host an artist-in-residence. 

Artist in Residence: An artist is invited to work at a textile manufacturer as artist-in-residence. Their role is to observe, research and react to the material and its manufacturing process; and to work with the manufacturer’s team to experiment with new techniques for making. This is specifically an open-ended process where the artist may end up making a complete artwork(s) or concepts, sketches and experiments. For the first three projects we worked with Paul Edmunds, Liza Grobler and Pierre Fouché and the artist for our final project is Igshaan Adams.

Workshop: We invite a cross-disciplinary group to play and experiment with the textile. The outcomes from the artist-in-residence are presented to the group and we use a collaborative, creative approach to inspire them to investigate new avenues with the textile and to come up with fresh new ways to use it. 

This process is repeated with four different textile hosts. We have already completed three projects: felt with Krafthaus, mohair with SAMIL and socks and yarns with FALKE and the final project will be around textile off-cuts using a selection of waste materials from a variety of manufacturers. So far we have worked with CPUT’s fashion department, NMMU’s fashion design and architecture departments and Stellenbosch University’s Visual Communication Design department.

The DOEN Foundation is generously supporting four such artist-in-residences and the follow-up workshops.  

How is this project valuable to the South African textile industry?

We asked the questions: can African-led creativity help develop a competitive market and can  producers of domestic materials support a design-led innovation pipeline? It is the aim of the Social Fabric SA project to initiate a framework to answer these questions.    

Our aim is to create a network of thinkers, artists, designers, tertiary institutions and textile manufacturers who are open to collaboration. Through this network we hope to inspire more curiosity around local textiles, cross pollination of ideas and in turn, more commercially viable products that will eventually lead to the creation of sustainable jobs for more South Africans. 

We are already starting to see the way in which the threads of this project are weaving their way through the textile industry. The changes have been felt through the different levels of the project:  from one artist who until now has worked only with his hands starting to appreciate the value and beauty of a machine-made textile object; to one of our textile manufacturers testing new products inspired by the artist-in-residence and workshop participants embarking on commercial collaborations after meeting at one of our workshops.

What insight have you gained into the role of creativity from working on this project?

Making the time to think creatively, to experiment and play is an essential part of product development and a part often neglected when time and budgets are tight. A part of the mandate of Social Fabric is to demonstrate the value in setting aside that time for thinking differently and to show how creativity has the potential to bring to life the very ideas that could create the innovative edge to uplift a company or an industry. One of Social Fabric’s main focus areas is around material exposure – getting real South African textiles in front of the right people and creating a space for design to happen in a playful way.

Our project aims to weave a social network around textiles, getting different players in the industry to start to talk and work together. One of the main take-aways for a participant in our Mohair workshop was the benefit of cross-industry collaboration. She had this to say: “What I found inspiring was how connecting people from different disciplines really stimulates creativity.”

In a broader sense this perception-change really embodies what Social Fabric is about; creativity is sparked when you start to employ a multi-disciplinary collaborative approach that strengthens our own knowledge bases, inspires new thinking and ultimately improves delivery in our own sectors.    

What are your plans for Social Fabric SA in the future?

At the end of the final textile project we will hold an exhibition to share the outcomes with as many people as possible and will also be publishing a 'how to' booklet to share our learnings.

The aim is to leave behind a road map for the textile industry, tertiary institutions, artists and designers to replicate and adapt the relevant aspects of Social Fabric SA for the benefit of the textile industry and potentially other industries as well.  

Whether you're a manufacturer, artist, and or designer, they welcome your questions, comments and feedback. To find out more about the project or just get in touch, please contact Winnie Sze and Helen Andrews on socialfabricsa@gmail.com

Following the very successful pilot event in August 2015 which drew 4500 attendees, the 2016 Cape Town Maker Faire will take place on Friday, 26, Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 August at the Cape Town Science Centre.

About 6 000 to 8 000 visitors are expected over the three days including school groups. Maker Faire is a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. Part science fair, part country fair, and part something entirely new, Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these “makers” come to the Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned.

The launch of Maker Faire in San Francisco in 2006 demonstrated the popularity of making and interest among legions of aspiring makers to participate in hands-on activities and learn new skills at the event. A record 215,000 people attended the two flagship Maker Faires in San Francisco and New York in 2014. A family-friendly event, 50% attend the event with children. 155 Maker Faires were produced around the world in 2015, showing significant growth in attendance and participation

Maker Faire is primarily designed to be forward-looking, showcasing makers who are exploring new forms and new technologies. But it’s not just for the novel in technical fields; Maker Faire features innovation and experimentation across the spectrum of science, engineering, art, performance and craft.

It’s a venue for makers to show examples of their work and interact with others about it. Many makers say they have no other place to share what they do. DIY (Do-It-Yourself) is often invisible in our communities, taking place in labs, incubators, shops, garages and on kitchen tables. It’s typically out of the spotlight of traditional art or science or craft events. Maker Faire makes visible these projects and ideas that we don't encounter every day.

For more info:

https://www.quicket.co.za/events/19151-the-cape-town-mini-maker-faire-2016/#/schedules

What ideas will shape the future of education in South Africa? A three-day study week, classes in a museum, no homework, performance-based pay for teachers?

For the second year, UCT Upstarts is driving a ‘student start-up nation’ – and this year, the programme has challenged students to focus their social entrepreneurial prowess on reinventing, reimagining, redesigning and rehumanising our education system.

Following last year’s successful debut programme that resulted in the launch of 12 student start-ups overnight at its signature Idea Auction, UCT Upstarts is again putting young South African social innovators on the map with its 12-week 24-hour social innovation curriculum and a brief to “Re-educate Education”.

UCT Upstarts is the Vice-Chancellor’s Social Innovation Challenge. It is a joint initiative between the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (a specialised unit at the UCT Graduate School of Business), Super Stage (a social innovation platform for students) and the Office of the Vice Chancellor at the University of Cape Town.

Sponsors and partners-in-kind include the Bertha Foundation, SAB Foundation, Red Bull Amaphiko, Pick n Pay and City Sightseeing (Hop-On Hop-Off Bus).

UCT Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price said: “UCT Upstarts is exactly the kind of initiative that the university is proud to support. As a research-focused institution, we are all about how things can be done differently and in a better way. It is encouraging to see the kind of impact that this initiative has had since being launched last year and we are looking forward to an even bigger and better project this year.”

Social entrepreneur Gina Levy, founder of Upstarts and Super Stage, said the initiative gives students a platform to effect positive change around them. "We are creating a new generation of ‘upstarts’ – students who are solving real world problems from campus – because we believe socially impactful business ideas are the most powerful form of protest.”

“And because opportunity is our currency, we’ve created a life-changing platform that gives students the chance to effect positive change on our continent,” said Levy.

For 12 weeks from April to September, students attend two lunchtime coaching/workshop sessions a week (Mindblowing Mondays and Thriving Thursdays) as ’passengers’ aboard a double-decker bus on UCT’s Upper Campus. The Upstarts’ Coach is the epicentre of social innovation, a 24-hour express bus journey from ‘Upstart to start-up’.

Their ‘drivers’ are inspiring and interactive coaches who deliver talk shops, workshops and do-shops aboard the bus, introducing students to a diverse network of change makers in their own right – and making this journey a trip to remember.

They include handpicked social entrepreneurs and industry leaders such as Gidon Novick (founder of Kulula.com who now heads up Lucid Ventures), ‘out the box’ educators such as Steven Sherman (Living Maths) and Mugendi K, M’Rithaa (President of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design – Icsid), trend specialist John Sanei, and Failure Club creator and venture capitalist Philip Kiracofe (Horizen Ventures Africa).

They share their personal stories, present counter-culture business methodologies, give practical and experimental workshops, and offer their time for one-on-one guidance.

The 45 like-minded students on the bus were selected after a self-motivating application process. They are passionate self-starters who come from a cross-section of disciplines, ages and backgrounds, and are now part of multifaceted teams of four to five members. They will potentially become future business partners collaborating on innovative solutions to vexing problems in our educational system, thereby becoming job creators instead of job seekers.

The UCT Upstarts ’bus route’ takes the students through a human-centred design process based on empathy and understanding, moving to a definition of the problem, followed by ideation, to prototyping, testing and iterating, and ultimately, pitching for support. This training is provided by the new Hasso Plattner Institute of Design Thinking at UCT (d-school).

Their ‘destination’ is the Idea Auction, where they will pitch their start-up ideas to an ‘audience of opportunity’. The Idea Auction is a live bidding event where hand-picked movers and shakers will crowd-bid their expertise, resources, networks, incubation spaces, travel opportunities, media exposure and ‘moola’ to launch their revolutionary start-up ideas into action.

Over R110 000 was raised on the floor at last year’s Idea Auction, with additional in-kind support to the approximate value of R500 000 generated too (coaching sessions, resources, office space, transport, camera crews, computers, building materials, expertise, network contacts).

Some of the 2015 start-ups included solutions such as rethinking food wastage (Re-Fresh), to revolutionising South Africa's traditional Stokvel system (Stokvella), a low-cost community-based security system for townships (Jonga), entrepreneurial courses for schoolkids (Reach), a mobile and outdoor art gallery (ReplicArt) and educational DIY furniture (classKIT).

For more visit:

http://uctupstarts.uct.ac.za

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UCTupstarts

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UCTupstarts

Instagram: http://instagram.com/uctupstarts/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/uctupstarts

“Creativity is a muscle to be flexed,” says Dillion Phiri, one of the founders of Creative Nestlings, an organisation that seeks to connect and empower young people across Africa. “But,” he continues, “many young people don’t feel they have permission to flex that muscle. They lack creative courage.”

This paralysis has led to the development of a new network of young African creative entrepreneurs, the Young African Creative Network. Phiri explains its importance: “Young people today are coming into their own. They feel free to do what they want, but the old systems make it difficult for them to access opportunities. They want to enter creative careers, but they’re excluded because businesses are not fully committed to diversity. Businesses would rather employ freelancers than create formal roles to support young people, preventing them from gaining the experience they need.”

The intention, says Phiri, is to empower young people across Africa and within the diaspora to make their own jobs and to build their own creative courage as they gather experience and entrepreneurial momentum.

In a traditional world that largely excludes them, this can be a lonely and isolated road. It is critical that they make connections with others. The network enables them to share knowledge, resources and work between them; and also access relatable, peer-generated content that can help people recognise their inherent creativity. This becomes a safe space for young entrepreneurs to grow and forge a creative career.

The network exists online and also offers a physical space at The Nest, a three-storey collaborative workspace in Longmarket Street, in Cape Town.

At the same time, brands are beginning to see the young creative generation as a route to new markets. Capturing the youth today is one way to secure lifelong brand supporters. To do so, brands need to know what that market wants. With that comes a need for deep research directly into their target markets.

The solution is the Creative Nestlings collaborative business model. The company offers research services for brands, agencies and government bodies to help understand the young African market. In exchange, the brands facilitate access to resources that can be used to develop the creative muscle of an emerging entrepreneurial generation.

“The collaborative model is a game-changer. It is not a sponsorship model; it’s an equal partnership between us and the brand. We have the young people. They have the resources. We harness both to build the continent together,” says Phiri.

A recent example is a collaboration between whisky brand, J&B Scotch Whisky, Diageo, Creative Nestlings and Independents United, which resulted in the The Hive Joburg , a community of creative entrepreneurs based in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Here, creatives can access shared resources and also build their own networks with like-minded, creative entrepreneurs to build their businesses. To date, 17 projects have been incubated in the space, spurring a diverse range of enterprises, from jewellery design to photography; app development to product design.

This initiative is just one example of how brands and communities can work together to build the continent’s creative muscle and empower a new generation of entrepreneurs.

For more information, contact Dillion Phiri at dillion@creativenestlings.com

For more about Creative Nestlings, see http://creativenestlings.com/

For more about The Hive Johannesburg, see http://www.thehivejohannesburg.com/

“To achieve resilience, equality, justice, true democracy, and ethical sustainability – we need design-revolutionaries,” says Marjorie Naidoo, Lecturer: Transdisciplinary Design for Transformation at the Sustainability Institute at the University of Stellenbosch – she tells us how transdisciplinary design is relevant to South African and global challenges of scarce resources, deteriorating eco-systems, climate change, inequality and poverty, and food-, water-, and political refugees. Find out more as she explains how design has an enormous power to shape our lives and the process of living.

What is Transdisciplinary Design for Transformation?

The topic of my Masters’ thesis – Exploring how Design could contribute to a Sustainable City - led me to focus on Transdisciplinary Design. 

My case-study was Cape Town, and the topic combined my interest in Design, Urbanism, Urbanisation, Sustainability, Ethics, and Political Economics. Viewing Cape Town through the lens of its own political history, historical design movements, characteristics that defined ‘Design Cities’ (a 2008 exhibition by the London Design Museum), and the current State of the City, Cape Town emerges as an unsustainable “designed city, with aspirations to be a design city” (Naidoo 2016).  

Viewing Cape Town as a whole (i.e. not just those parts attractive to investment and tourism), we find inequalities and separation resulting directly from design in all its expressions being employed in the service of political economics. Apartheid adopted Modernist planning to create a segregated city; neoliberal, free-market economics – now acknowledged to increase inequality (IMF June 2016) – thrives on the back of all the design forms which support Consumerism. With its plethora of shopping malls and lifestyle promotion, Cape Town’s design culture can be viewed as Consumerist, with 68% of design industry products/services being provided to the retail sector (Western Cape Provincial Government 2013). 

A transdisciplinary approach holds that nothing can be viewed in isolation – the way design is taught, practiced and promoted is not value-free, nor does it operate independently of the overarching urban, political and economic systems. The ideological approach behind the skills being taught needs to be made explicit. The systems that design and designers will serve need to be made visible. 

How is this topic relevant to the current South African context? 

Transdisciplinary design is relevant to South African and global challenges of scarce resources, deteriorating eco-systems, climate change, inequality and poverty, and food-, water-, and political refugees. 

Design has played a vital role in transforming citizens into Consumers. Cameron Tonkinwise (2015) holds that we are ‘designed beings’, touched directly by designed objects, messages and services – the way we live at home, the way we travel, the way we work, our values, our shopping patterns, our leisure time – all are shaped by interlinking networks of designed systems.  

The ‘freedom’ of Massive Choice in supermarkets and malls has resulted in Capitalism, Consumerism, and Democracy being linked, almost as synonyms. Concepts such as universal design, human-centred design, and design for sustainability form the ethos of very few businesses.   

We cannot grow production and economies on a finite planet forever – and even services and a knowledge-based economy result in material-use, if not in one’s own backyard, then on another continent. This is where Transformation becomes important – transformation from an unsustainable way of living on our planet, to a lifestyle that ensures a future for all. Socio-ethical sustainability must be balanced against environmental and economic sustainability, to ensure that goals of justice, ethics and efficiencies are met.  Given global urgencies, Bruno Latour (2008) maintains that “EVERYTHING needs to be re-designed”.  

But nothing is that simple – a hotly-contesting urban development presents massive business (and design) opportunities; neoliberalism, while exacerbating the rich-poor divide, provides ample production, promotion, marketing, and ‘ego’ opportunities of ‘stuff’ – and impressive GDP numbers.

How do you feel design education needs to shift to foster the skills needed for transdisciplinary design?

With enormous power to shape lives and the process of living, design should be included as an Actor in complexity and systems modelling, alongside economics, politics, ethics, urbanism and urbanisation, sustainability, sociology, technology, and financial systems.  

I think Eliel Saarinen’s view of “always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context” fits well with a transdisciplinary approach: the design of an object, message, or service should be considered within the room in which it will be used;  and the room within the building;  and the building within the neighbourhood;  and the neighbourhood within the stocks and flows of the city;  and the city within the economic, environmental and social systems – and limitations – that operate within and around it; and so ever-larger to encompass one’s citizenship in the global village. We need a broad view and wide knowledge to contribute wisely to this complex, connected world.

But it is not only the supply-side of design skills that needs to shift; it is also the demand-side, from clients who give designers their brief. If now “Everybody designs” (Manzini 2015), we all have a responsibility to demand solutions that speak to environmental, social and economic sustainability.  The course that I offer at SUN’s Sustainability Institute is geared to post-graduate students in transdisciplinarity, from many specialities, to enable them to make more responsible use of designers and design skills in their field of operation.

What recommendations do you have for practicing designers to move towards this way of working?   

In recent years there have been calls for Design Activism for Sustainability. This would require a concerted effort – a meeting of informed minds – in the design community.  A client with an unethical design brief should run into the same refusal from every designer approached. 

But we’re in Gardiner’s perfect moral storm (2006) – world leaders agree to MDGs, but renege as political-economic costs are too high (the Global Storm); overwhelmed by information, leaders lapse into moral corruption, delaying difficult decisions (the Theoretical Storm);  and those same leaders, through their lifestyle, ‘cash in’ on the resources of the next generation (the Intergenerational Storm).  

Designers could find themselves in that same moral conundrum – caught between the moral high-ground of knowledge and awareness, faced with the practical urgency of paying the rent, and hoping that their digitalised Z-gen kids will be smarter than they are.

Transition Design might be the concept to rally around. “To be a transition designer is to be forever living in a condition of hypocrisy– believing one thing, living another… trying to close the gap… keeping the gap moving… it takes stamina and people-skills…” (Tonkinwise 2015).

In the face of such overwhelming complexities and almost unsolvable issues, world economies are closing a blind eye, and urging the ‘show to go on’.  I like George Orwell’s quote:  “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." To achieve resilience, equality, justice, true democracy, and ethical sustainability – I think we need design-revolutionaries.

We caught up with Barry Lewis and Siya James from Ubuhle Bakha Ubuhle (UBU) who reflected on their experiences of being finalists in the Better Living Challenge (BLC), a design competition aimed to surface design innovation that could improve living conditions in low-income households. They also spoke about their in-situ incremental home building process they are prototyping at Sweet Home Farm, an informal settlement in Philippi.

UBU work with local communities to create housing solutions using processes and self-build technologies that are tested by the UBU team and the communities they work with using sustainable and appropriate materials.

The Better Living Challenge (BLC) is a five-year project (broken up into two challenges, BLC 1 (2013/2014 and BLC 2 (2017/2018) aimed at surfacing design innovation in the low-income housing market, to contribute to improving the living conditions of low-income households, and supporting the commercialisation of viable solutions. The CCDI is the implementing agent of this project.

Tell us about the early stages of the process?

The competition came at a key time in our involvement in the community of Sweet Home Farm, an informal settlement in Philippi, where we had been engaging in facilitation processes with the Street Committee leadership since the beginning of 2013 with a view to discussing housing options in lieu of City involvement in the community. After more than a year we were 'told' by City officials – who were observing our work in Sweet Home Farm – to implement an incremental top structure approach to informal settlement upgrades that would seamlessly come out of the facilitation process undertaken. The BLC provided this platform to test a prototype.

Why sandbag construction?

We knew we wanted to build with sand bags but the idea needed to be incremental, so we turned the traditional methodology on its head.  Instead of building in the traditional way of first constructing an Eco-frame, then filling it with sand bags and then plastering it, we chose to construct an Eco-frame, but then clad it immediately with zinc.  On day one it will be a shack and will function as a shack, but the skeleton frame will be the signifier for the resident to fill the walls with sand bags while they live in it. 

This method of building could seamlessly connect to a City of Cape Town-funded UISP project (Upgrade of Informal Settlements Programme), where the City provides a serviced site (concrete foundation and 1 to 1 toilets). We sought to rationalise the informal method of incremental change, namely ‘bit by bit’ change. When a dweller wants to upgrade they don’t get into debt, they save and add as they save. By creating a shack with a skeleton frame we are seeking to rationalise the shack as an entity that can be changed, bit by bit, into a house. Sand bags are then added to the walls, a concrete ring beam and columns are added to the top and corners, and the walls are then plastered. Each wall can then be finished independently of another.

What happened right after the Better Living Challenge 1 ended?

When we disassembled our prototype structure in 2014 outside the Cape Town train station we knew the next step would be to build it again in the community. However, this took a while.  Firstly, because we needed some form of agreement from the City that this would be possible, and secondly, because we needed a proper foundation to do it justice.  Once the foundation was complete, it was time to test the model, building in situ using community members.

Who was involved in the process?

Our intention was simple. Build it slowly. We hear a lot of talk about going to scale and doing things quickly, but we knew our job was to allow the community to keep up with the changing face of the structure, so that they would have the chance to accept, reject or enhance what we were doing. We wanted to build with the community, not for them.  We worked with a group of young men with whom we had been working closely at a nearby soccer club since 2010.  While the construction was happening, the community also activated their savings scheme ladies to come and fill bags to start filling in the wall between the two units. Ms James, an employee of Ubuhlebakhaubuhle, who lives in Sweet Homes Farm, had initiated the savings scheme in 2013 and therefore had a chance to activate her own ladies to get involved practically.

Tell us about your incremental approach?

Our methodology for change was always to incrementally upgrade only one of the houses, so that one could always see it juxtaposed against the original starting point. The frame and zinc for the single storey semi-detached shack went up within three days.  But the magical moment came when one house had been completely filled with sandbags (with a concrete ring beam added to the head of the wall with concrete columns in the corner), and we were then able to remove the roof and carry on building the frame upstairs. A pure incremental approach. The ceiling joists for the single storey structure became the floor joists for the double storey and in the process the 21sqm house became 42sqm.

Tell us more about the current prototype in the community?

We find ourselves today at the point where we have a double storey structure sitting

adjacent to a single storey structure. Internally it is fully plastered and painted, with a kitchen area, shower room (under the stairs), and open upstairs (although it is assumed this would be two bedrooms in a normal setting). On a hot summer day the temperature difference between the two houses is incredible, and acoustically it performs extremely well. And it’s bullet proof. In the future we will remove the zinc from the outside of the double storey and plaster it, hence completing the 'shack to house process'.

How has the community responded to the prototype?

They are happy about this house.  At least they know we are going forward because they can see something.  In the meantime we are training the people with the construction and the money savings groups.  It's working well.

What does the future hold for you?  Where to next?

We will always be grateful to the Better Living Challenge platform for enabling us to test

something that we believe will be the future to informal settlement upgrades. Informal communities are the only communities in the city that have built their own houses, so when we see such communities we are not looking at a housing problem but the current housing solution. 

Our job is to activate the builders that already exist in these communities and use the systems already in place,  such as savings schemes, so that we can assist the municipality to become more efficient in providing housing opportunities. Everyone talks about empowerment, but you can’t empower someone if you are not willing to ‘give’ power, and we believe this is vital if we are going to see meaningful infrastructural transformation in the informal realm over the next 25 years.

Read more about UBU on t heir website www.ubu.bz

Austrian-born Frank Brueck is an expert in the field of Intercultural Competence, Management, and Training. He is the director of Be the Change Consulting and he also leads Golden Sustainability, a programme with more than 60 research centres worldwide which develops experimental projects with companies to accelerate the development of sustainable business concepts. In this Q&A he explores the value of bridging cultural differences in workplaces in order to create more diversity and sustainability in organisations.  

What is diversity and why is it so important in the workplace? 

Diversity is a fundamental reality of life. It deals with the dimensions of ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, etc. used to differentiate groups and people from one another. Most importantly, it refers to the respect and appreciation with which we address these differences. This includes our private lives just as much as our work life. At the workplace the different perspectives, experiences, and values employees bring in represent an invaluable asset. An important pre-requisite to realise this potential is to create an atmosphere of inclusion. This is a state in which individuals are valued, respected and supported. Such conditions need to be established to allow and encourage each member of the organisation to contribute their best in accordance with their individual abilities.

What strategies can companies with fairly homogenous staff / teams use to foster diversity?

Homogeneity is fine where the work is highly repetitive and monotonous. However, a diverse work force is of particular value at workplaces where the tasks dealt with are higher in complexity and allow for a certain amount of creativity. In these contexts, the management is well advised to release the potential already embedded in their diverse staff. The first step is to assess the degree of existing diversity and to encourage contributions reflecting that diversity. In case the level of diversity is not satisfactory it becomes a matter of targeted talent acquisition. Research also indicates that talent retention is easier in more diverse working communities.

Is there a link between diversity in the work place and sustainability?

This link certainly exists. Since sustainability consists of environmental, economical, and social aspects, diversity and inclusion are direct sustainability issues. This is also reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals passed by the UN in 2015 where gender equality and reduced inequalities are prominently placed among the 17 goals. There is however another important link: sustainability issues tend to be complex and involve many different interest groups. These are the conditions where creativity, the ability to change perspectives, and empathy play a most important role to find multi-faceted solutions suitable for a different stakeholders. These are exactly the strengths functioning diverse teams have to offer.

What are the main trends we are seeing in corporate sustainability at the moment? How has it shifted in the past decade? 

There is a very promising overall development across industries of increased public sustainability reporting. Interestingly this does not only include the large corporations who are obliged to report, but also an increasing number of SMEs. This is particularly promising since many studies show that the publication of sustainability goals leads to higher sustainability and economic performance. In terms of content the biggest trend we have noticed in the analysis of close to 40,000 corporate sustainability initiatives in the GOLDEN Observatory – a database for the assessment of corporate sustainability reports –  involve job creation, the environment, health, as well as education and training. Overall companies put more and more emphasis on the improvement of their internal processes than on pure philanthropy and donations. This is a very welcome development which needs to be accelerated however.

What are the main areas that need to be addressed for companies to become more sustainable?

Sustainability is a vast field and there are so many important and relevant aspects to it. Companies easily get lost in the jungle of stakeholder requests, regulations, and ambitions. Doing a little bit everywhere is much better than nothing, but more often than not the results are unsatisfactory. The one sure way to improve corporate sustainability performance is to embed the necessary principles and values into a company's processes and culture. In combination with a sincere stakeholder dialogue this will ensure a competitive advantage and lasting sustainability in every aspect of business. Only once the main business functions (like operations, finance, HR, etc.) act in accordance with a comprehensive sustainability strategy, a company can be considered a sustainable firm.

What are you really excited about by what you are seeing in the sustainability ecosystem at the moment? 

There is a new development towards the 'flourishing corporation' that is very promising. More than simply sustaining a certain state, the focus here lies on the production of benefits for all groups who are in contact with the organisation. It became evident that a company can only flourish from inside. Health and wellbeing of the employees are therefore a pre-requisite for a flourishing company. When the staff is balanced and in a good frame of mind also the outside interactions will be improved and all can benefit. I believe this goes in the right direction and brings a completely new perspective to the discussion.

Teachers at Chameleon Campus pre-school in Cape Town get in touch with their creative side

Three pre-schools in Cape Town have become the first sites for the roll out of the Africa A+ Schools network, an exciting Early Childhood Development (ECD) project that nurtures creativity in schools as one way of responding to South Africa’s social and economic challenges.

The network is a partnership between the Cape Craft and Design Institute and Oklahoma A+ Schools (OKA+) and is funded by Standard Bank and the Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT). It is geared at nurturing children differently and creating a new stream of individuals who are more creative, with greater capacity for innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving, to become future leaders and pioneers. Because the development of entrepreneurs and innovators needs to start from an early age, the Africa A+ Schools network is beginning at the preschool level.

The first three Africa A+ member schools – ABC Pre-primary in Lansdowne, iThemba in Capricorn and Chameleon Campus in Sybrand Park – have begun to receive support to prepare teachers to think more creatively about how to present their curriculum in collaborative and hands-on ways that will get the learners excited about learning.

The Africa A+ Schools network offers member schools professional development and ongoing on-site support that enables the schools to think, plan and facilitate so that children can develop the skills that prepare them for lifelong success. Research shows that A+ member schools achieve better academically, teachers are more motivated, learning is facilitated in collaborative and hands-on ways, and the children are excited about coming to school.

“To alleviate unemployment, poverty and social injustice the country needs people with an entrepreneurial and problem-solving mindset who have individual agency and can come up with innovative solutions,” explains project director, Anya Morris.

“An entrepreneur is a person who can see and create opportunities where others mostly only see a problem. For children to grow up to be entrepreneurs, innovators and opportunity makers, they need to be taught from an early age to develop their creativity and imagination so that they can become active citizens who contribute to solving problems and creating new value.”

“When we look ahead to our children’s future, we actually don’t know what’s in store for them in 15 years’ time when they leave school and prepare for adulthood. But it’s generally agreed upon that innovative thinking, problem-solving, collaborating with others, using the imagination and being able to sift through information and deciding on what is relevant and how to apply it in an imaginative way – are the key skills that will be needed.”

The three pre-schools are receiving the support through a group of project Fellows – arts practitioners from a range of disciplines and ECD specialists. These Fellows were orientated in the A+ philosophy by facilitators from OKA+ over the past several months, which enabled the project to access the immense experience and success of the US A+ model to help conceptualise the local support.

Visual Arts Fellow, Karen Stewart and Morris kicked off the schools support with a workshop with the teachers and staff at Chameleon in March. The teachers were first taught about space, rhythm, contrast and balance in art. After this they got to play with their creative side, and used recycled materials to collaboratively create an artwork. They then went through a curriculum mapping activity in which they discussed how this can be linked to the curriculum.

“Everyone got quite into the process and some amazing discoveries were made along the way,” says Karen. “What I found rewarding about the day was the way in which the teachers have started finding their feet with analysing images. They are now also able to talk about how the works made them feel. I felt that this demonstrated both a deeper understanding of the activity they engaged with and more importantly, their growing confidence about their own ideas.”

At ABC Pre-Primary in April, teachers and staff were treated to an afternoon workshop on using the imagination to make a story come alive, and giving the teachers new ideas for storytelling and how to make telling stories more exciting for the teachers and for the children. Dance and movement Fellow, Shumi Chimombe first took them on an ‘adventure into the magic forest where anything can happen’ using music and creative movement.

This experience allowed the participants to work together using their imagination and bodies to create new scenarios and act them out while inspired by the music. This was followed by storytelling exercises using the imagination with Anya and ECD specialist and Fellow Veronica Nicholas, and then finding ways to link all the experiences and new ideas to the curriculum, in particular, how to use stories as a learning tool

ABC Pre-Primary school principal, Faadiela Ryklief said about the workshop: “Through the creative workshop we were able to discover the true power of imagination and the capacity of how much a simple story conveyed through creativity could holistically benefit the child.”

Watch Africa A+ Schools videos on the CCDI YouTube channel

The media statement announcing the arrival of the Hasso Plattner School of Design Thinking at the University of Cape Town (UCT) describes it as “an education, training and research institute that will offer programmes in Design Thinking to undergraduate and graduate scholars, executive professionals in the private and public sectors, and community-based development practitioners.”

Established in August 2015, the official description of what the institution does is an accurate, yet arguably restrained, way of describing how its work could fundamentally reconfigure the way that the private and public sectors approach problem-solving.

Led by founding Director, Richard Perez, the d-school – to coin its more colloquial title – is in the hands of deeply passionate design thinkers who are driven by the many exciting possibilities that the institution’s work can offer.

We spent some time with Programme Managers Keneilwe Munyai and Rael Futerman and Lorelle Bell, Communication and Stakeholder Relations Manager, to find out more.

Munyai encapsulates the potential impact that the d-school could have in the unique South African socio economic context: “South African society is made up of many diverse groups, but we see a very siloed mentality in many areas of, for example, education and industry. Design Thinking brings a new way to look at problem solving from a different perspective and to encourage cross-silo collaboration as a mechanism to improve understanding of what lies at the root of a problem.”

Futerman continues along the same vein: “Design Thinking is about shifting from business as usual to business unusual; going from problem solving to problem finding.”

In an environment that seems awash with problems, why would you want to find more?

Futerman explains: “Design Thinking is a method to explore real needs as a transversal, multi-disciplinary team and to develop new ideas around those needs, to foster empathy and understanding for what people really experience - and what they really want.”

This is what the d-school does. It does not train designers. Rather, it uses the Design Thinking methodology to train people to look at wicked problems differently. With empathy and user-centeredness as the base, design thinking enables people to see an issue through different eyes.

“No-one,” says Futerman, “experiences the world in the same way. What is comfortable for one person may be a hostile environment for another.”

Munyai continues: “If we understand each other, we can build a shared identity, whether in our communities, cities or even our country. Design Thinking has the potential to create a new national mind-set.”

With such a noble long-range vision, we talked about the d-school’s early days.

The first 10-week pilot programme started in early March. The students are drawn from diverse UCT faculties ranging from law to engineering and health sciences; psychology to accounting and drama. Using the Design Thinking methodology, their challenge is to develop human-centred solutions to real-world problems laid down by the d-school’s project partners. In the current pilot the project partners are a peer-to-peer tech start-up operating in the sharing economy; a public sector transport concern and a financial institution.

As with any tried and tested Design Thinking process, the most critical part of the students’ learning journey is their interaction with end-users. Equally profound, however, is the way in which the process can extend people’s thinking far beyond what currently exists. While Design Thinking isn’t a silver bullet to all the world’s wicked problems, it offers a robust framework to break a major issue – such as HIV/AIDS, for example – into containable parts. Solving smaller issues through the design thinking process can make a significant contribution to solving the whole.

Perhaps the most important outcome of the courses is that students will come away with greater creative confidence. “We encourage students to explore and build, and to manage uncertainty. South Africa’s context is very complex. You need to be comfortable with uncertainty to bring about real change,” says Munyai.

The d-school’s courses are devised by the programme managers and facilitated by trained coaches who drive the trans-disciplinary work. The institution also offers customised programmes and executive training for corporate and public sector clients. And it practices what it preaches too: their programmes are developing as they’re being implemented, as the teams learn from the experience and needs of their end users.

For more information about the d-school’s courses, contact Lorelle Bell, at lorelle.bell@uct.ac.za

The UCT Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a specialised unit at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, has published the Education Innovator’s Review, a special publication which showcases the outstanding projects taking place in the South African education space.

The Bertha Centre is dedicated to advancing social innovation and entrepreneurship, and works to uncover successful ideas that have shown to have significant social impact as well as pioneering new ideas.

Project manager, Louise Albertyn explained that the Education Initiative – which produced the Review - works to improve education outcomes in low-income communities along the entire education journey from ‘cradle to career’.

“We have identified and come to understand which programmes work by compiling over 125 case studies of those innovations demonstrating innovative programme design, successful scaling, robust monitoring and evaluation, cost efficiency and systemic collaboration. The database has been put together to enable people to learn from each other and also see what is already being done to avoid unnecessary duplication. From this database we highlighted 14 programmes and created the Education Innovator’s Review.”

Examples of focus areas include: Early Childhood Development, Literacy & Numeracy, Teacher Development, Inclusive and Thriving School Communities, Curriculum Development, Productive Partnerships with Government, Investigating Market-based Solutions and Narrowing the Gap between Education and Employment

“The journey that we’ve been on in compiling the Review was to find out how each person and project fits into the education ecosystem, what they can bring, how they have scaled their offering for greater impact and what other people can learn from them,” says Louise.

“We took the holistic approach that everything in education needs to form part of the pipeline. The way the Review is framed is that each of the projects plays a role in the ecosystem which includes a broader community involving funders, government, community – all of whom play a vital part of the education journey. And the importance of developing relationships is a very strong thread throughout in the publication.”

Some examples of these types of relationships include:

The relationship between the teacher, the learner and the subject -The Maths Centre Incorporating Sciences (MCIS), which is involved in teacher and student development in 500 schools across the country, believes that the relationship between the learner and the subject is important, and that Mathematics and Science have their own unique language and meaning which teachers and learners must understand and grow to love.

The relationship between the teachers and the community: Project Build, a community development non-profit that builds schools, clinics and ECD centres mainly in KZN, puts an emphasis on respect in all its interactions – respect for the school teachers and learners, the school leadership, and above all the community in which the project is located.

The relationship between the schools and the community - Redcap Schools Project works to bring together schools, parents, communities and local businesses and to empower them to improve the performance of school learners. This includes professional development of teachers as well as working with school governing bodies to help individuals appreciate the difference they can make and improve efficiency in these roles

The relationship between the schools, implementers and the private sector - Go for Gold is a partnership between the public and private sectors in the Western Cape which provides disadvantaged youth with learning and career opportunities in construction. This collaboration sets the youth on a secure career path while offering corporate partners a reliable way of recruiting from a skilled and motivated labour pool.

The biggest driver for the Review was to highlight the way in which implementers are having real impact through the way they respond to challenges in and the lessons that can be shared across programmes.

“The key lesson that emerged was around the nurturing of relationships and how much this cuts across the different programmes we are working on,” says Louise. “There’s a magic that’s happening in these organisations. It’s not just effective programme design and implementation but it’s the integrity of the vision and the community engagement that drives them.

“On par with uncovering the lessons, the purpose of this Review is also to celebrate the good news. Despite the challenges in the education journey, we’re seeing this wonderful work that’s taking place at significant scale with commendable impact, and we wanted to shine a light on that often-untold narrative."

The review can be downloaded from the Innovation Education website http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/s.asp?p=488

The case studies database can be accessed at http://www.educationinnovations.org/

Image: GetSmarter

The #feesmustfall student protests that dominated headlines for much of last year were a stark illustration of the urgent need for disruption in the education system, says Chris Hosken, former Chief of Development at GetSmarter, speaking at the Design Human Capital Forum, hosted by the Cape Craft and Design Institute on 10 March.

“There will always be a place for university education – it’s critical for professionals like engineers, doctors and architects.” But Hosken maintains that the current university system isn’t geared to developing skills. “We don’t need interns,” he explains. “We need people with practical skills so that they can actively participate in the economy from day one.

Hosken continues: “The reality is that the cost makes a degree inaccessible for many; and graduates without practical skills means that we cannot plug the skills gap on the continent. We need to change the narrative that a university degree is the golden ticket to the middle class.

Online learning platforms like GetSmarter and Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, are starting to challenge that narrative.

Time magazine called 2012 ‘the year of the MOOC’, as a testament to the growing trend towards online learning. The sector is growing globally, but for a long time the offerings have been perceived as being hobby-based, rather than truly viable alternatives to traditional paths of academic learning.

Over 40 000 students have passed through GetSmarter’s programmes, with a completion rate of over 90%. This is unprecedented in the online learning environment.

GetSmarter’s differentiator is that it offers academically rigorous, university-quality education, delivered in short online courses that vary from six to 12 weeks in duration. In addition, students are matched with a course coach who guides them through their learning journey from day one.

The entire learning journey is designed with the student in mind, from the advertising to the delivery of the certificate at the end of the course. The experience is a profound one for students who may otherwise never have the chance to receive a certificate from globally recognised institutions such as the University of Cape Town (UCT), Wits University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

What this means is that technology is enabling universities to scale their offering – something which Hosken is passionate about. “The key is inclusivity and scale. If an institution cannot scale its offering, or people are excluded, then it has failed. If people can’t access education, the system perpetuates market failures.

Short online courses that are designed to be academically rigorous and socially supportive offer people a better education that builds their theoretical knowledge while also offering practical skills. In doing so, the barriers to education fall and a new generation of work-ready, skilled entrepreneurs and business owners can start to create jobs immediately.”

Online learning offers anyone with a computer and an internet connection the opportunity to access the knowledge and networks that they would previously be excluded from under the standard models

Having left GetSmarter, Hosken has been developing a user-centred education framework that combines user-centred design with access and scale to enable people to access top quality business school education.

He will be launching the start-up school in April 2016

Have you or your colleagues benefited from a MOOC or short online course? What are your views on the future of university education? Tell us by email at design@ccdi.org.za

For more information, contact chris@edall.ac.

For more detail about GetSmarter, visit http://www.getsmarter.co.za/.

The Design Human Capital Forum (DHCF) is a quarterly gathering that brings together people working in, and passionate about, design education and human-centred design. We welcome all individuals working in design, innovation and skills development. This group meets to keep abreast of current design education and training initiatives, share examples of best practice and discuss areas that need attention. To join the mailing list and keep informed on upcoming events email joanne.sandler@ccdi.org.za.

Design Thinking is used extensively to find user-centric solutions to identified problems. But the tried and tested formula needs to evolve and expand to accommodate the needs of increasingly trans-disciplinary teams. This was the key message from Thys de Beer, Senior Lecturer in Brand Strategy at Vega, who presented the results of a Master’s study on the subject at the Design Human Capital Forum hosted by the Cape Craft and Design Institute on 10 March.

De Beer’s study emerged from challenges experienced on a project to create an animated series about the adventures of a lesbian activist called SoeperGuava who uses her super-powers to expose injustice and discrimination in post-apartheid South Africa.

The project team encountered difficulties because, as De Beer writes, “the broad skill-set and approaches of the participants called for a more integrated, iterative approach to the development of a strategic creative-activist brand but the team failed to appreciate this complexity fully.”

The project in its original form was terminated in 2013, but continues with a different team.

In the wake of phase 1 of SoeperGuava’s failure, De Beer wanted to understand what was needed to build trust and respect within a design team, and “to address key challenges and stressors like decisive leadership and project management (adherence to timelines and deadlines), clear roles and responsibilities, cultural differences, creative development of the characters and scripts as well as a lack of funding.”

De Beer was inspired by the Stanford d.school’s Design Thinking model and designer Paul Pangaro’s Design or Conversations model. Pangaro insists that the design conversations themselves need to be designed in order for design thinking processes to succeed. Building on Pangaro’s thinking, De Beer identified one critical component that needs to be present for a trans-disciplinary team to succeed: internal empathy

In the traditional Design Thinking model, empathy has an outward focus. What does the user need? What’s the design solution to meeting those needs? But trans-disciplinary teams comprise members whose world views can be vastly different. An engineer’s perspective on a problem, for example, might be diametrically opposite from a marketer’s perspective. Without internal empathy, a lack of understanding between team members can create obstacles to effective collaboration

De Beer’s study identified the need for teams to have a common language and a collective understanding for Design Thinking projects to work on a deeper, more meaningful level. This collective understanding needs to be established at the start of the project – at the forming stage. This, De Beer explained, would “give more structure to the accepted models which may feel loose to team members who come from different contexts and disciplines.”

Using the Stanford d.school’s Design Thinking model as a basis, overlaid with both Pangaro’s design conversations and Tuckman’s ‘forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning’ approaches, De Beer developed a three-layered model to understand team dynamics:

Phase 1 (Forming): Evolutionary leadership. The team agrees a common language, who the leader is and, importantly, why that leader is the leader.

Phase 2 (Storming): Collective buy-in and empathy. The team agrees their goals and what the challenge is. This conversation relates not only to the wicked problem the team is trying to unlock, but the challenges that the team itself faces, given its trans-disciplinary nature.

Phase 3 (Norming): In-depth, collective understanding and commitment. The team’s internal conversation focuses on building a collective understanding and extracting explicit commitments from all members

Phase 4 (Performing): Clarity and openness. The team agrees on the definitions of openness and clarity and commits to a clear and open way of working.

Phase 5 (Adjourning): Insightful reflection. The team members assess whether they have individually achieved personal growth as team members during the design process.

De Beer’s own reflection on the failure of the SoeperGuava project highlighted these as the missing components that – had they been present – could have offered team members greater levels of understanding. He asserts that if these elements had been agreed from the start, then the project would have succeeded: “To learn from failure, it is arguably more important to understand what didn’t work in a project than what did.”

At Vega, De Beer teaches a Design Thinking-led innovation class integrating what he teaches into their practical learnings. While this proposed evolving model isn’t yet in their curriculum, at the outset of their class projects De Beer asks his students to create their own code of conduct at the forming phase.

They’re asked to identify dos, don’ts, sanctions, and to form a class-led agreement on their commitments to accountability and respectful dealings. During and at the end of the project, reflection is compulsory. As a result, De Beer has seen greater levels of empathy, respect and accountability in the way his students interact, adding that, “students are more reflective during the process as they are challenged to ask ‘why’ throughout. They are more collaborative and supportive of each other’s ideas.”

Perhaps SoeperGuava’s super powers have worked after all.

Do you have any views on De Beer’s model? Join the conversation by email design@ccdi.org.za

For more information, contact Thys de Beer – thys@vegaschool.com

Paul Pagano’s views on designing the design conversation can be found here: https://vimeo.com/42140209.

The Design Human Capital Forum (DHCF) is a quarterly gathering that brings together people working in, and passionate about, design education and human-centred design. We welcome all individuals working in design, innovation and skills development. This group meets to keep abreast of current design education and training initiatives, share examples of best practice and discuss areas that need attention. To join the mailing list and keep informed on upcoming events email joanne.sandler@ccdi.org.za.

Participants in one of Standard Bank’s Design Thinking Workshops take part in an empathetic inquiry exercise. 

Paul Steenkamp is the executive responsible for leading an Innovation Capability Unit at Standard Bank, which involves using design-led innovation to create financial solutions to improve lives across Africa. Through this project Paul’s team are a working towards improving the bank’s innovation success rate while transforming it into a learning organisation that continuously explores, experiments and iterates.

We had a conversation with Paul to learn more about the Innovation Capability Unit.

Why did the Bank decide to embark on this project?

Our purpose statement as Standard Bank is that Africa is our home and we drive her growth. We salute those who have ensured the bank has remained relevant over the past 153 years. Our challenge now is to lay the foundations which will help ensure relevance over the next 153 years.

For us success is around significance not just profit. Banks are privileged to be at the centre of economic activity. We want to better serve customers through innovation because doing so helps drive economic growth, including job creation.
  

With this project we are working to position the bank as an open innovation partner of choice and infuse new ways of working that enable creative problem solving. We do this through a six-stage lean innovation management process that business units within Standard Bank apply to be part of. The aim of the process is to help units move from assumption to empiricism through the use of customer-centric methods. This ensures that we do the right things and do them right.

Can you tell us a little about your six-stage process?

There’s a growing consciousness that we can’t afford to continue doing things the way we used to – for example, corporates producing things that they assumed their customers wanted without really testing them. This can be a very wasteful because it’s not commercially pragmatic.

With the lean management process, there is a sustainable and profitable business notion that underpins innovation. We are asking practical questions such as: what should we be doing from a customer perspective; do customers agree that this is important/pressing; and are we able to make money out of it?

The six-stages help the business units to move from assumption to empiricism via a transparent and incremental investment process. At the end of each stage teams have to answer various questions in order to progress to the next stage and unlock further funding and resources to continue building their concept. The questions are the same – agnostic of the topic, or the seniority, internal relationships and/or tenure of those employees applying for funding.

What this means is that we are able to see very quickly if a concept has traction because prototypes are being tested with small groups of customers from very early on. If there are positive signs of traction, underlined by an improving assumption to empiricism ratio, then more resources are directed towards the project to develop it further

We also have a team of lean innovation coaches who work with the business units and support them in applying this innovation management process.

And it’s founded on a Design Thinking approach?

Absolutely. A Design Thinking approach works well as it encourages people to stay with the question rather than jump to solutions too quickly. We subscribe to the notion that ‘Customers own the problems/pain. Innovators own the solutions.’  Once a minimum viable solution emerges, we treat them as ‘Always in Beta’ – and leverage Agile methods to continuously iterate the solution – including the business model underpinning it.

We are in the business of ‘culture change’ in which we are helping to create an environment where everybody should be actively innovating in everything they do

Culture change can be challenging. How do you do this in a large corporate?

Design-led innovation methods work well with start-ups because they normally work on a single project with a small core team, and they have no legacy, unlike the large, complex organisations with thousands of projects and lots of legacy.

We have criteria that business units need to meet when they apply to become an Early Adopter of the Lean Innovation method. They need to be willing to unlearn things and be open to new ways of thinking and working. We need to break the habit of assuming that we categorically know what the customer wants and how to serve their needs.

There is a need to move away from the old practices such as drawing up business plans based on roadmaps and milestones that claim to predict the future. Unfortunately we cannot predict the future. So it’s time to change this and revel in ambiguity and uncertainty.

Developing new products or services is an unknown process – like an adult version of hide and seek in which you keep trying to figure out what the customer needs and let things emerge. It’s about exploring in a lean way and getting incentivised to experiment - because the more small batch experiments you run, the better you manage risk across your portfolio of innovation investments.

This can be frustrating for those who are used to working with project plans and milestones and finding quick solutions. It’s a profound shift, which is why it’s a culture change programme.

What are you most excited about this project going forward?

We are in unchartered territory here, we are delighted to be one of the pioneering organisations globally trying to figure out this way of working - exploring, experimenting and iterating. Having said that, this method is simple. Even I understand it!  It’s refreshing because it’s full of aching common sense rather than MBA-speak.
 

What excites me is that it’s so deeply principle-driven that I believe it will prevail. Lean will beat waste. Lean is not just about efficiency, it’s also about sustainability in the context of limited resources. The world has come to a point where waste is wrong and cannot continue.

I’m really excited and grateful to be part of this momentum and that change of consciousness.

In 2012, Sinethemba Makoma was one of a hundred Grade 12 pupils enrolled in a programme sponsored by the University of Cape Town (UCT). The 100-Up programme offered career guidance, mentorship and an introduction to university life.

Back home in Khayelitsha, Sinethemba’s friends soaked up what he had learned. One of those friends, Luthando Dyasi, realised that they weren’t alone in their need to understand the new world they were moving into. Every school leaver entering higher education would have the same questions, fears and concerns.

Gaining a place at higher education institutions is only the start of the battle for Grade 11 and 12 students. Even as top achievers, the transition from the relative comfort zone of the school classroom to the unfamiliar environment of the university lecture hall can be a steep and daunting learning curve. For many students that transition can make or break an academic career.

For others, even the application process can seem an intimidating hurdle. Students from disadvantaged communities are particularly vulnerable. The apartheid system prevented many earlier generations from accessing higher education opportunities, and so the students find themselves fighting for survival in a deeply unfamiliar environment.

Luthando and Sinethemba devised the idea for a platform that would help school-leavers gain the upper hand with precise and clear information. It would offer tips, advice, guidance and mentorship from their peers who had walked the same path before them. It would provide practical advice, such as the university terminology, but also more philosophical guidance, including how to choose the right course and how to make positive lifestyle choices.

In 2013, Innovate South Africa visited Luthando's school, inviting learners to submit solutions to address local challenges. Their idea won and GoVarsity was born. Luthando and Sinethemba developed a prototype for the platform, taking advantage of the mentoring and R5 000 received as part of the prize. With a further grant of R10 000, the duo were later accepted into the RLabs innovation and incubation programme. That gave them space to refine the concept, but also access to hosting resources, mentors and development expertise.

The platform development process followed the classic design thinking model of identifying a problem, devising possible solutions, developing the solutions with end-user input and implementation. Working with Innovate South Africa, the two developers first created a prototype. This was the minimum viable product that could be used to begin a fact-finding exploration with end users.

Luthando explains that he went into the process with a very clear vision in his mind of what the platform should be. But, he explains, the design thinking process triggered a mind-shift for him: “I realised that the end product should be modelled on the needs of the end users and not my own ideas.” The initial prototyping stage with Innovate South Africa took around six months.

Later, working with RLabs, the team took the prototype to four schools and talked to learners about what they would want to see in the platform. They also consulted university students. The users’ combined input ranged from cosmetic suggestions relating to look and feel, but also about content and functionality.

Luthando explains that there were some surprises along the way. For example, the developers believed that users would prefer rich content such as picture galleries and video. In contrast, users were more influenced by readable content contributed by their peers, using grammar, words and terminology that they could relate to.

It took about a year to develop the second version to the point at which it was ready to be deployed. GoVarsity was launched as a browser-based application in 2015. To date, the platform has around 500 registered users, and is populated with peer-generated content.

Luthando and Sinethemba are continuing to develop the platform, which will be available as a mobile application in the near future. The platform is currently targeted at high school learners, but the team is also working on developing a model for university students too. Having allocated the funding they previously received, they are also seeking to monetise the platform for future sustainability, with support from the higher education institutions.

Luthando summarises the vision for GoVarsity: “Many students have the appetite but not the confidence to enter higher education. We want to bridge the gap between school leavers and universities, using innovation and technology to share knowledge and take the fear out of higher education for all learners.”

In order to meet the challenges of today's VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world, strong leaders need to be able to anticipate future changes and prepare their teams to find smart, sustainable solutions to handle the growing complexity.

The Foresight, Innovation, and Leadership Programme, which took place from 7 to 12 December 2015 in Johannesburg, was designed to grow participants' leadership capabilities to develop themselves and those they lead.

The programme was hosted by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) in partnership with the American University’s School of Public Affairs, and the Institute for Leadership Development in Africa.

The six day course consisted of a series of lectures as well as team work aimed at introducing the mindset, foresight and innovation methods that leaders could put into practice to identify unforeseen opportunities, and equip them with the tools to take on new challenges and create viable, innovative alternatives.

CCDI Innovation Challenges Manager, Lisa Parkes said: "We learned to develop a shared language, understand leadership basics, different ways of conceptualising leadership and the leader’s role in creating followership, as well as how the workplace is changing. We were also introduced to adult development theory and we learned 'transformational' habits of mind, centred on asking different questions, taking different perspectives and seeing systems.“

The workshop used experiential learning to allow the participants to exchange ideas, share learning, do self-assessment exercises and collaborate. This exposed them to working with various tools such as:

Context Maps used to identify the main dimensions of current problem or opportunity space.

Progression Curves used to put event timelines, industry lifecycles, and other developments in context.

Janus Cones which enable viewing multiple, overlapping, and intersecting events in a single framework.

Generational Arcs used to plot and view the demographic changes and generational views of a target population.

"I learned more about managing a group process for working on real challenges and I plan on applying this to the process of framing the Better Living Challenge as well as other innovation challenges being run by our CCDI Design Support team,” said Lisa.

“This was a fantastic opportunity to learn and grow, as well as to network with TIA, the National School of Government, The Innovation Hub, The Vaal University of Technology’s Innovation Centre and a myriad of other stakeholders. The lessons learned can be applied within our organisation and in our projects and as such the experience has been invaluable.”

The next Foresight, Innovation, and Leadership Programme will take place in Cape Town from 22 to 27 February. Due to high demand it’s fully booked, however there is an opportunity to engage with the speakers at an evening event being hosted at Workshop 17, V&A Waterfront on February. 

This month’s design discipline focuses on spatial design. 

"Spatial design is a very broad topic," explains Y. Tsai, architect and founder of Cape Town-based Tsai Design Studio. But in essence, he continues, "it’s all about designing spaces that enrich the user’s experience."

Tsai adds that good spatial design is also about multi-functionality, saying that "designing a space to include multiple functions enhances its quality."

While spatial design plays an important role in the design of internal spaces, external, and in particular, public spaces - such as the Grand Parade in Cape Town - could offer users a much richer experience if they’re able to accommodate additional functions. Originally built as a military training ground, today’s Parade acts primarily as a car park. Tsai considers that the area could be much enhanced by adding other functional elements. Benches, a detachable amphitheatre, or other elements could transform the area into a more positive, vibrant public space.

Rashiq Fataar, founder of urban think tank Future Cape Town, goes further by suggesting that successful urban spaces offer a multi-faceted, multi-functional experience to the people who live, work and travel through them. He explains: “An area dominated by offices that are open only from nine to five during weekdays becomes bland and one-dimensional without the dynamic vibrancy that comes with after-hours activities such as people enjoying public spaces, bars, restaurants and housing."

Multiple functions, uses and spaces add an extra dimension that enriches the user's experience. He also offers that for large parts of the city, areas around transport nodes and stations could benefit from improved lighting, and a mix of uses that really incorporates informal traders, but even broader than that, the informal economy.

On a larger scale, South Africans know all too well that while spatial design can build, it can also destroy. "Apartheid was a boldly delivered design project," says Fataar. Redesigning post-apartheid Cape Town needs "equally bold design proposals, brought to light by multiple design disciplines – urban designers, graphic designers, economists, anthropologists and architects and others, to provoke solutions that can address the physical segregation that epitomised apartheid ideology."

Many spatial development plans have been developed over the years in an attempt to achieve this goal. Some have been more successful than others, but one in particular promises to represent all the elements of effective spatial design in an urban context.

The Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) is an ambitious multi-disciplinary project that takes a design-led approach to finding integrated solutions to apartheid-era spatial planning.

Last month, the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government announced that a memorandum of understanding had been signed with the Kingdom of the Netherlands to share expertise in the development of 120 hectares of land that lies at the convergence of the Black and Liesbeek Rivers.

Supported by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Cape Town under its #cocreateSA initiative, the vision for the TRUP project is that of a fully integrated mixed-used, high-density, mixed-income neighbourhood once complete.

Thessa Bos, Deputy Consul General, explains what the collaboration represents: "The #cocreateSA initiative is about finding long-term solutions to local issues. TRUP brings together South African and Dutch experts in all disciplines, from water management and heritage, to transport and logistics, among many others. The project aims to break down silos between design and planning disciplines to co-create integrated design-led solutions that can connect communities in Cape Town."

Spatial design, therefore, is about designing at all levels, from macro to micro, whether inside an art gallery or at the border of a CBD. Regardless of scale, spatial design is about finding ways to enhance and improve the human experience.

For more information, visit these websites:

Tsai Design Studio

Future Cape Town

#cocreateSA

After many months of planning, construction is starting on the Design Garage, a new space to showcase and sell products and artwork produced by students from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and other institutions.

Located next to the CPUT Roeland Street campus, the Design Garage will be a flexible multi-disciplinary design space where students can gain valuable exposure as designers of distinction, revealing their talents to a wider audience of design lovers.

The Design Garage will also offer conference centre and meeting spaces ideal for events and gatherings where industry can intersect with academia. The project was conceived by a team from the Faculty of Informatics and Design at CPUT, who were spurred on by the World Design Capital designation to find a way to promote the work of new designers. It is funded by the Technology Innovation Agency, CPUT and others.

Construction work starts in early October and completion is currently scheduled for February 2016. Architectural practice Ori(gina)l has been commissioned to fit out the space.

For more information about the Design Garage, contact the CPUT Faculty of Design and Informatics

Image source: capetownpartnership.co.za

Is it possible to grow a new pair of trainers? Can a live sheep replace dialysis machines? Can a recorded library of electrical impulses choreograph dance moves? These ideas sound like something out of a dystopian novel or science fiction movie. The truth is that they’re real ideas researched and proposed by designers whose focus is on creating alternative visions of today’s society. They are speculative designers.

Designer and former head of the Design Interactions programme at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in the United Kingdom, Anthony Dunne, is a leading proponent of the design discipline. In a presentation to Kyoto Design Lab earlier this year, he creates the context to speculative design: “Futures are imagined for all sorts of reasons - from the futuristic scenarios of the tech industry to the imaginary worlds of science fiction cinema. Visual representation plays an important role, but the languages used to present futures are often hackneyed and repetitive, limiting their ability to inspire and provoke genuinely new thinking about possible futures.”

Carl di Silvo, Associate Professor in the Digital Media Program at the School of Literature, Media and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology, provides an additional definition of speculative design as “a practice of creating imaginative projections of alternative presents and possible futures using design representations and objects.”

Dunne views four different kinds of futures:

1. Probable futures which emerge from our current skills and mindsets
2. Potential futures which are often considered by scenario planners 20 years hence and imagine alternative realities to implement survival strategies
3. Possible futures which look at what can be changed in, for example, economics, human psychology, ethics and politics – this is what we see in sci-fi movies
4. Preferable futures which is the future that we want: this is where designers can imagine different kinds of realities

Speculative design explores how design intersects with science and technology to describe and embody that preferable future. Designers are able to ask ‘what if’ questions that provoke debate and reveal ethical, moral, technological, cultural and political scenarios about that future.

Dunne and his partner, Fiona Raby - professor of Industrial Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and a former member of the research and teaching staff at the RCA - run a design studio in London. Together they published Speculative Everything – Design, Future and Social Dreaming in 2013, a seminal academic text on speculative design which contains some examples of how the critical approach can be applied. In this presentation at the Resonate Festival in 2013, Dunne talks about some of the other projects that he and Raby have worked on themselves and also with students of the Design Interactions programme.

If you’re looking for other examples of speculative design, in January this year Design Indaba published a fascinating chronicle that perfectly encapsulates what the design discipline tries to achieve. Watch here to see how designers have imagined the possibilities of reshaping and refashioning the human body; fooling biometric scanners and a nano supermarket that shows possible future scenarios.

Image source: designindaba.com