February 2010
2 posts
Tyred, old tires upgraded
With the Design Indaba Expo coming up in a few days time in Cape Town, there will be a lot of designa goods to view, including these great pieces from Tyred. “If you’re looking for durable furniture that is not only helping the environment, but also helping people find jobs, Tyred will have you burning rubber in no time. By taking used and old tires, Tyred create custom designed chairs,...
Other peoples rubbish, Heath Nash
Heath Nash is a sculptor living in Cape Town who has made his name by creating functional art from rubbish. Read the story of how Nash started working with waste material creating ranges such as Other People’s Rubbish as “a possible form of future upliftment for a country in desperate need of employment opportunities, and as a way to promote the idea of recycling to a very unaware...
October 2009
1 post
Design for Social Wellbeing/BoP design
Edan Weis is working on his PhD research project; Design for Social Wellbeing: A Case Study of Normative Design Thinking, see the work in progress here. “This research is a comparative study of the design process accross several organizations designing for/with the poor, specifically the early concept/ideation stages of product development. I’m interested in the way designer’s...
September 2009
2 posts
The travels of a plastic cup in Indonesia
From Stealth of Nations;“The Jakarta Post offers an excellent chronicle of the recycling supply chain in Indonesia, as a plastic cup, once thrown away, moves through layers of the informal economy into the formal economy. Moh. Darmadi, a self-employed plastic-waste collector, roams the streets of South Jakarta’s Setiabudi neighborhood equipped with a metal picker and a plastic sack on his...
Benefits of informal waste collection
Inclusive Cities is an organization that aims to improve the livelihoods of the urban working poor, most of whom are employed in the informal economy, many as waste pickers, street vendors, and home-based workers. Inclusive Cities has several reports, one being Waste Pickers (PDF). “Waste pickers form a small, but vital, part of the informal economy. In nearly every city of the developing...
August 2009
3 posts
Plastic waste recycling press
From Afrigadget. “We’ve got a lot of plastic trash all over Africa, especially in the cities. A team from IDDS (Amit Gandhi from the US, and Mark Driordan from the UK) decided to create a way to add value to waste plastic by using a low-cost process to transform it into something useful: plastic sheets. From these sheets can be made a number of other products. On display they had shoes,...
The recession and informal recyclers
From the New York Times; A Scrap of Decency “Among those suffering from the global recession are millions of workers who are not even included in the official statistics: urban recyclers — the trash pickers, sorters, traders and reprocessors who extricate paper, cardboard and plastics from garbage heaps and prepare them for reuse. Their work is both unrecorded and largely unrecognized,...
Recycling in Nairobi
Steve Daniels has a great post at Analogue/Digital about Nairobi’s Industrial Area. “Essential to the Industrial Area’s thriving activity, and indeed a critical differentiator from rural jua kalis, is an equally thriving materials infrastructure. To sustain the manufacturing of so many diverse products, a separate industry has emerged for raw materials, both recycled and...
July 2009
1 post
Waste Not: Sustainability as survival and...
Via do_matic, images by 16 Miles of String. Also see New York Times article. ‘Song Dong’s Project 90 show. The piece of work on display is called Waste Not. Here’s a snippet from the MOMA description: A collaboration first conceived of with the artist’s mother, the installation consists of the complete contents of her home, amassed over fifty years during which the...
April 2009
1 post
Nokia and education, part one
Met some really interesting students who are designing and exploring education delivery on handheld devices. ‘Project Nokia.Expand aims to create a learning platform for children in developing countries in the form of a mobile device. The device will be durable, low-cost, light-weight, easy to use and contains components that enable the children to interact with their immediate...
February 2009
3 posts
Blogging for Readymade
Photo Credit I am writing for Readymade’s Illustrated Weekly World of Design, topics include the design process, innovation, design news from South Africa and all the other stuff in between. Posted via email from Design in Africa | Comment »
Out and about
Having fun, dealing with Africa time, good times. Posted via email from Design in Africa | Comment »
Mail on Ovi; low end devices, high user adoption
Photo credit Nokia announced Mail on Ovi late last year, it was picked up well, and seen as a milestone to delivering email to most of the planet. “At Nokia we believe email should be available for everybody. We also launched Mail on Ovi, a free email service primarily aimed at the billions of first time email users, 75% of world’s population.” Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo - President...
January 2009
1 post
Slow start to 2009
Its been a crazy couple of months with lots happening, but I have promised myself to start blogging again. Busy with a research project here in South Africa, getting to see interesting people and places. Posted via email from Design in Africa | Comment »
November 2008
6 posts
Design, research and business strategy
Good article from Robert Fabricant at Frog Design about Jan Chipchase and his work, which highlights the importance of design research and how it fits into business strategy. ‘He is now finding that his most meaningful collaborations are with
strategy groups within Nokia. He has been invited into much larger
conversations about new markets and product strategies’ And ‘The...
A Better World by Design
Image credit Keep updated on A Better World by Design through Niti Bhan and Erik Hersman, who is covering it on Afrigadget with photos here.
Todays (Saturday) schedule should be interesting; Paul Polak, Erik Hersman, Ken
Banks and Niti Bhan talking early in the morning.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Ushahidi in Democratic Republic of Congo
Ushahidi is being deployed in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) as a working prototype. ‘We need to get the message to the people on the ground in the Eastern
Congo that this tool is now available for them to report incidents in
on. If you have contacts there, or can help spread the word through
some other means, it would be a great help if you did so - even if it’s
just point...
Nokia Life Tools; Inform, Involve, Empower
Latest from Nokia; ‘Inform, Involve, Empower – Nokia’s service mantra for emerging markets with Nokia Life Tools’ “Filling in the information gaps in agriculture and education with
Nokia Life Tools, we strive to contribute towards empowering people
with the right tools to help them make informed decisions in their
daily lives,” said Jawahar Kanjilal, Global Head of...
Obama-44th president of USA
Lets hope he gets it. Image credit
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Mobile internet research
Tino Kreutzer is working on a research project, Getting the Numbers Straight that looks into mobile usage, particularly internet use by low income teens in Cape Town. Tino has quire rightly discovered that there is not enough data currently available in this growing area. Here are some quick numbers; 97% have used Internet from a cell phone, 83% use the internet on a typical day. Almost half of...
October 2008
11 posts
Nokia Open Studios
Great work by Youghee Jung and Jan Chipchase. Download the report here or here if you are at all interested in exploratory design research, design research methodology, user centered design, emerging markets, mobiles and anything else that blows your hair back. Read the report, highly recommended. Image is from the report.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
M-PESA, why it works
Image credit Nice commentary from Ryan Hahn on Nick Hughes’ (head of Vodafone’s international mobile payment solutions) talk at CGAP regarding the success of M-PESA, a mobile banking solution Why it works; They focused entirely on offering a single service, and doing it well; transferring money between 2 people using a mobile phone. M-PESA is simple and easy to use and to set up....
The global recession and foreign aid
Image credit So, although Africa looks like it might be okay in the immediate future while the rest of the world collapses, there is a possibility that foreign aid will be affected; ‘there is also a danger that foreign aid might decline. But that’s based on two other events. One is that there’s a major recession in the US and Europe, or in the donor countries. And second, whether...
Google news-Africa
Lots happening in South Africa. They even have a HIV/TB advice gadget. I prefer the Project M approach, because it targets a much wider audience using mobile phones. About two-thirds of all people infected with HIV, 22.5 million, live in Sub Saharan Africa according to the Global Health Council, 2007.Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Project Masiluleke and Frog
Image credit One of the stakeholders/partners in Project Masiluleke is Frog Design, see their take on the project here and have a look at their presentation.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Project Masiluleke
Image credit Biggest news this week is the launch of Project Masiluleke, which ‘employs mobile phone technologies as a high impact, low cost tool, in
the fight against HIV/AIDS and TB in South Africa - and beyond’, Praekelt Foundation. See coverage from Core77, BBC and Poptech. Great use of the mobile phone as an appropriate means of communication while being culturally sensitive and...
Africa and the credit crisis
It looks like most of Africa will not be affected too badly during this period of financial mayhem, reports the BBC, there are even plans to create a free trade zone. Not all news is bad news.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Innovation in Africa tips
From Ethan Zuckerman’s post ‘Innovating from constraint’: Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few
resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.) Don’t fight culture (If people cook by stirring their stews,
they’re not going to use a solar oven, no matter what you do to market
it. Make them a better stove...
Design thinking for innovation
I have always been skeptical about using the word innovation, it seems like one of those word that gets used too often, however, it is easier to understand innovation than design. Lets looks at some words from Wikipedia. Design; ‘Design is used both as a noun and a verb. The term is often tied to the various applied arts and engineering (See design disciplines below). As a verb, “to...
Project H-Hippo roller redesign
Image credit As mentioned before, I am really interested in how Project H is going to redesign the Hippo Roller. Looks like they have been doing some user testing and figured out they have to go back to the drawing board. Some ideas that caught my eye, were localized manufacture and using alternative parts. That said, designing for severe conditions where skilled people are scarce if a product...
Fablabs in South Africa
Fablabs (fabrication laboratory) are ‘a group of off-the-shelf, industrial-grade fabrication and electronics tools, wrapped in open source software and programs’ South Africa has set aside R16-million to establish 10 Fabrication
Laboratories, also known as “FabLabs”, around the country, providing
disadvantaged communities with opportunities in the design, testing...
September 2008
17 posts
Nokia-The Way We Live Next 2008
Image credit Some interesting presentations from Nokia, particularly ‘Discovering Emerging Markets & Consumer Landscapes’ from Jan Blom and Jussi Impiö, whose research focuses on India and Africa. Here is an idea of what Nokia Research Africa is doing. More information at Nokia Conversations.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Google 10^100
Image credit Project 10^100 is the latest from Google to help change the world, using a huge amount of prize money and brand leverage, they hope to source the world for good ideas to benefit and make an impact in peoples lives. Google is embracing “crowdsourcing,” the Internet-age notion that the
collective wisdom of mass audiences can be leveraged to find solutions
to design tasks. ...
More from Surprising Africa at Picnic 08-Erik...
See Erik Hersman’s presentation from Picnic08, a good overview of mobile growth and applications in Africa. I like the title, ‘If it Works in Africa, It Will Work Anywhere’, excellent.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Google 10^100
Image credit Project 10^100 is the latest from Google to help change the world, using a huge amount of prize money and brand leverage, they hope to source the world for good ideas to benefit and make an impact in peoples lives. Google is embracing “crowdsourcing,” the Internet-age notion that the
collective wisdom of mass audiences can be leveraged to find solutions
to design tasks. ...
Surprising Africa @ Picnic 08
This looks like an interesting event, Surprising Africa @ Picnic 08 is a one day conference on the 26th of September exploring what can be learned from Africa; from Google’s new business development, Vodafone and mobile banking to NairoBits, a digital design school for youth from the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Speakers include Eric Hersman, Ethan Zuckerman, Younghee Jung and Zina Saro-Wiwa. ...
Willowlamp
Willowlamp is a small company in Johannesburg that produces very unique lights, particularly chandeliers. A combination of laser cut steel and ball chain (which is the what keeps your bath plug attached to the bath) creates beautiful organic shapes.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Cape Craft & Design Institute
The Cape Craft and Design Institute is a joint initiative of the Western Cape Provincial Goverment, AMTS, DST and CPUT. The CCDI incorporates a Fabrication Laboratory (Fab-lab), this
laboratory is a high tech facility with open-source design software
linked to digital desktop manufacturing technology. This means that people in the emerging creative class will have access to improve their economic...
design for slums
Lagos will be home to 23 million people by 2015. Challenges for people living in these mega-slums include poor infrastructure, inadequate housing, overcrowding and sanitation. Soon after viewing the clip, I came across this; some clever Swedish designers came up with a possible solution; the Peepoo bag is a disposable single use toilet, that is of course biodegradable. Based on ‘flying...
South Africa as part of a global product...
In a recent article in Business Day, Roelf Mulder MD of XYZ Design, discusses using offshore toolmakers while manufacturing in South Africa. The benefits are increased product quality and export competitiveness. ’South African manufacturers ought to see
themselves as part of a global product production community that
combines the best resources from around the world to take a product...
Google and connecting the next 3 billion
Google announced today that it will invest in O3b Networks, delivery internet access to people in emerging markets in Asia, Africa, Latin America
and the Middle East
via satellite at competitive prices. ‘The O3b Networks system will offer fiber performance over satellite, at
prices comparable to fiber in developed regions. By allowing direct
connection to core...
Nokia Homegrown
Image credit From the LIFT Asia conference Raphael Grignani has an updated presentation that shows some of the thinking and projects Nokia Design Homegrown has been working on. The Remade phone concept explores ‘the use of reclaimed and upcycled materials that could ultimately change the way we make things.’
Via putting people first.
Posted by email from Design in Africa...
Colalife
Colalife is embarking on one of the most fascinating approaches to innovating current distribution methods. What about Coca Cola using their distribution channels (which are
amazing in developing countries) to distribute rehydration salts? Maybe
by dedicating one compartment in every 10 crates as ‘the life saving’
compartment? Simon Berry recently called for a collaborative effort to...
Opportunities in Africa
‘Emerging markets are the next big frontier for the Internet, but the old business models fall away. In Africa the Internet is now about how to get it to cellphones’ Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Sunday Times, September 7 2008Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
Haldane Martin
image credit
Haldane Martin is launching a new showroom at 12 Aberdeen Street in Woodstock, Cape Town, on Saturday 6 September from 10h00 to 13h00. via Heather Moore, writer for Elle Decoration.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
New Ushahidi design
Erik Hersman from White African has announced that Ushahidi has been updated. The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Our goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
FADA-Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture
The University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture will host a second information session on Wednesday, 17 September 2008 at 14:00. Anyone interested in a exploring a career in design should attend.
Posted by email from Design in Africa (posterous) | Comment »
FROM IDEA TO PRODUCT SEMINARS
As part of its initiative to support new product development, the SABS Design Institute presents the seminar on product development - FROM IDEA TO PRODUCT
The content of the seminar addresses the problems most commonly experienced in the following areas:
Pitfalls in the development of a new product;
The protection of intellectual property;
Available financial incentives and how to access...