From the 14-15 of March 2017 I will be representing the Design Society Development DESIS Lab at the Global Summit on Social Innovation in Bogotá, Colombia hosted by the The Rockefeller Foundation and the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter–American Development Bank Group. The Summit is an exciting opportunity to bring together leading actors from across the social innovation spectrum – from labs to social enterprise accelerators – to learn, share, inspire, and collaborate. The Design Society Development DESIS Lab was one of a select group of key actors, stakeholders, and practitioners in the social innovation space that were identified as being able to help drive truly systemic social change. Today’s global challenges are more complex and rapidly changing—traditional approaches to problem solving can’t keep pace. But at the same time, social change agents have more tools at our disposal, and more diversity of ideas to draw from through processes like crowdsourcing or … Read More
World Information Architecture Day 2017
I will be speaking at World Information Architecture Day on Saturday, 18 February 2017 The topic of my presentation is “Exploring Human Activity: Technology Innovation on the Periphery” Professional designers often disregard users’ design agency. Negating the power of “lay designers” thus, is arguably at the cost of the relevance of a final design for its intended users. This is nowhere more evident than in so-called “developing” contexts where people have always been driven to design and innovate due to inequality, poverty, and unmet needs. Utilising the framework of activity theory, I will explore exceptional examples of grassroots innovation in South Africa. The aim of this is to encourage expert designers to shift their gaze and align their skills to amplify the efforts of lay designers in order to result in more sustainable and appropriate change. Tickets for the event can be bought at: https://worldiaday2017-johannesburg.eventbrite.com – General admission: R200.00pp (includes lunch, snacks … Read More
[De]colonising Design in Africa
I was recently interviewed by Amsterdam based journalist Natalie Dixon for an article published in the South African Mail & Guardian newspaper on the 14th of June 2016. The article titled “[De]colonising Design in Africa” explores some of the work South African designers are doing to decolonise both the academic curriculum and professional design practice in Southern Africa. The article can be read online here or you can download a pdf of the article here.
The Science of Slow Food
I was interviewed this morning on Radio Today by Gillian Godsell together with my co-researcher Dr. Naudé Malan from Izindaba Zokudla, and collaborators Geoff Green and Brian Dick from Slow Food Johannesburg. I discuss how as an industrial designer I ended up working on urban agricultural projects and how relevant they are for the South African context. You can listen to the 1hr 20min podcast here:
Milan & Food
In two weeks I head off to Milan to co-present a paper at the Cumulus Milan 2015: Virtuous Circle conference taking place from the 3-7 June. I will be presenting on a framework for socio-technical innovation that has been developed based on a current masters design research project undertaken by Peter Harrison, whom I am supervising. His project explores the development of a human-powered shredder for urban farmers in Soweto, South Africa. In addition to the paper presentation I will be representing both the UJ Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at the Cumulus General Meeting and the Design Society Development DESIS Lab that I coordinate at the the DESIS General Meeting. I will also be exhibiting at the Design to Feed the World Exhibition at Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, a seedling growing system that was developed together with UJ BTech Industrial Design student Jomari Budricks last year. At the exhibition we will be one of only two … Read More