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Novel Tales and African Teens

March 2, 2011

Youth in the slums of Nairobi. Future readers of literature delivered by mobile phone?

Yoza publishes short, hip novels and classic literature on mobile phones for African youth. Designed to encourage reading, writing and responding, Yoza engages African youth with stories and social issues. The project, which was spearheaded by Steve Vosloo – a technology researcher in Cape Town – and financed by South Africa’s Shuttleworth Foundation, is dedicated to a participatory culture hungry for micro-doses of literature that are accessible as pixels not paper.

Officially launched last September, Yoza is based on Vosloo’s observations that African youth are book-poor yet mobile-rich. An estimated 90 percent of urban South African youth have access to cell phones and 70 percent of those phones are web-enabled. In stark contrast, more than half of South African households own no leisure books and only 7 percent of public schools have functional libraries.

Illustrations from Yoza’s premiere edition: Kontax

Yoza’s first story, Kontax, followed the adventures of a local graffiti crew around Cape Town. Its 20 pages were initially published over a month of daily dispatches via a mobisite and later on the popular MXit social network. Each episode, released in both English and isiXhosha, was around 400 words long. Prizes were offered for the best comments and sequel ideas from Kontax readers.

Via Yoza, 17,000 users accessed the full premiere Kontax series for free — well eclipsing the South African “best-seller” standard of 5,000 book sales. Each chapter costs the reader around 1 US cent to download. Explains Vosloo, “Mobile data is cheap relative to voice and SMS — and of course, books. It’s also about access.” According to Vosloo, readership exploded when Yoza was made available to MXit’s 15 million local subscribers — a share currently far greater than Facebook’s.

Yoza content on MXit social network and on a mobisite (Image courtesy of Yoza)

The comments feature allows Vosloo to stay in touch with what readers want. “It’s become clear that youth are keen to be both educated and entertained,” he notes. “We get many requests for stories which are relevant to their lives. We’ve had requests for story lines which cover drugs and teen pregnancy, careers, money and more.” Feedback has helped to shape onwards content which includes Streetskillz, set during the football World Cup, Sisterz which explores dark family secrets and teenage life plus Confessions of a Virgin Loser which follows a boy steering his way through a complicated world of peer pressure, teenage sex and HIV/AIDS. Social issues provide a further avenue for interaction. A story which touched on domestic violence elicited a slew of comments in support of the affected character and posts of personal accounts which empathised with her situation.
 

South African students read and respond to Yoza content. (Image courtesy of Yoza)

Alongside popular culture content, Yoza has also been adding episodic versions of classics from Shakespeare to Wordsworth and other curriculum related texts. Feedback from teachers in low-income schools tells of class assignments given in conjunction with Yoza content and applauds the access to classic literature which the platform has provided. While some may criticise the informal use of language by readers – comments across the site also highlight an engaged audience ready to amend mistakes which have eluded Yoza’s editors. Although youthful readers may comment in text-speak, they eagerly respond with corrections on errors which creep into stories.

Looking to the future, Vosloo has been speaking with various potential sponsors who understand the bridge he has created between reading, response and social issues. One such discussion has been with a bank around the notion of a series featuring elements of financial literacy within its storyline. An aspect which is attractive to sponsors is the appetite created through releasing stories in installments but also that the entire series is then available on the Yoza site and continues to attract commentary. “It’s a bit like the transition from a box-office to DVD release,” adds Vosloo. “There’s the initial rush to devour a fresh feature yet the legacy contributes to a growing library of accessible content.”

An edited version of this article appears in my Change Observer Report on Design Observer.

Related posts:
Mathare’s Micro-farms and Market Gardens
Amplifying African Ingenuity

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DREAM:IN – Hunt to Harvest II

January 31, 2011

Earlier this month I wrote about getting involved in the DREAM:IN initiative which is collecting India’s aspirations as a canvas for creative thinking. It intends to form a dynamic database of dreams gathered in cities, towns and villages across the country. These will be categorised, analysed and shared with business leaders, educators, social entrepreneurs, policymakers and designers to devise transformative and inclusive future scenarios. 101 student dreamcatchers were dispatched across India after training at the Bangalore headquarters. They were divided into 11 teams: Sindhoori (red), Hariyali (green), Asmani (blue), Chandni (silver), Sunheri (gold), Gulal (pink), Firozi (turquoise), Anguri (purple), Santili (orange), Kesar (saffron) and Sweth (white) who set out on colourful journeys by road and rail – capturing on video the dreams of a nation in transition.
 

The teams were provided with various tools to help them consider the search ahead, created by the good folk at Idiom Design. Encouragement was given to seek a range of respondents from migrants to merchants, learners to leaders, athletes to advertisers, drivers to domestic helpers. Within the teams, students were allocated with tasks of spotting, framing and writing to locate, film and record Indians reflecting on their dreams. Mitul Bhat (a usability specialist on Nokia’s MeeGo platform) and I had the task of briefing the Spotters on basic ethnographic techniques and some of the challenges of working in the field.
 

The journey itineraries were carefully planned to cover an expanse of rural and urban locations, covering 25, 000kms in just over a week. Army protection was sought for dreamcatchers travelling in less stable areas of the country. Accommodation was frequently in local guesthouses but also included places like a Jain ashram and sleep was often snatched on overnight train trips.
 

Images from the DREAM:IN blog

Alongside the footage of dreams pouring back into Bangalore, also came stories, photographs and sketches of life on the road. I was particularly excited to run into Team Gulal while they visited Ahmedabad during the Uttarayan Kite Festival. Just as they were enjoying a well deserved lunch break, I chanced upon them and dragged one team member off to the Old City to shoot photographs of her with festive kites. They spoke of capturing some great dreams during their trip – including those of a former silver smuggler who changed his ways and became a security guard. His dream: to protect and serve.
 

The editing team back in Bangalore now have the Herculean task of refining footage and categorising it ahead of the DREAM:IN Conclave next month. This will be supplemented by scenario building tools to assist professionals to translate the dream database into insights which can inform their future strategies. There’s much diversity which has been captured during the Dream Journey. Here’s a few of my favourites so far:
 

 

 

 

 
Related posts:
Where are We Dreaming? (Flickr)
DREAM:IN – Hunt to Harvest, I

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DREAM:IN – Hunt to Harvest

January 7, 2011

This week I find myself in Bangalore lending a hand in the flurry of activity leading up to the DREAM:IN Journey. Challenging the notion that future thinking should be informed by people’s needs – the DREAM:IN initiative seeks to explore what Indians are dreaming about. It intends to create a dynamic database of dreams gathered in cities, towns and villages across the country. These will be categorised, analysed and shared with business leaders, educators, social entrepreneurs, policymakers and designers to devise transformative and inclusive future scenarios. DREAM:IN intends to collide the dreams of a diverse India with the thoughts and actions of leaders across a range of sectors.
 

101 student dreamcatchers have been selected from over 20 Indian institutes of management, design, communication and film. Next week they will be dispatched in groups across 11 itineraries which traverse rural and urban India. Along the way they will be questioning locals about their dreams and aspirations – for family, work, recreation, products and services – and capturing these on video. They are expecting to collect thousands of dreams from across the country. Before heading off they will receive training from a team with various backgrounds including ethnography (I’m pitching in there), education, advertising and cinematography from across India plus Brazil, Italy and the US. This group features professionals from Nokia, Ogilvy & Mather and Parsons the New School for Design. The findings will be returned to the DREAM:IN headquarters in Bangalore to be collated and categorised.
 

In February the DREAM:IN Conclave is a summit which will bring together a selection of students, educators, policymakers, social entrepreneurs and professionals from sectors such as finance, IT, retail, telecommunications and energy. Participants include powerhouse retail entrepreneur, Kishore Biyani and Fast Company’s Bruce Nussbaum. Findings from the Dream Journey will be shared through a series of workshops. These will be used to inform future scenarios via a rigorous design-thinking methodology – with the view to devising concrete projects to effect fresh thinking around delivering products and services at scale.
 

 
From February onwards an open portal will be launched which allows users to upload and categorise dreams by sector – adding to those collected on the Dream Journey. These will be supplemented by scenario building tools to assist professionals to translate the dream database into insights which can inform their future strategies. Drawing on the larger canvas of dreams over needs is expected to fuel enhanced creative thinking. 
 

So with dreamcatchers arriving tomorrow we’re hard at work finalising itineraries, naming teams, refining methodologies and editing presentations. Ironically – there’s little time for sleep – let alone to dream.
 
Related posts:
One Billion and Counting
DREAM:IN – Hunt to Harvest, II

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Handing Over the New Year

December 30, 2010

I recently came across this exquisite work at the Mother Tongue exhibition, curated by the Indigo Design Network. It’s creator, Karina Fernandez, was born and raised in Melbourne where she currently studies visual arts at Monash University. She delved into her Indian cultural heritage while devising the piece – which took her on an exploration of body art, particularly bridal henna designs. However Karina found working with henna a messy business and instead wisely opted for a fine marker which still took her a number of hours. The quote she chose is from from Gandhi: No Culture Can Live if it Attempts to be Exclusive – worthy of reflection as we close the curtain on 2010. Happy New Year all…

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Street-wise: Pedal Powered Retail

July 19, 2010


I’ve been following the cycle-centric developments between the Department of Counter Culture and RMIT University’s School of Industrial and Interior Design in Melbourne with some interest. Together they’ve been exploring changes of retail exchange in the public space and challenges facing the fixed-store trading paradigm. (Image: Raphael Kilpatrick)
 

In pursuit of socially engaged endeavours they teamed up with The Social Studio – a local, community-facing fashion and textiles training initiative. Recycled and excess manufacturing materials are gathered from local industry and re-configured into original clothing with the style & skills of the young refugee community at the Social Studio. (Images: The Social Studio + Nicole Reed for The Vine)





(Images: No Fixed Address on Flickr + TSS Pedal Powered Pop-up by Raphael Kilpatrick)

In an approach that’s been cross-disciplinary, collaborative and focused on customisation – students devised twenty pedal-powered-retail concepts. From these they developed two transformable bicycle kiosks which used sliding and folding mechanisms respectively. The operational mobile enterprises were launched as The Social Studio | No Fixed Address at this month’s spirited State of Design festival. (And speaking of mobile – the festival came with it’s very own iPhone app.)

Check out the project video to hear more on the design process.

Related posts:
Mobile Enterprise
Astronomical Outreach (Mobile Education)

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Digitising Indian Ink

September 15, 2009

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Although my interest in Indian hand-lettered typography is no secret – I was heartened to receive news of the launch of the Indian Type Foundry earlier this month. Especially as their premiere release is Fedra Hindi which was co-designed by my former typography student from India’s National Institute of Design – Satya Rajpurohit.
 
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Fedra Hindi was a 2 year collaboration with esteemed Dutch typographer Peter Bi’lak of the Typotheque foundry. It is based on Bi’lak’s versatile Fedra font which is sought after for its contemporary elegance that confidently walks the typographic-tightrope between print and on-screen performance. Designed with acute sensitivity to structure and detail, Fedra has featured on postage stamps to corporate communications and has been developed further for non-Latin scripts, including Arabic.
 
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Dutch Royal Mail stamps designed by Peter Bi’lak, employing the Fedra Serif font. Inspiration for the stamps came from aerial views of Dutch tulip and agricultural fields.

Bi’lak and Rajpurohit’s Indian Type Foundry signals a shrinking of the void in quality digitised Indic type design. They promise that this first Devanagari release will be followed by typefaces in the nine Indic scripts, including Gujarati, Bengali and Tamil. I await with keen interest in how the foundry’s typefaces will be used in India – by whom, in what contexts and for which audiences.

Local designers are not the only ones paying attention to this significant development. The Foundry and typeface were launched last week at Design Yatra in Mumbai. The event has been gathering momentum in fostering global participation with Indian studios for the past three years. Renowned typographer and presenter Erik Spiekermann mentioned that he now knew who to turn to for collaboration on Meta Hindi after seeing Rajpurohit present the results of their rigourous approach to Fedra Hindi.
 
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Satya Rajpurohit interned at Linotype in Frankfurt and Dalton Maag in London (for our TypeShed 11 buddy, Bruno Maag). Initial contact with Peter Bi’lak led to research and the gathering of handwritten Indic script samples on his return India. This later developed into a productive online partnership tackling more ambitious endeavours, including Fedra which Rajpurohit had long admired. Although his native script is Devanagari (Hindi), he has grown to appreciate and admire different Indic scripts for their relative qualities.

“Bengali shines for me with its flow and rhythm, whereas in Tamil I find the joys of open forms and individualised letters.”

He goes on to note that a key role of the Indian Type Foundry is to create a platform for other designers of Indic scripts – with submissions welcome from both local and global typographers. And given a nation of over one billion that’s multilingual, multicultural and multi-layered – no matter which script you choose – it certainly spells exciting times ahead.

Typo-trivia: The logo of the National Institute of Design (where I taught Satya) was designed by Swiss type legend Adrian Frutiger.

Related articles:
Indocentric: Typocentric
Two Rupees Worth (Design Observer)

Opening image via Hindi Rinny

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Creating Waves through Collaboration

August 6, 2009

creative_waves_1
I was reflecting today on my involvement as a mentor on the 2007 Creative Waves Project. It was a 3 month online education initiative which sought to facilitate global participants to propose initiatives to raise health awareness in Kenya. The project championed collaborative practice and encouraged intense and pro-active engagement of participating students, pharmacists, graphic designers, health workers, professional bodies and education institutions.

Over 50 pharmacy students and 50 graphic design students from diverse locations worldwide were united by the comprehensive online platform and had contact with international mentors and participants on the ground in Kenya throughout. Health related concerns including malaria, tuberculosis and immunisation were to be addressed through a well devised learning methodology which spanned 12 weeks. This included ever-inclusive tasks within the stages of Socialising, Gathering, Identifying, Distilling and Resolving – some of which were addressed from within assigned groups and all of which were lively points of intersection.
 
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As a mentor it was interesting to note the principles of self-organisation play out as some students rose to the fore and took up leadership roles, groups figured out their respective skills and capacities, particpants cross-pollinated ideas and assisted each other to overcome technical challenges. The discussion sections with collaborators onsite in Kenya were particularly active and provided essential insight to the project at large. Guest professionals came in at various stages and memorable was the input by Anne Miltenburg, of Studio Dumbar, who spoke of issues surrounding visual communication and illiteracy.

Proposals that came out of the project included a headscarf that could be laid out and used as a board game to highlight health issues, soccer uniforms which vibrantly carried relevant messages and stickers to be adhered to fruit and vegetables, bearing health information. As a mentor I found the process as rewarding as the results. Social media initiatives are gaining popularity in bringing people together to solve diverse challenges. The Creative Waves project was pioneering back in 2007 and gave all participants a taste for the power of participation. One hopes that many were inspired to go forth and… collaborate.

Photo credit: Women’s Que for HIV Testing in Kenya, by Georgina Goodwin for Vestergaard Frandsen.

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Sidewalk Scenarios

July 17, 2009

scenario_nid_1
My week has been peppered with conversations on the use of scenario building as a
method of design thinking. This took me back to fond memories of working alongside my inspirational colleague MP Ranjan at the National Institute of Design (NID) in India who has been pushing the barrow of design thinking and its extensive applications from way before it became a hot topic.

Energetic in mind and manner, Ranjan has been evolving his invigorating, provocative and immensely popular Design Concepts & Concerns course for close to two decades now. A cornerstone of the programme is his learning from the field model which is kicked off by investigating local micro-enterprises.

By closely examining sidewalk entrepreneurs, students are encouraged to engage in a rich exploration of current scenarios to spark dimensional discussion towards enhanced scenarios. This process lays the foundation for future envisioning that can be scaled to embrace complex challenges to which design thinking can be applied: from systems to services and beyond.
 
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Ranjan elaborates on the course blog:

… it is far easier to start with small and micro enterprises such as street food vendors who are easily accessible and can therefore be a very useful source of business learning and about a number of finer aspects of entrepreneurial behavior. Each of these micro businesses is indeed homologous to a huge multi-national business conglomerate in a similar line of business such as the ones involved in the preparation and delivery of food to their customers across several continents.

As design extends its focus from product innovation to social innovation (including significant expansion into service design) one hopes that design schools are exposing students to relevant skills and contexts. And as Ranjan has clearly demonstrated – those contexts can be as close as the nearest street corner.

Images from students of the DCC Foundation Class of 2006
 
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Related posts:
Creating Waves Through Collaboration
Mumbai Markings Enhance Service Design

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Still Life, Smooth Moves

May 29, 2009

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Aligning himself with Buckminster Fuller’s notion of a comprehensivist, Carnegie
Mellon industrial design student Nadeem Haidary is one to watch. His provocative
forays into interaction design, anthropology and information visualization command
fresh perspectives.

In his Food of Art exhibition in Pittsburgh he analyses the nutritional content of twelve celebrated still life artworks including pieces by Van Gogh and Cezanne. He points to the data’s indication of the artists’ respective economic means and I’m also interested in the underlying implications encompassing taste, value and the consumption of art.

A delight for label checkers and talent hunters.
 
van_gogh_still_life_haidary
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From top to bottom:
Still Life with Fruit, Vegetables and Dead Game, Frans Snyders, c.1635-1637
Still Life with Onions and Drawing Board, Vincent van Gogh, 1889
Still Life with Basket of Apples, Paul Cezanne (French), 1890-1894
Still Life with Fruit, Hermenegildo Bustos, 1874

Related post:
Fruitful Pursuits
Cultural Confectionery

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Astronomical Outreach

May 19, 2009

camel_ahmedabad
The UNESCO supported International Year of Astronomy 2009 is a global tribute which celebrates the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei. The central theme of the year long program is The Universe, Yours to Discover. A former student of mine from the National Institute of Design in India, Kathan Kothari, was involved in a brilliant local initiative last month for the 100 Hours of Astronomy project which was observed simultaneously by countries across the globe.

He co-developed a mobile camel cart exhibition on Astronomy which visited villages, slums and local neighbourhoods in and around Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He was happy to report the enthusiastic reception by locals, especially children, for many of whom it was their first exposure to topics such the solar system, eclipses and celebrated Indian astronomers. Hands-on activity was encouraged with 5000 solar viewers being distributed so that people could view the sun safely while being told about its various characteristics by a team of volunteer guides.
 
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The cart and crew stayed overnight in villages during the 100 hours and held telescopic star-gazing sessions with enthralled locals. The initiative was accompanied by a radio broadcast which included activities that guided listeners to make basic astronomical instruments like a pinhole camera and a simple telescope. The project was later extended to further Gujarati locations and included quiz sessions and drawing competitions.
 
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Kathan works alongside his inspirational father, Abhay Kothari and a dedicated team at the Manthan Educational Programme Society which focuses on popularising science in India through folk and local mediums like toys, puppet shows and plays. For their 100 Hours of Astronomy project they settled on the camel cart exhibition concept due to cost, mobility and the added bonus that no food had to be provided for the camels as they snack on the foliage of local trees. (and I’m guessing their carbon footprint isn’t too bad either!)

Having extensive experience in the field of street science education, Manthan are continually exploring new avenues for educating and engaging young minds. Kathan reports that they are keen to look into promoting further scientific topics that make use of camel carts to access common people in their local communities. I was thrilled that one of the most popular destinations for the exhibition was the slum at Gulbai Tekra where I have photographed extensively and enjoyed many festivals from Uttarayan to Diwali.
 
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Kathan was invaluable when I was living in Ahmedabad, patiently translating for me on projects such as my Indo-centric Typo-centric and Glocal Cola research plus my collaborative exhibition endeavours with Indian street painters. Every time I learn more about the uplifting and significant projects carried out by Manthan I hope that one day that it will be me that has the honour of assisting him and his father in some small way in their incredibly meaningful and highly relevant work.

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