According to a recent post on the USIU website, a design thinking program held at the University’s Thika Road campus brought students together to rethink the design process. The event saw students think towards design as a process to provide solutions to Africa’s problems. Held on the 3rd of June, the session was facilitated by Mekatilili Foondi Design Program. The Mekatilili Design Program aimed at recent highschool graduates and university students is an educational platform geared towards providing youth with a knowledge-sharing setting, to explore product development through design thinking to solutions with their local context in mind.
The session had 19 participants with a group tackling food insecurity awarded with the top prize and will be fortunate to have free R Programming training from the Mekatilili Foondi Design Program . The winning team sought to design and build a system that can collect information environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, and soil conditions such as pH and nutrient content from certain areas, to inform farmers about suitable agricultural practices. Using a temperature sensor, the team demonstrated a system that informs farmers about temperature rises changes in the environment.
As more focus is drawn towards innovation, more students are encouraged to use their local context as inspiration to solve the continent’s most prominent issues. Training from the Mekatilili Foondi Design Program could lead to better idea generation and execution, for a better Africa.