Initiatives
A group of design thinkers from around the world gathered at the opening of the Hasso Plattner d-school to discuss how an Ubuntu-inspired mindset can impact design, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The panel which was led by Ulrich Meyer-Höllings included experts in their fields, such as Phumzile Mmope, Mugendi M'rithaa, and Joern Bruecker, who have all been exploring these ideas in-depth and from various angles.
Kicking off our Ubuntu journey with DatB Europe and DatB South Africa.
The team wanted to trigger an intercultural conversation and exchange - totally free of bias. Is that even possible? And what is needed?
"Especially if you change your mindset, you start believing in yourself more, rethinking problems and development. It is like a cascading effect. I went from Design Thinking, new ways of Design Thinking, brainstorming, learning more techniques, and storytelling ...
In 2020, three international Innovation Coaches from Design at Business joined the ANU once more. A week full of immersion into the cultural and behavioral mindset of the Kenyan culture, fruitful conversations, and sharing and gaining knowledge.
Once more the Lead Organizers from Impact Week Rwanda 2018 decided to jointly run another Impact Week. Together with a trusted core team and well-known Design Thinking and Innovation Coaches they built a program that should become the biggest Impact Week conducted so far: with 11 Senior and Lead Coaches they trained 56 Junior Coaches in order to run the final four day event with 186 students from the University of Ghana.
Dr. Naalamle Amissah, junior coach and Senior Lecturer of Crop Science at the University of Ghana, summarizes:
“The intercultural exchange during this week made it very special as one had the unique opportunity to interact and co-innovate with others from different countries and cultural backgrounds”.
In only a few days, Impact Week will be landing in Ghana for the first time — We can literally already hear the Kpanlogo Drums! The preparations are at full speed as the Lead Organizers, Senior and Junior Coaches get ready to embark in this journey.
Building on the success of 2017, a small group of the former Impact Week Rwanda team came back together to conduct a second Impact Week in Kigali. After a year of iteration and building on their learnings from 2017, they organized the first Impact Week Bootcamp, one in Europe and one on-site in Kigali, to familiarize the to-be Design Thinking coaches with the Design Thinking methodology.
The first Impact Week in Kigali, Rwanda, took place in 2017. Rwanda was the second country in Africa hosting an Impact Week after Kenya. The host and local partner was the SOS Children’s Villages Technical High School in Kigali.
A group of volunteers that mainly connected via various Design at Business events, organized and executed this Impact Week in Kigali.