I am an Egyptian guy living in Cairo, Egypt. I was fascinated to attend a workshop in Design Thinking by a German trainer brought by the GIZ. I later co-delivered a brief design thinking workshop with a co-trainer from Egypt and found participants to be very interested in design thinking; they even asked for even longer training programs on it!
I have an idea that I wish to implement that might help us in Egypt solve many of our daily problems. The idea is as follows:
Providing training in design thinking to Egyptians and working on real projects to solve real problems facing us in Egypt. The result of such training could be actual solutions which we implement during the training or at least start implementing prototypes of during the training and continue with some of those projects after the training is complete.
The reasoning behind this is that we have so many ideas but usually lack a framework to go forward with them. I experienced that design thinking could offer such a framework to help us collaborate with one another on solving our problems.
can u elaborate more about the design thinking topic , and what kind of problems could be solved using this way , coz implemnting the ideas faces lots of obstacles like legal framework and getting through authoroties + the normal obstacles
can u tell us more about an example of these ideas or the scale of it
Design Thinking is a process for creating new designs and solving problems that in addition to normal scientific techniques borrows a lot from the techniques used by artists to create their works. This boosts creativity and creates solutions that are much more human-centered.
Initially, design thinking was confined to product design. The computer mouse itself was created using the design thinking process by Apple. Apple used and still uses design thinking extensively and has helped popularize it.
Design thinking later developed to be used beyond product design. It started to be used in total user experience design such as designing a new museum.
The third stage of development for design thinking widened its scope even further making it used for effecting change in communities! By making gradual small interventions at the correct places whole communities can be changed! Design thinking helps to do just that using a guided and well documented process.
Proposal
My proposal is to offer training workshops in design thinking for Egyptians in Egypt let’s say at some co-working space in Cairo (icecairo, Megawra, AlMaqarr). The aim of such training programs would be to equip participants with the mental tools and processes that they can use to solve small and large problems we face daily in Egypt. By working on real problems during the workshops and following up after the training is complete positive change can start taking place gradually in Egypt. We will be creating a growing community of people in Egypt who are capable of taking initiatives and solving problems using a tested model and process to attack problems that face us in Egypt.
If the first pilot workshop turns out to be a success, we can follow up with wider trainings and build on its success.
u mentioned that the "3rd stage of development for design thinking widened its scope " " By making gradual small interventions at the correct places whole communities can be changed "
that is very interesting do u have an example about that something that has already been done , I am more interested on how these " small interventions" can make change , may be something about that
also I am not sure but is this design thinking process done only by institutions ? or is it something that the communities do spontaneously ?
and its a nice experiment to do actually with these workshop especially the follow up part and see how the participants use the new skills practically ,
Design thinking can be done by members of the community. It follows a set process so it is different from spontaneous actions. Of course it can also be done by institutions or organizations if they wish to use it.
One example of small interventions to effect gradual change in the behavior of people so as to change communities is the series of small interventions demonstrated in a series of videos that use the element of “fun” to encourage positive behavior change in people encouraging them to do such things as separate garbage for recycling, reuse containers. The idea is not to educate the pubic about the benefits of recycling, but rather to present it, through redesign, as a game and make it fun which boosts interaction of people and effects behavior change instantly.
Some concepts are also borrowed from the idea of Gamification:
nice to meet u finally here