Design 21: Social Design Network

After social sciences, economics and African history at University I started working for development organizations in Norway, Morocco and Southern/Eastern Africa. In the 1990s it was considered out of touch to talk about value creation and business development in the development community. Leaving the aid community to work with transnational EU financed project groups combining different skills to reach common goals it was fascinating to work with designers. During my time as project manager for Design without Borders I understood the great capacity of industrial and service design when complex solutions need to be put in place.

The sanitation challenge with 2,6 billion people demanding solutions industrial designers and the worlds innovators have to push the agenda. Unfortunately the development community has failed in providing solutions and so far the business community has not cared enough about the other 90%.

This project is about cooperation - bringing the skills together and transforming the knowledge from agricultural science, the NGO community and the business savvy to create ownership structures suited to the local culture and the needed products to make it possible to reach millions of users on a daily basis.