OVER 40 National and
International participants including
students, faculty, the local innovator community and development part-ners participated in the Innovations visioning workshop held 25th-28th February 2014. The main facilitator at the workshop was Prof. Banny Banerjee, a widely respected, re-known systems designer and founder of Stanford University’s Change Labs.
The workshop emphasized the need to adopt human-centered design principles and explained design thinking as one such human-cen-tered design approach. This work-shop presented a good opportunity for the Resilience Innovation Labs
Design thinking is key in
building Resilience Innovations
“Designing for transformational Change”
Prof. Banny Banerjee facilitating the Design Thinking session at the Innovations Visioning Workshop
Vision
Resilient African communities through innovative solutionsMission
To strengthen resilience in Africa through university-led local innovative solutions using evidenced-based approachesCore Values
Teamwork Integrity Professionalism Accountability Creativity Networking Multi-DisciplinarityI welcome you to the first ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) bulletin. This is a platform on which we share key RAN activities, to engage and inform our partners, stakeholders and community. “RAN is employing science and technology to harness innovations from faculty, students and the communities. It is imperative that we work together to move the Universities from the Universities to the communities, build on the existing, avoid duplication and wastage as we all strive to create impact in the communities” Prof. William Bazeyo-RAN Chief of Party.
Given the need to address recurring natural and man-made shocks and stresses in a bid to strengthen resilience in African communities, in this issue, you will read and learn about the relationship between Design Thinking and building resilience, how to benefit from the RAN’s Resilience Innovation Acceleration Program (RIAP) and the power of the Massive Open Online Courses to augment collaborative learning in Africa.
We acknowledge and appreciate the work being/already done by different development partners, in an effort to not only strengthen resilience in the African communities but also help people faced with shocks and stresses in form of disasters cope. RAN is building on the existing rather than re-inventing the will.
RESILIENTAFRICA NETWORK (RAN) - “Solutions through Innovation” Enjoy reading!
A word from the
RAN Chief of Party
Prof. William Bazeyo
ers, the facilitators urged all par-ticipants to use prototyping, as a quick way to spot opportunities that can further be developed to respond to the challenges fac-ing African communities. Prof. Banerjee summarized the critical importance of rapid prototyping by stating, “in prototyping and the innovations development process, it is always good to fail early, safely, quickly and inexpen-sively. Fail early to often succeed sooner”. He also emphasized that prototyping is a way of think-ing, anything can be prototyped (RILabs), represented by their directors, innovation officers and university faculty to understand design thinking as a process and strategize on how to adopt and apply it in RILab innovation devel-opment activities. The workshop also laid the groundwork for the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) activities in the RILabs, where MOOCs is one of the three top-level objectives of the RAN Program. MOOCs will allow a rapid scale up of innovations awareness and facilitate team-based learning and engagement of innovators for collaborative development and peer review of innovations.
The workshop was highly interac-tive with participants undertaking hands-on exercises for all stages of the design thinking process. These stages include ethnogra-phy for problem understanding, problem synthesis and framing, structured brainstorming, rapid prototyping and testing. During the prototyping sessions, Prof. Banerjee emphasized the notion of ‘thinking through doing’ and he continuously noted that prototyp-ing allows the innovator to con-tinue gaining further insights into the problem, thereby improving the eventual design. Participants were also taken through thinking as a basis for action and action
as a basis for thought, aspects that left many if not all participants appreciating the continuous learning process. One of the par-ticipants shared
“This has really been a great learning opportunity, I will now emphasize the importance of brainstorming to all my student innovators for better products”.
Also highlighted in this workshop was the importance to frame problems in insightful ways that allow for the design of solutions that are more responsive to the community’s needs. Among
oth-Participants at the workshop work out project prototypes
ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) held an Innovations
Exhibition in the Makerere University Main Hall on Friday March 14th, 2014. This was an opportunity for the facul-ty, students, private sector, Government, NGOs and the community at large to showcase their prototypes or projects that would be considered for accel-eration in the Eastern Africa’s Resilience Innovation Lab (EA RILab).
RAN believes that it is important to provide a forum that is open to the public through which iden-tification of promising ideas can be done and provide avenues for the best brains to start the journey of realizing their ideas and getting fulfillment for their efforts. Promising innovations from with-in partner universities and local innovation hubs will be entered into RAN’s Resilience Innovation
Acceleration Program where teams will receive technical sup-port by leveraging expertise within RAN and the Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN), men-torship, capacity building and financial support to help them accelerate the development, piloting and scaling of their inno-vations.
The importance of multidisci-plinarity in problem solving was emphasized at the exhibition. In line with RAN’s strategy to foster multi-disciplinary collabo-ration, these teams were drawn from six out of eight colleges, representing at least 15 differ-ent academic disciplines from Makerere University (Software Engineering, computer Science,
Growing Innovations @ MAk:
ResilientAfrica Network (RAN)
Resilience Innovation Acceleration Program Launched
One of the judges Dr. Roy William Mayega, RAN Deputy Chief of Party (left in black suit) takes time to offer mentorship at the Innovations Exhibition
and prototypes give teams a common reference point that makes downstream discussions more focused as all teams focus on the same explicit thing, as opposed to discussing about hypothetical or abstract solu-tions. The demand to sort critical insights early was accentuated and three rules to rapid proto-typing were highlighted - rough, rapid and right, in this educational and highly interactive workshop. Participants shared their insights during and after the workshop noting that the hands-on work-shop was educative, interactive and engaging. One of the partic-ipants, a student from Makerere University summarized his experi-ence by stating
“ It is exciting to acquire design thinking and ideation skills. As a young innovator, I know that the solutions to African challeng-es are here within us. We the Africans faced with these shocks and stresses are the right candi-dates to develop solutions. This is because we know the commu-nity challenges we face best”.
It is therefore important for RAN to engage the student community working with the communities for open and productive thinking, ideation and solution develop-ment.
The USAID Washington D.C and Uganda Mission teams active participation in the work-shop cannot go without
men-tion, this emphasized partners’ involvement in designing lasting solutions to African community challenges through innovation. It was a great opportunity to equip the RILabs and bring RAN stake-holders together to learn and build solutions as teams. Moving forward, the onus is upon the RILabs to plan and hold Design Thinking sessions at the different Labs given that this workshop was also aimed at Training of Trainers (TOT).
In so doing, we are all spreading the gospel of designing for trans-formational change, an import-ant facet in the development of African communities where understanding the challenges from the communities’ perspec-tive is key.
Data Communications and Networking, Architecture, Survey, Electrical Engineering, Forestry,
Environmental Geographical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Food Science, Nutrition and Bio-Engineering, School of Law, Animal Resources and Bio-Security, Humanities and Social Sciences, Peace and Conflict and School of Health Sciences). While officiating at the EA RILab’s Resilience Innovation Acceleration Program, Makerere University’s Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe said:
“It is such programs like ResilientAfrica Network (RAN)
that have enormously contributed to Makerere University’s great achievements including being the
4th best University in the whole
of Africa. Faculty, students and the community benefit a lot from such initiatives.”
He was flanked by Prof. Celetino Obua, the Deputy Principal at the Makerere University College of Health Sciences who in his remarks noted that
“Mr. Deputy Vice Chancellor, RAN is yet another testimony that we, who you sent out to do the work, are actually doing it. We pledge to further take Makerere University to greater heights”.
He further acknowledged the great work by students, faculty and community innovators who were present at the exhibition and across university schools and faculties.
The event was billed as a great success by all who attended because it brought together staff, faculty and industry play-ers working in different teams of Innovators!
There was a huge turnout from the university community and the general public who engaged the exhibitors on their innovations. On his part, the visibly upbeat Prof. William Bazeyo summed it all up in his remarks,
“Look at the brains in this room, the potential this institution brings together and the ability of Africans to provide solutions to their own challenges-solutions
Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe (extreme right) joined RAN Chief of Party/ Dean Makerere University School of Public Health Prof. William Bazeyo to
con-gratulate the best teams Prof. David Serwadda, Ran Technical Advisor (first on the left hand side in black
suit) was one of the judges
through innovations. All is evi-denced here”.
The exhibition also had a select panel of experts as judges drawn from within and outside RAN including Prof. David Serwadda-RAN Technical Advisor, Dr. Wanjiku Nganga-RAN Director of Innovations, Dr. Roy William Mayega-RAN Deputy Chief of Party, Dr. Dorothy Okello-EA RILab Director, Dr. Julius Ssentongo-RAN EA RILab Program Coordinator, Mr. Daniel Komakech-Network Plus Focal Person in Gulu University, Prof. Hugh Cameron-Visiting Professor, Networks and Software
Innovations, Makerere University and Mr. Michael Niyitegeka-Facilitator at Franklin Covey Uganda, and a well-respected innovation thought leader in the region. The judges were required to ascertain the potential for an innovation to strengthen resilience in line with the EA RILab the-matic areas of Climate Change and Chronic Conflict, as well as establishing technical and finan-cial feasibility and potential to scale in target communities. The Exhibition and judgment criteria reflected the need to emphasize the linkage between the innova-tions and resilience arms of the RAN project.
At the end, of the 32 projects exhibited, 6 including; RootIO, KUDU, Unearthing the potential of Earth Worms as livestock feed, FINDIT, Improved Pull & Push
Approach in Northern Uganda and Integrated Backyard Farming were selected for yet another round of adjudicating where they had to re- pitch their innovations to the judges and the public during in a classic interactive question and answer session. Three projects, namely, RootIO, KUDU and Unearthing the poten-tial of Earth Worms as livestock feed were finally selected for con-sideration to join the EA RILab’s Resilience Innovation Acceleration Program.
These innovations address key resilience aspects that were identified from the EA RILab’s community consultations includ-ing Community Mobilization and Knowledge Sharing,
Economic Empowerment/Poverty Eradication, Diversification of Livelihoods and Environmentally friendly agricultural production methods.
The exhibition participants were not left out for they also had to vote for their preferred innovation which would win the ‘People’s choice’ category, with a view of enriching their experience and participation. The ‘Community-based legal mobile clinic’ team led by female students from Makerere University’s School of Law, which provides legal assistance pro-bono to vulner-able communities, received the unanimous vote for the “Peoples Choice” Award.
The Innovators from the top three project teams and the ‘People’s choice’ pose for a photo with Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe, Prof. William Bazeyo and the judges
DID
YOU KNOW?
• That RAN is proudly led by
Makerere University (School of Public Health) as one of the seven develop-ment labs within the USAID-funded Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN).
• That RAN is a partnership of 20 African Universities in 16 coun-tries focused on strengthening the capacities of vulnerable communities to withstand natural and man-made shocks and stresses.
• That one of the core objectives of RAN, is to strengthen resil-ience at the individual, household, and community levels to natural, man-made stresses and shocks through innovative technologies and approaches to development, which will be identified, incubated, tested, scaled and evaluated through the RAN in collaboration with its
part-ners.
• That RAN has established four Resilience Innovation labs where all resilience innovation activities are carried out.These are: The Eastern Africa RILab, Horn of Africa RILab, Southern African RILab and West
Africa RILab.
• This is one of the many events
that will be organized at each RILab to source for innovations that provide solutions to community challenges.
• That the Resilience Team has been engaged in community consul-tations to better understand commu-nity challenges so as to inform the Innovation Pipeline.
• That for further information, you can contact: Harriet Adong, RAN Communications Manager on info@ ranlab.org
• You can read more about RAN
The ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) in yet
anoth-er landmark between Thursday 20th and Friday 21st March 2014
organised and facilitated the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Visioning Workshop. MOOCs have emerged as great learning paradigms of the 21st
Century. The workshop aimed at offering an opportunity for brainstorming and creation of a platform responsive to commu-nity needs. It also provided an understanding of what works in the African context in regards to online learning.
During the workshop, partic-ipants critically explored how design thinking can be applied to the development of targeted learning resources that meet the demands of African consum-ers. Tom Watson and Margarita Quihius from Stanford University facilitated the workshop at the Golf Course Hotel in Kampala Uganda.
“People’s ability, motivation and habits play a key role in the suc-cess of MOOCs (e-learning) as a learning approach”
Margarita Quihuis noted. In addi-tion, Tom Watson also shared
that “Specificity in MOOCs devel-opment is actionable - thinking and doing eliminate the risk of time wastage”.
The MOOCs workshop drew together over 25 participants from the partner and network plus partner universities, includ-ing students, faculty, implement-ing partners and the community at large. MOOCs form one of the three top level objectives of the RAN program which will be used to rapidly scale up innovations’ awareness, facilitate team based learning and engagement of innovators for collaborative devel-opment and peer review of inno-vations. It is important to note that the output of this workshop
was a MOOC design framework and content development guide-lines that will guide subsequent MOOCs development, piloting and delivery of activities at the RILabs.
This also presented a great learning opportunity which includ-ed neinclud-ed finding, design thinking, digging deeper to ask why so as to understand the user better and validate assumptions. The mission of engaging in all the stages of design thinking during the workshop was to redefine the learning experience. The rel-evancy of synthesizing and fram-ing insights (problem reframfram-ing), as discoveries that one might be able to leverage when creating
Building a Platform for
collaborative learning in Africa
Margarita Quihuis (upfront) facilitating the brainstorming session at the MOOCs Visioning Workshop
These innovations address key resilience aspects that were identified from the EA RILab’s community consultations includ-ing Community Mobilization and Knowledge Sharing,
Economic Empowerment/Poverty Eradication, Diversification of
Livelihoods and Environmentally friendly production methods. The exhibition participants were not left out for they also had to vote a ‘people’s’ preferred inno-vation with a view of enriching their experience and participation.
Team ‘Community-based legal mobile clinic’ led by female stu-dents from Makerere University’s School of Law, which provides legal assistance pro-bono to vul-nerable communities, received the unanimous vote for the “Peoples Choice” Award.
solutions cannot go without men-tion. The brainstorming sessions helped participants to take deci-sions, sketch to ideate, share solutions and capture feedback, employing empathy which are all key in the development of a MOOC while using a design thinking approach. The facilitators stressed the notion of iteration for improvement -
“when you iterate based on feed-back, the solution may be a vari-ation on an earlier generated idea or something completely new”. One of the workshop participants shared
“ I have learnt that in developing a MOOC, your audience is key
since they are the final consum-ers of the product-thus the need to heavily involve them and take care of their needs all through the process”.
“This workshop is an eye opener to all of us, each person in my group is already looking forward to improving the learning sec-tor in his/her university using MOOCs. This is the way to go in this technologically growing world and we need more of such platforms,”
noted another participant. Technologically different contexts require different interventions and thus the need to explore different courses including but not limited to pop-ups, short online courses
and notes comparisons. In this process, both facilitators empha-sized the importance of keeping the needs of the intended users accessible to them. The hands on workshop also provided for the participants to work in small groups and use real life experi-ences.
Over the next six months, the RAN partners, guided by the Resilience Innovation Labs (RILabs) will be engaged in developing the curriculum for prototype MOOC courses and sharing these via different acces-sibility platforms. This will involve identifying community challenges and or problems, developing content and piloting MOOCs in the different contexts.
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