According to Gavin Mageni, head of the SABS Design Institute, South Africa’s official design promotion body, design can make a difference to Africa’s fortunes.
“I am confident that well-designed products, services and systems will create new socio-economic value for South
Africa,” says Mageni. He adds that Africans are intrinsically innovative and
have harnessed good ideas and innovative thinking to overcome a multitude of
adverse circumstances.
The Design Institute is geared to show what design can
do to move innovation into the mainstream African psyche, leading to economic
growth and a better life for all.
The SABS Design Institute is an Innovation
Summit partner and will select three Pitching Den participants to go through to
the Design Institute’s Counterpoint Programme. The annual Pitching Den
competition give entrepreneurs, researchers, inventors, incubators and
innovators across all industries a chance to pitch their creative ideas to a
panel of judges to stand a chance to win a share of R25000.
During the Counterpoint Programme the
Design Institute surrounds each entrepreneur with a design team that helps to
create the product, brand and business model simultaneously. The design team
works alongside the entrepreneur during work days at the Institute and also at
a distance when the entrepreneur is off-site.
Says Mageni: “The Institute believes that
new businesses start with the right combination of person, idea and business
model. The Institute therefore uses a holistic approach to developing all three
of these aspects along a structured design process.”
Overcoming Africa’s challenges
One of the most pressing issues facing
South Africa at present is unemployment. The Design Institute aims to use
design to produce new entrepreneurial businesses and also to ensure that
existing SMMEs are more successful through process reengineering and supplier
development programmes. According to Mageni, design should be used to address
national priorities of which creating decent jobs and education top the list.
According to the World Economic Forum’s
Global Risk 2014 report, South Africa has the third highest unemployment rate
in the world for people between the ages of 15 to 24. This report estimates
that more than 50 percent of young South Africans between 15 and 24 are
unemployed.
The Design Institute believes that it can
address youth unemployment through embedding design in the process of nurturing
entrepreneurship. New jobs will not come from the formal employment sector.
“South Africa’s youth need to design sustainable entrepreneurial businesses,”
says Mageni.
The problem facing South Africa is huge:
Only 7% of South Africa’s youth are involved in early stage youth
entrepreneurship activity – the lowest within 10 selected African countries.
The fact is that design spans R&D and
innovation, turning research into commercial products and services. The Design
Institute’s role is to link the elements of the national innovation system
together so that entrepreneurs can navigate the system to grow businesses to
reduce youth unemployment.
Earlier this year, the Design Institute’s
Counterpoint Programme mentored 43 candidates to transform their product or
service ideas into a workable prototype. The Design Institute offered the
services of a multi-disciplinary team of experts consisting of designers,
engineers, branding experts and business experts. The process took a
multi-layered approach where the first step was to develop the entrepreneurs
themselves, then to develop their product or service idea and finally
developing the business side of the
idea. Tracking the entrepreneurs’ success
was part of the process.
One such a candidate is Shalton Mothwa. The
Design Institute developed two energy-saving products for Mothwa and the
pitching, coaching and concept development has led to several successes. Mothwa
is a finalist in the SAB Innovation Awards competition. He also participated in
the ‘Get in the Ring’ pitching competition and was the overall winner for
Gauteng. He will be competing against the rest of the national winners to stand
a chance to go through to the final round in the Netherlands in November. The
Design Institute has introduced him to the top developer of wireless products
in South Africa – Dennis Greenwood – and to the chief executive of Incredible
Connection to further develop the commercial aspects of his business case for
the laptop bag. Mothwa recently pitched his ideas to the City of Tshwane to
great acclaim.
Time will tell whether design initiatives
such as the Counterpoint programme, the World Design Capital, the Innovation
Summit and others will become the fuel that will drive the rise in Africa’s
fortunes. There might be indeed be a day when Africa is the door on which
global citizens and companies knock when it comes to innovation, and it might
happen sooner than we think.
design.sabs.co.za
This article is part of a larger supplement. This has been paid for by the M&G‘s advertisers and the contents signed off by the organisers of the Innovation Summit
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