Hasta La Ideas

Ivan Mworozi delivers the winning pitch for E-Ride, a new mobile rideshare program being developed at Mara LaunchPad. Image courtesy Mara.

It’s a busy, buzzing weekend at Mara LaunchPad. Nigel Ball, the director of Mara, is circulating amongst the crowd, as are a half dozen mentors, including myself. It’s a scene that would be familiar to any tech observer in New York or San Francisco… but this isn’t either city. In fact, it’s not even in North America: The first weekend-long Mara Business Hackathon has just begun in Kampala, Uganda.

Mara LaunchPad, operating under the social business Mara Foundation, is one of Kampala’s premiere business incubators. Along with other tech-oriented spaces like Hive Colab and the Outbox Hub, Mara offers office space, mentorship and even venture capital to new startups in Uganda. Many of these businesses often focus on new technologies.

Mentors Evelyn Namara and Daniel Stern advise during the busy hackathon. Image by the author.

What made this hackathon different from many of the popular tech events in Kampala was its focus on building a business. Yes, a prototype and good design were key, but what was more important was that teams developed a solid business model and financials—not an easy feat at all, given the dire need for reliable data in the country.

“In 48 hours our idea matured in away that would [normally] have taken us weeks or months,” noted Ivan Mworozi. “The access to experts from various fields was invaluable.” Indeed, Mworozi cited the mentorship as key. He delivered the hackathon’s winning pitch for E-ride, a new service he and four others will be developing to facilitate transportation in the traffic-clogged city.

Observing that an informal system of car sharing already exists, they wanted to streamline that method using mobile technologies: “Lot of cars and trucks were moving around practically empty because they had no way of know[ing] that we were looking for them.”

Second place for the hackathon went to MyProperty, a new service being built by Daniel Olel and team. Just as E-Ride addressed an existing problem and practice and streamlined it, MyProperty aims to connect buyers and sellers of properties around Uganda. As Olel, noted, many middle class Ugandans rely on brokers. Anyone looking for an apartment in New York knows how pricey middlemen can be, and Olel’s goal is to use MyProperty to cut out the middleman and build trust among buyers and sellers (quite similar to RentHackr, which I reviewed last year).

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Rare is the design angle on a presidential address, but last night’s State of the Union included a shout-out to 3D prototyping. Early in the speech President Obama highlighted recent gains in domestic manufacturing jobs–more than 500,000 have been added in the past three years–offering examples of in-sourcing in progress at Caterpillar, Ford, and a little company in Cupertino. “This year, Apple will start making Macs in America again,” he said [cut to shot of a grinning Tim Cook] before turning to his administration’s manufacturing preservation initiative:

Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio. A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3-D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything. There’s no reason this can’t happen in other towns. So tonight, I’m announcing the launch of three more of these manufacturing hubs, where businesses will partner with the Departments of Defense and Energy to turn regions left behind by globalization into global centers of high-tech jobs. And I ask this Congress to help create a network of 15 of these hubs and guarantee that the next revolution in manufacturing is made right here in America. We can get that done.

To which approximately half of the audience responded, “Yes we can!”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Is crowdfunding the answer to giving stalled architecture projects a much-needed…kickstart? A report issued this week by the American Institute of Architects takes a closer look, highlighting crowdfunded projects such as Colombia’s 66-story BD Bacatá building and the “I Make Rotterdam” bridge-building project.

According to massolution, which compiled the white paper for the AIA, crowdfunding generated around $1.5 billion in 2011, of which almost half was raised via donation-based crowdfunding (distinct from Kickstarter-style reward-based crowdfunding, in which donors receive something tangible in return). In addition to its potential as a financing tool for beleaguered developers and architects, crowdfunding can provide architects with a way to work with local communities to discuss, develop, and implement design ideas–or simply to generate support for “passion projects” that may be tough to fund through conventional avenues, notes the report. The Italian government is all over this idea–to raise cash to fund the Italian pavilion at the this year’s Venice Biennale.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I stopped to talk with one of the artists as he gave me his pitch—the sand paintings were durable—you could crumple them in your bag, get them wet even, and they stayed intact. While he spoke, he proceeded to crumple up one of his pieces, and pour water on it! I appreciated that his work might actually make the trip home in my backpack fully intact. On the other hand, I was somehow doubtful all the creases would ever come out. Either way, I feel like his product presentation didn’t have the intended effect—I wasn’t sold.

Product merchandising is so important…many merchants have a more-is-more approach, stuffing their stalls with products and many multiple versions of products…leaving little to the imagination. Others give their products a bit of room to breathe, and it can have the effect of drawing the eye in, and also elevating the perceived value of the product. Pairing products, or displaying them so I can imagine them in use can be really helpful. While I was walking the side streets of Battambang, Cambodia, I passed this boutique that paired sunglasses with their sweaters.

I felt like the sand artist could take an extra step and help me out—I was going to have to take it home, mat and frame it. They could have some of them framed to help me visualize the right use of his product and guide me towards purchase more easily. It may be a material now—but here it is as a product!

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[image source]

Over on the Core77 boards Richard Kuchinsky, boards moderator and “Directive Creator” of The Directive Collective design consultancy, has posted an interesting topic: What ten things should every designer do, at least once during their career? Writes Kuchinsky,

Been thinking lately about what life experiences would make the best designer (skills aside).

A not too serious list, for discussion (in no particular order)-

1. Make/Fix something for your own use
2. Get fired
3. Bring a product to market, with your own money
4. Start your own consultancy
5. Pitch/sell an idea to investors
6. Work corporate
7. Work in a consultancy
8. Live/Work in a different country
9. Teach
10. Work on a royalty or equity basis

Thoughts? These are just off the top of my head, nothing too serious or meant to be all encompassing. I can’t say I’ve done all myself, and not sure how many designers have, but think at the very least it’s an interesting thought experiment and maybe a start of a life guide for designers to consider how those experiences other than the usual skills/jobs can affect a designer’s outlook.

Presented with a list like this, the inclination of some is to tally how many they’ve got under their belt, while others have added their own suggestions for must-do items. My favorite add-on is Michael DiTullo’s assertion that “all designers should go to visit an Asian factory. Going to the factories 3–5 times a year for 8 years taught me so much. It is one thing to intellectually understand a manufacturing process, and another to observe it in person. Also to understand the labor that goes into finishing and assembly.” Obviously the “Asian” part is interchangeable depending on where you intend to produce–Chris Anderson, who recently quit his post as Editor of Wired to go into consumer drone production full-time, manufactures in Mexico—but the merits behind DiTullo’s thinking are clear, and much echoed in the subsequent posts.

Down the line, by the way, Kuchinsky adds a ballsier item to the list: “Fire a client.” The pleasure center in my brain is lighting up at the thought…

So, what are your add-ons?

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