Hugo Polman
Share design thinking
My personal goal is to work in developing countries and have a clear focus towards sustainability. But in many projects that are currently in these Base of Pyramid countries there is a lack of sharing knowledge. Almost all projects are aimed towards at least one of the pillars People, Planet, Profit but many lack increasing the knowledge of important persons.
There are many examples that bring great products to these countries, but designing and production is still within the more developed countries. Therefore, the focus is more towards a market where the products can be placed instead of developing and producing with cooperation of the country.
Therefore I think it is necessary that design agencies with western design thinking should try to share their knowledge to local companies. This knowledge sharing might introduce very innovative ideas which can be completely developed within the country. Most of the countries already have the resources but lack the educated design thinking.
Personally, I think that there might be a great market for this in these countries. Especially Dutch designers are known for their design thinking, and there is a trend even within western countries to incorporate this. In these times where knowledge becomes more and more valuable, it should not be limited to only a few relatively rich countries.
It is not expected that within the coming years great design focussed universities will be built in low-income countries. Therefore this need for knowledge institutes might even grow further. During the years the synergy of this knowledge institute and local companies might be able to appoint some local talents. When these local talents can be trained by the knowledge institutes it has the change to create a snowball effect. It has to be said that few of these institutes are present at the moment and if it works is still a guess. But this should never be a driver to wait for taking action! Therefore, at some point in my life I hope to create such a knowledge institute and who knows, it might even succeed.
