SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE LAB
University of Botswana DESIS Lab
The University of Botswana became a DESIS member after contributing to the Creative Communities for Sustainable Life Styles (CCSL) project, a Task Force on Sustainable Consumption and Production, sponsored by the Swedish Ministry of Environment and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).
University
University of Botswana
Country
Botswana
Team
Richie Moalosi & Shorn Molokwane
About Us
The University of Botswana became a DESIS member after contributing to the Creative Communities for Sustainable Life Styles (CCSL) project, a Task Force on Sustainable Consumption and Production, sponsored by the Swedish Ministry of Environment and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). It was through this initiative that the concept of social innovation was taken on board into the design programme.
Objectives
- Promote the concept of social innovation in design programmes in new emerging economies
- Develop a favourable social, cultural, political, economic, and environment through design for the present and future generations
- Promote promising social innovation initiatives and communicate their significance to a large audience
- Facilitate the transferability of effective social innovation solutions to other socio-cultural contexts
- Propose new visions and solutions as initiatives to be developed in open, collaborative interactions with local communities and other stakeholders
Identifying, communicating and giving visibility to promising social innovation initiatives within Botswana’s context and share experience with other countries.
The University of Botswana was involved in the unearthing of local promising social innovation scenarios for the Creative Communities for Sustainable Life Styles (CCSL) project. Some of the areas include neighbourhood care, cultural food festival, money saving schemes and greening the city. In 2010, the University of Botswana and other African Universities were in partnership with Rio de Janeiro Federal University on a research project called ‘Africa-Brasil Dialogs: a collaborative platform for mutual learning on social innovation’. This project used the CCSL project as starting point and it involved identifying social innovation initiatives in the African and Brazilian contexts. Social innovation in this context is viewed as the main driver towards sustainability and design schools could help in supporting and accelerating the process through developing the necessary knowledge base, information management and dissemination.
Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University of Nairobi, Makerere University, Rio de Janeiro Federal University and Politecnico di Milano.
To integrate social innovation within the University of Botswana Industrial Design programme together with other contemporary initiatives which promote sustainability through design.
Neighbourhood care, cultural food festival, money saving schemes and greening the city, co-creating with the marginalised and disadvantaged communities.
PROJECTS
Our projects
Our projects range from: Neighbourhood care, cultural food festival, money saving schemes and greening the city, co-creating with the marginalised and disadvantaged communities.
For the poor and unemployed families who live in rural areas and have limited sources of income, it becomes a challenge to bury their beloved ones. In an effort to mitigate this challenge, families in rural areas form Burial Societies and contribute a small token every month.
Team
Coordinator
Prof. Richie Moalosi
Richie Moalosi is Professor in the Department of Industrial Design and Technology at the University of Botswana. He has over 20 years of teaching experience at the university level. He works with small micro-enterprises, community-based organisations and creative communities to uplift their brands and product or service innovation capabilities as these are considered to be the next engine of economic growth in Botswana and Africa. His specialisation and research interest areas include the following: design and culture, design education, sustainable design, social innovation, additive manufacturing, and post-graduate students’ supervision.
Operation Manager
Yaone Rapitsenyane
Yaone Rapitsenyane is a Service Designer and a lecturer of Sustainable Design at the University of Botswana. With over 10 years of university teaching and community engagement experience, he leads engagement activities such as workshops and collaborative teaching projects. His research interests work include imparting design capabilities in manufacturing and service SMEs, developing sustainable business models for SMEs and developing sustainable Product Service System curricula for African universities. He continues to publish in per-reviewed journals, book chapters and peer-reviewed international conferences.
Contacts
Get in touch with us if you liked any of our projects and would like to participate!
- Prof. Richie Moalosi | +267 355 4223
- Yaone Rapitsenyane | +267 355 4232
- Private Bag UB 0061 │Gaborone │ Botswana
MEMBERSHIP
DESIS Network’s purpose is “to promote design for social innovation in higher education institutions with design discipline so as to generate useful design knowledge and to create meaningful social changes in collaboration with other stakeholders.”
DESIS Network’s purpose is “to promote design for social innovation in higher education institutions with design discipline so as to generate useful design knowledge and to create meaningful social changes in collaboration with other stakeholders.” Applying members who share the same vision and fulfil the following requirements will become DESIS Labs.
Members can be legally constituted higher education institutions or Universities with design disciplines (hereinafter referred to also only as “higher education institutions” or only as “Universities”), private or public, sharing DESIS motivations and visions and supporting DESIS activities (Labs projects, international Initiatives, Platform improvements).
Once the Membership Request Letter and its attachments have been received by the International Coordination Committee, they will be analysed in order to verify if the formal requirements are satisfied. On this basis, feedback will be send to the interested teams.
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