OUR PROPOSAL: USER RESEARCH AND OPEN INNOVATION To develop and implement meaningful solutions to complex challenges of the rural context, we need holistic approaches that integrate a variety of factors such as long-term environmental and social impact, available resources, economic motives, habits and cultural traditions. Our main approach here is firmly based on methods of usability engineering and user experience design.
» OPEN INNOVATION AND CO-DEVELOPMENT: We include a variety
of perspectives and professional expertise into the development and implementation process and co-develop and test technologies with actual users and their communities.
There is an urgent need for new formats and infrastructure for awareness raising, dialogue and co-development around rural issues, because expertise in engineering and business are often reared in urban settings, while rural contexts offer an abundance of both important challenges and opportunities.
» LOCAL DRIVERS: For an innovative solution to have long-term im-
pact, it requires both dedication and local sensibility on part of the implementer. Our support to local drivers can consist in technical advice, capacity building, project management and international networking.
RURAL URBAN PLATFORMS OF COLLABORATION
» SMALL SCALE AND OPEN SOURCE: We support small scale and
flexible local solutions that let agricultural producers control their tools of production and bring consumers in closer relationship with food producers, while genetic resources are kept out of domination by licensing and indigenous rights are respected.
In our projects we strive to support and empower on-the-ground initiatives, individuals and networks that have both vested interest in the success of an intervention and knowledge about the issues and context at hand.
» URBAN RURAL PLATFORMS: We support platforms as spaces of
learning, exchange and practical hands-on experimentation, bridging the gap and linking experts and practitioners from the two contexts to each other to create and implement new projects together.
» USER CENTERED DESIGN: We start a new project with field re-
www.icebauhaus.com
» AWARENESS & ACTIVISM: We aim to encourage novel, more ef-
fective ways of communicating important underreported rural issues and bringing forth perspectives from the periphery. Urban-rural collaboration is a key for sustainable development.
Photo: GIZ/PERACOD
search and needs assessment together with the target user group and stakeholders, followed by iterative cycles of design, prototyping and user testing until the product demonstratively satisfies all user requirements.
RURAL URBAN COLLABORATION MATTERS We from icebauhaus have had the opportunity of applying our core competences of user-centered design and network-driven bottom-up innovation to different non-urban contexts through a series of projects and activities over the last years.
by autonomous small-scale renewable energy solutions enables the community to advance towards their own vision of a smart indigenous village. Partners: Common Room Networks Foundation, GIZ
challenges, such as a solar mobile phone charger. Due to outbreak of political unrest in South Sudan, workshop activities needed to be re-settled to diaspora communities including Rhino refugee camp in Uganda. The aim of the project was to empower South Sudanese youth in Juba and the diaspora to develop their own media technologies through collaboration. Partners: r0g_agency for Open Culture, jHUB community, BMZ
» USABILITY FRAMEWORK FOR AGRI-APPS. We applied different
scientific methods to evaluate the usability of 18 mobile apps and websites that are currently being marketed to small-hold farmers in developing countries, so-called “Agri-Apps”. The aim of the project was to establish common shortcomings of the design from the point of view of the intended users and to develop recommendations for how to improve the basic usability, to be further implemented as a “usability framework for Agri-Apps”. Partners: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg
» A FUTURE IN AGRIBUSINESS AND FOOD PRODUCTION.
Yeesal AgriHub is a home-grown Senegalese initiative bringing young urban techies closer to professional opportunities within the rural context. With a physical hub in rural town Thiès and access to office and event spaces in Dakar, Yeesal has in short time managed to create a strong multidisciplinary community and is implementing many activities around entrepreneurship, ICT development, food processing and ecological farming practices. Partners: Yeesal AgriHub, GIZ.
» RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER. icebauhaus has part-
nered on several research projects: For instance, we conducted a research study on potentials of ICT4Ag for the GIZ program “Green Innovation Centres for the Agriculture and Food Sectors” and organized a workshop session on “Tools of Knowledge Application – ict4ag challenges & opportunities on a global scale” in Addis Ababa with regional entrepreneurs and agricultural experts.
» INNOVATION IN HONEY PRODUCTION. The Ethiopian tech hub
iceaddis partnered with researchers to develop innovative solutions to challenges within the local honey production sector, through a design thinking process. A concept for a crowd financing platform, linking consumers to individual rural honey producers has been developed and is starting the process of implementation. Partners: iceaddis, GIZ
» MOBILE APP FOR ETHIOPIAN RUNNERS: We applied usability
engineering methods to developing from scratch an implementable prototype of a training app for Ethiopian athletes and their trainers. The app was designed for use on mobile phones with special features such as simultaneous complex timekeeping of multiple athletes, locally tailored learning modules on nutrition, training methods and career advice, off-grid support, interface in the main local Ethiopian languages, etc. Partners: Adi Dassler Foundation, AhadooTec
» MODERN ICT TO PRESERVE INDIGENOUS RURAL CULTURE.
A group of urban Indonesian multimedia and technology activists has built a strong relationship with the indigenous rural community of Kasepuhan Ciptagelar in West-Java island and is now in the process of experimenting and prototyping how to adapt modern technologies to preserve local cultural knowledge while also improving income. A basic infrastructure of open source data center powered
www.icebauhaus.com
» MEDIA PRODUCTION THROUGH COLLABORATION. The project
“Let’s Go jHUB” included hands-on open hardware workshops on how to create your own simple technological solutions to locally relevant
www.icebauhaus.com