Emergi organized a two-day design challenge in Liberia on 4 and 5 December of this year. Emergi’s mission is to make sustainable innovations available for everyone, thereby creating social and economic value for all its users. The two-day design challenge was part of a larger research mission to understand the needs and wishes of customers and users for the development of small urban electric vehicles that Emergi will be producing.
During the design challenge the participants received training from the Emergi team. Richard van Hoolwerff, the founder of Emergi, gave an introduction session in entrepreneurship. Our design experts Juan Miguel Ramirez, and Ragna Pettinga introduced industrial design and design thinking to the group and led them through the two days of activities.
The multi-disciplinary group of participants consisted of enthusiastic Liberians who showed an interest in the project and had related skills and backgrounds. The group consisted amongst others of electrical engineers, representatives from the renewable energy sector, engineering students, entrepreneurs and infrastructure experts.
During our month of preparations and interviews with kekeh drivers, owners and other stakeholders we got fantastic insights into the sector and created 5 overarching challenges we wanted the design group to work on. These challenges were: how to get more female drivers, how to make more money with a kekeh, how to improve payment systems, how to ensure driving on renewable energy, and how to empower the kekeh driver more.
In the two days of design thinking that took these steps: Empathize, Define, and Ideate, the group brainstormed, shared ideas and discussed under guidance of Juan Miguel and Ragna. They came up with incredible solutions and ideas that will guide us in designing the ideal sustainable urban vehicle for Liberia and the wider West African market.
Leandra Stolk, a graphic designer, supporting the Emergi team for these two days captured the design challenge in a fantastic visualisation.
