We need your help to buy tools and materials for 4 rural innovation centres in Botswana.
Help us build local capacity and grassroots technologies that address rural livelihood challenges of the villages of D’kar, Dutlwe, Rakops and Kaputura in Botswana.
THE CHALLENGE
How can we support rural communities use their indigenous knowledge to start and run businesses that foster their sustainable development?
Botswana is a development success story. At independence, Botswana was one of the poorest countries on earth. However, since then, Botswana has become much wealthier and attained higher middle-income status. Much of Botswana's wealth was generated through diamond extraction. While Botswana has made important gains, it still faces significant challenges, like income inequality, poor human development, poor economic development and high unemployment especially among youth and women. In addition, the future profitability of the diamond industry has been called into doubt.
In order to respond to these challenges, Botswana needs to foster new industries and transition from an extraction-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. This is especially vital in rural areas, which suffer from disproportionately high levels of unemployment and poverty and represent over two thirds of Botswana’s population. Fortunately, there is an interest in rural communities for working in the creative industries sector, using their indigenous knowledge to start businesses and work towards overcoming local development challenges. However, many rural communities lack the equipment, technical skills, mentorship, and funding to bring their projects to fruition.
OUR APPROACH
We believe in community-led developmental interventions.
We work with local communities to facilitate the creation of technological solutions to their local development challenges, that can ultimately be sustainable.
These Hands is a social enterprise fosters local innovation and supports entrepreneurship in rural communities. Founded by Thabiso 'Blak' Mashaba, we have served as an enabler for international development work since 2015, as an implementation partner and rural innovation center partner of the International Development Innovation Network (IDIN) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) D-Lab.
These Hands together with MIT D-Lab have pioneered an alternative approach to the top-down model of development. Focusing on community-led developmental interventions, we work with local communities to help them create technological solutions to their local development challenges and generate income by participating in the creative industries sector (industries based on art, design, and technological innovation). We do this through facilitating technical instruction, mentorship, international design summits, business guidance, tools, materials and spaces at local innovation centers.
To date, our work has focused on 4 communities: D’kar, Dutlwe, Rakops and Kaputura, where local innovators have designed and fabricated several prototypes of technological inventions that help address local community development needs. Some examples of previous projects are a precision planter, a human-powered washing machine, a solar-powered bead maker, and a wheelchair that can be used in sand. Many of these prototypes have been refined and are ready to go to market, with some also being considered for filing as Utility Model Patents. We anticipate that this innovation will continue to attract impact investors which will provide these communities with sustainable development opportunities and jobs.
ABOUT OUR WORK THIS YEAR WITH IDDS BOTSWANA 2018
IDDS Botswana 2018 is a four-weeks hands-on summit which will be hosted in the villages of D’kar, Dutlwe, Rakops and Kaputura in Botswana from July 15th until August 13th 2018, under the theme “improving rural community livelihoods in Botswana” which has a particular focus on co-creating grassroots technologies/innovations and the supporting business models that will be taken-up by the rural community members through their innovation centers in order to enhance and sustain their livelihoods.
The first International Development Design Summit was organized by MIT D-Lab in 2007, led by MacArthur Genius Prize winner, Amy Smith. IDDS are 2-4 weeks hands-on immersive experiences that emphasize the importance of “co-creation,” the idea that working with communities is more powerful than designing solutions for them. During a summit, diverse participants work in multi-disciplinary teams with community members from developing countries, to learn the design cycle, identify problems, develop solutions, and test prototypes. After a summit is over, IDDS participants become a part of the growing International Development Innovation Network (IDIN).
These Hands GSSE in partnership with MIT D-Lab and IDIN already organized two successful design summits in D'kar, Botswana in 2015 and 2016, where there has been a growing demand for design, co-creation, and solution development at the local level. The IDDS D'kar 2015 Summit was themed “Desert Livelihoods” as it was hosted at the heart of the Kalahari Desert and it produced 6 prototypes, with 3 of the 6 still making progress at different stages. The IDDS Botswana 2016 Summit was themed “Celebrating Diversity” in line with the 50th Anniversary of Botswana’s Independence Celebrations and it produced 6 prototypes, with 5 of the 6 all currently ready to go to market. The 2016 summit also officially launched our stronghold partnership with the Kuru Development Trust through the D'kar Innovation Center which is a free-to-access communal space that supports the community with trainings (in-community and outreach), tools, materials, technical support and markets for their local development projects.
WHY THIS CAMPAIGN?
IDDS is an event that does not seek to make a profit. Due to this, we need sponsors like you to support the summit. We have already partnered with the Department of Research, Science and Technology (DRST), Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) and Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH) to cover local accommodation, food, ground transportation, and innovation center refurbishments, among others.
However, we count on your support to purchase materials, tools and supplies to equip the 4 rural innovation centres in D’kar, Dutlwe, Rakops and Kaputura, and to sponsor international summit participants who can’t afford transportation costs. These equipment and supplies will be used to prototype solutions to local livelihood challenges at the local innovation centers located in each village, and both the supplies and the prototypes will stay in the communities to continue to be used for technology and business development.
