Design Thinking goes global — Impact Week 2017 in Rwanda
I get up in the middle of the rainy night to walk to the airport bus stop. Upon placing my suitcase in the back of the bus, the bus driver asks me about my destination. He looks surprised as I tell him “Rwanda” as if it was the first time for him to hear this from a passenger. “Not a classical touristic place to be heading, is it?”, he asks puzzled. “Why would you want to go there?”. This just makes me look forward to the upcoming two weeks on Rwandan ground even more.
Half a year ago, I was lucky to be part of the Impact Week 2017 in Kigali, Rwanda. This project is a non-profit program uniting people from various countries and companies to foster entrepreneurship and cultural exchange through design thinking. My role during the two weeks was that of a Senior Design Thinking Coach, enabling people as junior coaches who then helped local students from the Technical High School of the SOS Children’s Village to come up with innovative ideas.
In my day-to-day job in Germany, I am a Strategic Design Consultant within the team of the SAP AppHaus Heidelberg. Based on my background in Sustainable Development Studies as well as Design Thinking, conscientious and forward-thinking design has always been important to me. Since SAP itself actively supports the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, I am thankful to be able to combine my two passion topics within my job.
On our daily bus rides from our guesthouse to the SOS Children’s Village, we pass countless Rwandan people carrying items on their heads. They have a beautifully artistic way of balancing banana stalks, agricultural tools or huge baskets — all the while talking, walking quickly, laughing, carrying a baby or toddler on the back. I stare and wonder how people can possibly carry so much on their heads, plus retain a better posture and strength than we do even without balancing anything.
The days during the Impact Week are long and intense. Since all coaches stem from different companies and even countries, the joint accommodation in the guesthouse is crucial for team-building. Every Impact Week starts with a two-day “train-the-trainer” workshop, during which junior coaches are trained about Design Thinking. The importance of these two days lies in passing on methodological knowledge and understanding all perspectives and coaching roles. After the enablement during the train-the-trainer days, the junior coaches are fit to facilitate their own team of local students during the following Impact Week.
Following the train-the-trainer course, the actual Impact Week introduces the Design Thinking methodology to the local students of the Principal SOS H.G. Technical High School. The school is known to support the Rwandan youth to become not only committed citizens, but also future leaders in a sustainable society. The Impact Week program thus provides inspiration and aspirational spirit for the students’ future entrepreneurial endeavors. In my role as Senior Coach, I support the junior coaches whenever needed. Together, we work in 18 teams of 6–8 people, on topics such as e-commerce, smart cities or agriculture.
This morning, I have gotten up very early, even before the daily wake-up-sound of the rooster crowing. There is a Rwandese yoga teacher coming to our guesthouse. As we move from downward-facing dog to forward bend, we are watched by curious bystanders who stopped on their way to work or to the market. It must be an attraction in Rwanda to watch so many wazungu (white people) bend their bodies in a courtyard. I wonder what the country will look like as soon as there are more tourists visiting.
Rwanda is either referred to the Singapore of Africa or Switzerland of Africa. Both titles indicate a very orderly, clean, calm country with rules enforced. Most people usually associate the country with its history, mass genocide and lawlessness. During the Impact Week, we were able to talk to many locals and learn a lot more about their country’s history and culture. Umuganda or so-called community days on the last Saturday of the month, where the entirety of the Rwandese population is supposed to contribute to public projects like building streets and cleaning parks. In addition to enhancing national order and cleanliness, the community days were set up to strengthen social ties and uniting the society.
This is related to what struck me most about Rwanda: the way its people coped with the atrocities of the past and found a way to move on, rebuild a present and gain hope for the future. Aside from having to pay a visit, there is definitely a lot one can learn from the country of a thousand hills. The Impact Week was a very unique opportunity for me and resulted in many lessons learned I do not want to miss, both for my personal and business life. The most important one was to just shrug the shoulders and say hakuna matata (“no worries”) whenever something went wrong or didn’t go as planned.
