Buspreneur interview with Joe Mellin

Joe Mellin, a San Franciscan designer living in Sweden, is experienced in designing web based systems of employment and behaviour change. He has a strong sense of responsibility to create things that benefit humanity by, in part, supporting already existing institutions.

1. Who are you? Describe yourself in 3 sentences.
   I am a designer from San Francisco, currently living in Sweden, who has designed everything from wheel chairs to web based employment systems. I think that working with someone is the best way to get to know them.
2. What do you expect from your participation on the bus?
   I expect to have my skills tested and get inspired by other great entrepreneurs.
3. Why Africa? Why now?
   I don’t see Africa as a separate place from the rest of the world. As development and connectives accelerate, the divide between Africa and the rest of the world will fade away.
4. What is your area of expertise — mobile development, healthcare, or the energy sector? Please talk a little bit about how you gained this expertise…
   My main area of expertise is designing web based systems of employment and behaviour change. I am a student of humanity, how we think, what we need, what invokes our emotions. I studied at Stanford University and co-founded Proven.com. I am now building the next generation of mental health treatment.
5. Please share an idea for a technology (mobile, health, energy) that can solve a problem/s local to the South African region.
   As I have yet to be in SA, it is too early for me to say. What I am most interested in is supporting the institutions of the society that enable long term growth. These can be anything from property rights, to the ability to open a business. I think that helping strengthen these institutions is the best way towards long term prosperity.
6. Everyone has a special story. What is yours?
   I was lucky enough to have been born in a country where I have great opportunity. The rest of my story is simply fulfilling the responsibility that comes with that great opportunity. I believe that to do that I need to create scalable systems that benefit humanity.
7. Are you sponsoring yourself or do you have sponsors? Please tell us about your sponsors…
   I am sponsoring myself.