Educational institution: University of Botswana (Botswana)
Programme: Bachelor of Design in Industrial Design
Year of graduation: 2010
What made you decide to become an industrial designer?
Success follows passion. I have always been passionate for the creative industries. I believed that through a creative career I would find freedom to express my ideas, from a concept in my mind, to a sketch on paper, then a tangible product. This thought gave me a vision of more African oriented ideas being adopted and used on a global platform, which in turn could market my country Botswana to the world. The choice was also fuelled by the fact that at the time our country didn’t have any industrial designers to lead the game of design in a strategic way.
In your opinion, what types of people are best suited for the profession of industrial design? What is a typical industrial designer like?
Simply a creative junkie with a passion for transforming ideas into reality!
Where did you study industrial design and what was the most important thing you learned?
I studied at the University of Botswana. The most important thing I learned was that research is the backbone to every design challenge or brief. We want to create product/systems that are user centred in order to create a positive user experience that would cement the user/product relationship.
What do you believe are the major obstacles or challenges for young industrial designers today from a professional standpoint?
I studied industrial design in Botswana, Africa, and operate my business in the same region. I am talking of a region that still needs a lot of education on what industrial design means in the way we interact with our daily products/systems. Corporations need to understand why they need to partner with industrial designers to propel their brand output and drive bottom-line output.
Tell us about the projects you are working on now.
We are currently working on a PPP (private public partnership) project in which we are designing street furniture in terms of a bus stop shelter to be deployed along newly done roads locally which need bus stop shelters. Since our country is still in its infancy in regard to industrial design, we are focused on projects that are more inclined to partnering with corporates as well as municipality/councils and seeing where to chip in to deliver solutions to different problems. In turn we can publicize our work so as to promote industrial design or keep different stakeholders informed.
Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals listed by the United Nations, which do you believe represent the most important challenges facing your generation today?
Number 9, “Industry Innovation & Infrastructure”, is an important challenge. Even though our country is fast developing and one of the easiest to do business in due to its political stability and business set up laws, we are not yet a fully-fledged manufacturing country. Industrial designers have to work closely with manufacturers so our ideas can be done in the most efficient and economically advantageous way, with the best processes, from a designer’s point of view, not an engineer’s or manufacturer’s point of view. Therefore we have a serious challenge as we tend to export manufacturing services to other countries and this can be costly depending on the type of product you are looking to produce.
Thinking of those most important challenges facing your generation, do you believe that industrial design is part of the solution?
Yes. Our industrialization can be lead by industrial designers, in this part of the world. We know what is needed to improve user experience and products and we know exactly how industrialization can pave the way forward.
What do you most love about industrial design?
I believe that industrial design is the next age that will be dominating after the information age with consumers becoming more and more knowledgeable and demanding more products and services that reflect their values and beliefs as well as their style and tastes. I love the fact that an industrial designer should not be limited by the production process of the end product but should instead be limitless in terms of thinking. This results in the streamlined modern cars, kitchen, and home-gym products we see today that simplify our lives, as well as the systems that optimize the way we do business.
As an industrial designer, what is your biggest dream?
I would like to see the world move away from systems and products that further degrade and cause havoc with our ozone layer as this has started to bounce back to us in terms of the climate catastrophes we see around the world every day. I would also like to see an increase in user and climate friendly systems and products, which will transform our world from a resource dependent to a technologically dependent one.
How do you see yourself working with Icsid to design for a better world?
I see myself collaborating with Icsid to focus in on Africa. This is a continent that is rich in culture, resources as well as human capital where we can promote design for a better world. This continent has a lot to offer. We can turn it around from being a consumer continent to being a producer. We can fuse both technology and the vast availability of raw materials to make Africa a design continent.