Designing impactful experiences - starting with non-users

18 November 2013 – Utrecht

AirBnb, Skype, Nintendo Wii, Netflix, Tata Nano,… Recent evolutions in technologies are fostering new services and experiences, which shake incumbent companies and business models. Of all contexts where this has happened, the most radical and disruptive is probably the African one. Despite the many challenges — dumbphones instead of smartphones, low literacy level, scarcity of PCs — we have seen innovation flourish in the past few years. Starting with the creation of services for underserved populations and niches of people who don't use the typical or current solutions.

Showcasing some of the most innovative start-ups in the African continent, Franco presented some of the challenges of designing products and services when driven by impact rather than features. He also reflected on the learnings and how these can be applied to user experience projects for products in European contexts.

Franco Papeschi works at the Web Foundation, where he's responsible for the Mobile Entrepreneurship Initiative. They have created labs (in Kenya, Ghana, Senegal) that are community catalysts, training centres and incubation hot-spots for creating social impact start-ups. Also, he's one of the co-founders of Design Jams.

Special guest this evening was John Kieti, lead at m:lab East Africa. John gave an introduction of the work being done or supported by m:lab.

Practical information

Date and time	Monday 18 November 2013
Location	Louis Hartlooper Complex Tolsteegbrug 1 3511 ZN Utrecht