Disrupt!/Design! 2016: Sustainability

For the second year in a row, MENA DRC along with Hivos and Dutch Culture ventured to organize yet another Disrupt!/Design! ideathon for over 3 days during Beirut Design Week 2016, bringing together 11 teams that applied to the program with their ideas on developing a sustainable business. Submissions had to be creative ideas that incorporate sustainability in its core values.

About the Theme

Sustainability means “development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Although primarily focused on ecology and the environment, it also involves social, cultural and economic aspects of life. If the submitted idea was in line with this form of thinking, then the team was eligible to be part of the ideathon. It could be a product, a service, a movement or an awareness campaign that encourages more responsible behaviour for citizens in Lebanon and the MENA region. This can include recycling and upcycling projects, but also services that maintain, support and educate.

Introducing the Teams

Participation was open to all people currently residing in Lebanon of any age or background. Participants may be primarily designers, but also social workers, scientists, researchers, creatives, makers, techies, or creative people who are passionate about sustainability.

TEAM 1: Amer el Debek and Aisha Habli

Having noticed the difficulty that young businesses face during the setting up phase, this team aims to automate and streamline the business incorporation method all in a ‘one pit-stop’ website, where a startup can get a fixed cost, set-up their business in no time – all happening online for the first time in Lebanon! This will tackle many of the current difficulties in setting-up a business in lebanon such as understanding the legal framework.  Aisha and Amer will combine their skills in the entrepreneurial and crowdfunding realms to bring this platform to reality.

TEAM 2: Maria EL Hajj and Aya Hoteit

CIVVIES is an urban fashion brand that works on harvesting plastic waste before it hits landfills and gives it a second life in the form of uniquely designed graphic apparel. The brand is more than just about the items it creates as it provides a full service based on an application that allows for personalization and customization of a purchase and a stronger reach into the market. Fitted into a sustainable cycle, the brand hopes to also raise awareness about plastic waste and its collection. This female trio will combine their skills in engineering, marketing and project management to bring CIVVIES to fruition.

TEAM 3: Mariebelle Aouad and Reine-Marie Zeghondi

Ex-Décor tackles sustainability with a new angle by addressing the social tradition of household decoration for both traditions and/or religious events. The team has tallied around 10 different yearly events that require their own set of decorations, objects essentially stocked away 10-11 months per years, just to be displayed once. Ex-Décor is an opportunity to sell your old decorations in exchange for somebody else’s; thus avoiding any creation of waste. This dream team of 2 business savy ladies have thought out all the details of their operation deeming it sustainable both financially and ecologically!

TEAM 4: Iskandar Anis Abdallah, Adib Ghaith, Ghaleb Hawila and Farah Mazyad

Ghain design is an initiative that aims to revitalize the craft and tradition of arabic calligraphy by integrating it to the modern household in the form of furniture. Using a mix of Origami and Arabic Calligraphy the team produces unique lighting fixtures. Each item is carefully crafted and designed to highlight both function and aesthetics. This team combines skills in the art of calligraphy, design and social media and together they hope to repurpose an old tradition and reinvigorate it among the youth.

TEAM 5: Ahmad Khouja and Mustafa Nachar

With the current waste crisis, Lebanon’s dependency on plastic bottles and cans is all the more exacerbated. Khouja and Nachar are developing a mobile compactor that runs without electricity and is able to treat both plastic bottles and cans of various sizes. This device will tackle several problems related to recyclable waste such as the lack of a regular pick-up service and the difficulty of storing plastic bottles. This will allow users on multiple scales to increase their ability to capture and redirect plastic and aluminum waste out of the normal garbage stream and into recycling centers. Ahmad has a background in environmental design and architecture that will be complemented by Mustafa’s design and crafting abilities.

TEAM 6: Renée Abi Saad and Rita Andrew

Donations and charity are an important aspect of today’s economy. Renée and Rita would like to streamline this process to provide more resources to people in need and facilitate the process for those willing to share. They will be creating an application where users can volunteer or donate blood, clothes, money, food, etc. while organizations can build profiles and manage the donations through a merchant account. The app also delivers push notifications to alert users based on their preferences. This duo hopes to truly make a difference in their community by bringing together their passion and knowledge of economy, project management and web development.

TEAM 7‭: ‬Berna Daou‭, ‬Farah Jaroudi and Radwa Rostom

Based on the four dimensions of the Eco way of living, the trio Daou Jaroudi and Rostom imagined a news four dimensional approach to sustainable housing. Their goal is to co-design with communities and a team of experts, using local resources and recycled materials, a house that takes care of its residents. Their approach takes into account the context and the setting, the ecological dimensions of the household needs (such as water, energy,etc.) as well as an economical and a social dimension. All teammates have quit their jobs earlier this year and have decided to dedicate themselves to making this project a reality in Lebanon. They are currently in the data collection phase as they look for ideal sites to implement the pilot project.

TEAM 8: Alfred Bridi and Joseph Sheridan

Joseph and Alfred are tackling culturally sustainable travel with a web platform that can streamline, synthesize, and communicate the soul of cities in the MENA region through the stories of its people. The BETA version will have a specific focus on Lebanon in the hopes of driving more tourism to the country. The platform is a digital and holistic way to experience a city, for travelers and locals alike, through video-based storytelling. An inspired look at a city is provided through curated city guides and editorialized, cinematic-quality content focused on the city, its spaces, and people.  Joseph has experience in building start-ups as well as understanding of middle-eastern real estate; knowledge that will be complemented by Alfred’ experience art directing.

TEAM 9: Haya Farah and Nicolas Maalouf

Tackling social sustainability, the team Farah and Maalouf hope to empower senior school students by building an interactive orientation platform. Based on a narrative format that visualizes the path of several people, the team hopes to create a more approachable format to the data, one that will inspire youth into finding a school major or a career. The website will also be complemented by a youtube channel that prepares them to the job market through passing over the power of storytelling when sharing stories, aspirations, strengths and weaknesses when job hunting or at interviews. This bold “career makeover” will be made available in Arabic and English using Haya’s experience in entrepreneurship and Nicola’s design skills.

TEAM 10: Nicole Fortin and Maya Terro

SOUPer Meals on Wheels SMW is a community-based, volunteer-driven self-sustainable food truck that aims to provide food to those in need. The proposed concept functions on two separate shifts, during day time hot meals are delivered to different communities and at night the truck transform into a traditional street-food service, selling pizza to paying customers! SMW’s mission addresses the issue of food poverty with an emphasis on communities with a high risk of becoming food insecure. In doing so it also highlights the environmental problem of food waste by tackling and raising awareness on the food rescue. As one of the founders of Food Blesses Maya hopes to bring her experience with food and community work into this initiative while Nicole will bring her environmental policy know-how!

TEAM 11: Jesse Bowley, Jeanne Fouchet and Adrian Perez

Harvest is an initiative to develop a DIY kit for indoor and simple mushroom growing focusing on distribution in the MENA Region. This project hopes to tackle the disengaged relationship of the modern urban dweller with the food he consumes. Mushrooms are a high yield crop with a fast growth rate, requiring minimum technology and expertise to cultivate. In addition to its high nutritional value, a great advantage of mushrooms is that they grow primarily on waste material ranging from agricultural waste to cardboard. The main target of this project is educational urban agencies to disseminate the message of urban/indoor gardening to the youth. Adrian, Jeanne and Jesse will be working together bridging between art, design, cuisine and sustainability.

The Ideathon Program & Mentors

The program of the ideathon is divided into a series of sessions throughout the three consecutive days. The sessions are designed in such a way where the mentors introduce the subject to the teams, and then the teams are given tasks to implement before the next session starts. The sessions include tools from Design Thinking methods incorporated into business models such as The Business Model Canvas, Stakeholder Maps, Product Positioning strategies, Value Proposition, Core Value Summary, Accounting & Financing, and Progress Reporting. The mentors for Disrupt!/Design! 2016 were Diala Lteif, Eric Klarenbeek, Doreen Toutikian, Vrouyr Joubanian, Marc Metni, Waleed Jad, Roy Letterle, Nicole Hamouche, Antoine Karam, and Asil Sidahmed.

Final Presentation Jury

At the end of the 3-day ideathon, the teams pitched their project concepts using storyboards and prototypes to the panel of jury members, who selected 2 winning projects and rewarded them with cash prizes.The jury members were Ziad Abi Chaker, Nathalie Fallaha, Eric Klarenbeek and Dima Boulad.

The Winners

1. Berna Daou, Farah Jaroudi and Radwa Rostom: Sustainable Housing

2: Ahmad Khouja and Mustafa Nachar: Kabseh Kabsten

MENA DRC would like to thank Hivos and Dutch Culture for supporting the Lebanese community to keep building sustainable projects and helping the youth with developing their ideas into achievable business plans.

Design Weeks are flourishing in the Middle East & North Africa

When the MENA Design Research Center was launched in 2011, the goal of its founders was to create social impact the MENA region and develop awareness about the role and value of Design. Now four years later, we begin to be able to quantify the growth and impact that the center has partially set in track. One of the most well-known activities of MENA DRC is the Beirut Design Week, which was the first design week to be established in the region in 2012. Now, fast-forward four years later, there are already four design weeks that are right on track, and another two just on the doorstep.Each Design Week is unique in its goals, features, participants and events. For Beirut Design Week, which is founded and organized by the MENA Design Research Center – a non-profit organization, the goal is to develop local entrepreneurship, provide cultural exchange for skills and experiences, enhance design education, and create awareness about design for social impact. The neighboring design weeks have some similar aspects but to varying proportions.

Soon to follow Beirut Design Week a year later in 2013 was the Bahrain International Design Week which took place in one venue, the Bahrain International Exhibition & Convention Centre. The goals of the event are commercial, promising market share and exposure for all exhibitors.

In 2014 followed Saudi Design Week organized by Oasis Magazine in Partnership with the King Faisal Foundation for Research and Islamic Studies. Closer to the BDW model, the program is divided into curated exhibitions, workshops, and a design forum, showing a more versatile approach that is both commercial and educational.

This month marked the beginning of Dubai Design Week, which took place in various locations and focused mostly around Dubai’s latest large scale real estate project, the Dubai Design District – which is set to be finalized in the next couple of years. DDW is owned and managed by the Art Dubai Group, a joint venture company between the Dubai International Financial Centre and Middle East Fairs Ltd. Bringing in high-end talent as well as established educational institutions from all corners of the world, the Emiratis prove again that high investment pays off.

Next month we will witness the launch of Cairo Design Week, who are already developing a partnership with Beirut Design Week and their near future seems promising. Moreover, talks with Amman Design Week have also been initiated, the event is set to take place in 2016. Can you guess who will be next? I have a pretty good idea…

Beirut Design Week Meets Live Love Beirut at Mzaar

Every year Lebanon celebrates the feast of the Virgin Mary in mid August. The national festivities usually take place in the mountains and are a call to all the residents and tourists to leave the coast and enjoy a day of cool breezes, sunshine, local markets, entertainment and -of course- food. For the first time Beirut Design Week took a small group of its young and talented designers and migrated for one week outside of the Capital to take part in this event in Mzaar in partnership with Live Love Beirut. As a means to promote young talent and help designers sell their products and services the Designer Market was designed and developed by MENA DRC. Exhibitors included the lovely Vanina designers, Creative Space Beirut, Ghassan Salameh, Second Street, Patil Tchilinguirian, Kaheled el Mays, Waste, Oddfish, Celine Khailarallah, We Shape Hearts and Margherita. Apart from a fantastic week where all the designers got to know each other better and discuss their careers, challenges and sales methods; many of them made good profit and a few new long-term clients. As a first trial of BDW to be part of another event, it was a relative success with many lessons learnt for the coming years

Disrupt! Design! Crowdfunding Campaign Launches at BDW2015

No one acted surprised when the lights went dark in Beirut Souks on a Monday night early in June—power cuts are regular enough. But that blasé reaction turned to curiosity when the sounds of the rainforest, not generators, followed, and that curiosity turned to excitement as fog poured in and video footage of a waterfall shined through the mist onto a bare souk wall.

“It’s the rainforest!” one young shopper enthused as crowds gathered with smiles on their faces and cellphones in hand to record the unfolding display.

The dramatic public intervention jumpstarted Beirut Design Week, and showed in a very public way how design can make a social impact in the region. As far as campaigns for change go, that was just the beginning. Only a few hundred meters from the pop-up rainforest, teams of Lebanese designers were busy pitching their own social initiatives.

Tackling a broad swath of social issues, the groups of designers participating in the Disrupt! Design! initiative were appealing directly to Beirut Design Week attendees for the funding they needed to get their projects off the ground. Through the Disrupt! Design! initiative the teams had already been equipped with training from the MENA Design Research Center and the crowdfunding initiative Zoomaal.

The diversity of their projects showcases just how many different paths social intervention can take:

Ensa Project With a 2D-animated series, the Ensa Project is looking to empower young Lebanese to address persistent social issues. One key to the project is the online platform where users can interact, share their own stories, and submit ideas for future episodes.

Beirut RiverLess Having already gained UNHabitat and municipal backing for its ambitious strategy to revive and restore the Beirut River watershed, Beirut RiverLess is looking to change the public’s relationship with a once-vital waterway.

Inara Initiative The Inara Initiative designed and launched pitched BDW2015 attendees on its specially engineered lids—one a lamp, and the other a water filter—for the household jars commonly used in underprivileged communities. While the team was appealing for public crowdfunding, its designers were keen to point out that anyone can fund the project by simply buying an upmarket version of the lids, which subsidize the donation models.

Look Me in the Leg The final crowdfunding project to launch at BDW2015 was a team touting its plan for customized prosthetics that provided enhanced functions such as Bluetooth speakers or cellphone chargers. The team hopes it can alter the perception of both prosthetics and disabilities among the public as well as its users.

Showcased alongside the Based in Beirut exhibition in Beirut Souks, the Disrupt! Design! projects were nested near the heart of Beirut Design Week, and the Ensa Project’s first promotional installment played on the silver screen during the BDW2015 international conference, but all the designers had the chance to meet potential funders: from interested individuals to aid organizations.

As the crowdfunding campaigns continue and the design teams push harder to make their interventions, one thing is clear: they can’t do it without a little help from the public pulling them along.

This project has been developed in partnership with Hivos and Mideast Creatives.

Press conference starts countdown to BDW15

As the days grow long and the nights get hot, you can be sure summer is fast approaching–and so is Beirut Design Week. Mark your calendar because BDW15 is kicking-off June 1 with a week of more than 150 workshops, conferences, exhibitions and open studios exploring the theme Social Beings.

“Design isn’t just about the objects, it’s about the people behind those objects.” Beirut Design Week Director Doreen Toutikian said while explaining the theme at a press conference Tuesday. Rather, BDW15 is casting light on the interactions made possible by good design, from healthcare to architecture and everything in between.  

More than 140 Lebanese creatives are exchanging knowledge, networking and opening their spaces in BDW15, more than in any preview design week.

They’ll be joined by a roster keynote speakers from corporations and institutions including IBM, Domus Academy, Parsons New York, Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design and Instituto Europeo di Design for a two-day conference exploring design as the intersection of business, social impact and technology.

In design “you need to have influence from elsewhere, you need to have influence from everywhere,” the Finnish Ambassador said at Tuesday’s press conference at the restaurant Liza as he explained his embassy’s support for Beirut Design Week.

Now in its fourth year, the festival has grown into one of the key events on Lebanon’s summer social calendar. In addition to exploring the theme of Social Beings, BDW15 will spark discussion on how design can move from aesthetics to values, from elitism to inclusiveness, and from dictation to dialogue.  To find out how you can join more than 4,000 participants daily June 1-7 at Beirut Design Week events held all across greater Beirut, check the program here.

Social & Environmental projects win Disrupt!/ Design!/ Funding

Three minutes may be longer than an elevator pitch, but it isn’t much time to explain the innovation, impact and feasibility of a social design project that’s been months in the making. But that was the challenge design teams faced at the Disrupt!/ Design!/ ideathon this weekend as they sought to convince a panel of experts their projects deserve a $1,000 grant, an advertising budget and mentorship from the MENA Design Research Center. The teams that won funding Sunday proposed projects to tackle a host of environmental and social problem in Lebanon.

Khalik Mitl Sami is a platform for fostering open dialogue on race in Lebanon. Starting with a pop-up stand highlighting the food and cultural of Sudan, the team hopes it can facilitate interactions between groups who wouldn’t normally engage each other. The genesis of the project and its name are rooted in team member Asil Sidahmed’s own experience in which a Beirut service driver upbraided a passenger for racial insensitivity.

“When we look at the Beirut River, what we see is two walls and a sewer,” said Adib Dada, whose team has a master plan for rehabilitating the Beirut River. By creating two parks on either side of the river and building a footbridge connecting Badawi and Bourj Hammoud, the team hopes it can tap into memories of a time when the natural river was a bigger part of daily life. “If we can bring back that emotional relationship, they will fight for it to be cleaner, to be rehabilitated,” Dada said.

Setting out to demystify the Bomb shelter, this team is turning the bomb shelter into an interactive space as it compiles a fresh oral history of the civil war. Tamara Qiblawi said the team hopes the stories of human survival it gathers will fill in the blanks left by war stories that all too often end with “ba3dein zilna 3lmelja.”

With its plan to make a gray city greener one square meter at a time, the Square Meter team plans to distribute hydroponic kits to bring much-needed plant life to rooftops and unused lots throughout Beirut.

Most important for the organizers behind the Disrupt!/ Design!/ campaign is long-term follow-up, which gives them hope the projects will be self-sustaining. “Great ideas happen all the time, but sometimes they go nowhere,” MENA RDC Director Doreen Toutikian said. Mideast Creatives Project Manager Arthur Steiner said the Disrupt!/ model, which has already succeeded in Cairo and Amman, is proof that fields like design, typography, video gaming and music can be engines of social change and economic development. Although designers had in the past been relegated to the role of facilitators for the stories and ideas of others, ideathon lecturer Richard van der Laken said designers are now claiming new agency to pursue their own projects.

“We have, suddenly, a very different role,” van der Laken said.

The ideathon teams not selected for the funding campaign are not walking away from the workshop empty-handed, as all the teams have the option of joining a crowdfunding campaign to take their ideas directly to funders through Zoomaal. The campaign will launch June 1 at the opening of Beirut Design Week, where funders will be able to view the projects and meet the designers.

Over three days at Dawawine, the Design!/ Disrupt!/ ideathon teams also worked with a slate of international mentors specializing in fields as diverse as design interaction, monetization and crowdfunding. The teams have spent months, and in at least one case years, developing their ideas, and feedback from other teams and the mentors helped them hone these ideas.

Paul Hughes kicked off day No. 1 of the ideathon with a lecture on design thinking, and Stephanie Hughes coached the teams through the value proposition. On day No. 2 Richard van der Laken shared his experiences about brand identity and positioning, while Lilian Abou Zeki walked the teams through nontraditional business models to sustain their projects.

On day No. 3 the designers worked with Zoomaal’s Aisha Habli to up their crowdfunding IQ, and they learned from Paul Hughes how to nail the pitch. Ideathon participant Ghinwa Chlouk admitted the workshop’s schedule was grinding, but “throughout this whole process we’re having a lot of fun,” she said.

The ideathon closed with the teams pitching their projects to a five-person jury consisting of:

•  Hani Asfour (architect and creative strategist, president of the Beirut Creative Cluster)
• Stephanie Akkaoui Hughes (lead architect at AKKA)
• Ricardo Karam (talk show host and philanthropist with TAKREEM Arab Achievement Awards)
• Jimmy Ghazal (innovation director and Saatchi & Saatchi)
• Carmen Geha (professor specializing in political reform and civil society at the American University of Beirut)

Deliberations stretched from an allotted 10 minutes to half an hour as the jury struggled to agree on which three teams that would receive funding. In the end, the jury wasn’t forced to make its shortlist any shorter—a last-minute donation of $1,000 by Ricardo Karam on top of the $3,000 pledged by Hivos broke the deadlock and allowed the panel to select a fourth winning team.

More than 90 designers submitted proposals for the Disrupt!/ Design!/ ideathon, and although only 10 teams were selected for the workshop and four received direct funding, organizers found the strength of the ideas encouraging.

“At a certain point, we hope they all fly,” Steiner said.

Design is here to Disrupt!

Promoting big ideas to disrupt the status quo, the Disrupt!/Design!/ campaign kicked off Friday with its first training session for ten Lebanese design teams looking to take their projects from the drawing board to the board room and beyond in search of funding.

The teams—which include veterans as well as plucky newcomers in fields as diverse as architecture, engineering and traditional handicraft—are all vying to be among the three teams selected for a crowdfunding campaign that will launch in June during Beirut Design Week.

A collaboration between Beirut Design Week and the Dutch development organization Hivos, in partnership with Mideast Creatives and the crowdfunding organization Zoomaal, Disrupt!/Design!/ will provide the teams mentorship from a panel of international experts. These mentors will push the teams to refine their proposals while addressing the specific needs each faces.

As they hone their pitches, the teams will also benefit from crowdfunding training by Zoomaal, which will include storyboarding, writing, video production and presentation.

The teams are:

Ray Chawki Ghafary and Charbel Afif

Recognizing that traditional below-the-knee prosthetics have left many amputees ashamed, the team aims to make a prosthetic that users could wear proudly. With more attractive covers and an emphasis on aesthetics, the team wants to battle the stigma many amputees face. “We’re not reinventing the prosthetic,” Ghafary said, “we’re enhancing its usage.”

Adib Dada, Yasmina Choueir, May Khalifeh, Raya Tueny, and Alia Fattouh

Though its project is still in the development phase, this team has a series of major interventions planned around the Beirut River. Among them, the team hopes to crowd-fund a project to build a footbridge linking Badawi and Bourj Hammoud, and to build parks on either side of the river.

* * *

Dima Boulad, Pamela Haydamouth, and Celine Khairallah

Looking for a way to convert unused corners of urban sprawl into gardens and green space, the team hopes to partner with the municipality to identify city-owned plots that are currently lying fallow. Boulad said the key to success would be fostering a sense of stewardship among neighbors and allaying any mistrust within the community. “If you give people trust, they give it back,” Boulad said.

Tamara Qiblawi and Mireille Raad

The KnoozRoom team hopes oral history and creative storytelling can prompt recognition of new memories of the Lebanese civil war. The team plans to screen its 27-minute documentary film in a Spears Street bomb shelter-turned-interactive space in order collect untold stories that upset existing narratives of the war. “The aim of the project is to solicit stories of human survival,” Qiblawi said.

* * *

Fadi Mansour, Karl Hitti and Candice Naim

Inspired by regional refugee crises and frequent power outages, this team is producing portable solar lamps. While tapping into a disappearing heritage of glassblowing within Lebanon, the team hopes to serve underprivileged communities with a safe and sustainable solution to the basic need for light.

Angelique Sabounjian, Missak Hajiavedikian and Cynthia Raffoul

Perhaps more than any other corner of Beirut, Bourj Hammoud retains a bevy of local craftsmen and ateliers. This team is seeking to build bridges between generations of Bourj Hammoud’s craftsmen and artisans by creating links among the future makers, the established craftsmen, and the suppliers. “It’s creating this full circle in the production cycle,” Sabounjian said.

* * *

Hassan Kanj and Rawad Hajj

Between coders and designers, there isn’t much common ground, which is why this team believes if coders knew the basics of design and designers knew the basics of coding, collaborations would be a breeze. “If they can understand, they can appreciate,” said Hassan Kanj. With a platform for collaboration between the two communities, the team hopes to make it easier for designers and coders to find each other.

Dina Alwani, Ayman Moadad and Ali Ahmad

With its 2D animated web series drawn from the experiences of daily life in Lebanon, this team of animators hopes to entertain and educate Lebanese young and old about the issues affecting their nation. “It shows what everyone is suffering from,” said Alwani. The key to the series, Ahmad stressed, is that it will draw attention to the issues as well as the inaction that allows them to persist.

* * *

Collette Hogg and Mazin Sidahmed

Seeking to draw a positive collaboration out of the conflict in Syria and influx of refugees within Lebanon, this team hopes to forge bonds around Syria and Lebanon’s shared history of crafting tile mosaics and glassblowing. While traditional methods of producing these tiles and glass have all but disappeared in Lebanon, the team hopes displaced Syrian craftsmen could work with artisans in Lebanon to reintroduce these time-honored techniques while fostering dialogue.

* * *

Cyril Kallab, Iva Kovic, Rana Taha and Laeticia Honeine

Feeling that designers and makers have been left out of the supply chain that leads from craftsmen to consumers, this team hopes to work with established craftsmen to fill in the missing links. By bringing designers into the fold, the team is seeking to influence the market for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Check back for more updates as the collaboration continues!

Special Thanks to our new team member Ian Larson, for interviewing the participants and writing this post.

Eliminating the Capital D at Nuqat 2014

We were invited to speak at the annual Nuqat Conference taking place in Kuwait as a non-profit organization that focuses on the value of collaboration. The speech was entitled ‘Eliminating the Capital D: The Value of Multidisciplinary Collaboration in the Design Process’. The synopsis is as follows:

‘Design has come a long way since the days of the ‘Designer’ who only defines the profession as a means to produce luxury goods or advocate for capitalist consumerism. Nowadays design aims to use its methods and tools at large scales for strategic planning, organizational transformation, public policy, and economic development. It motivates bottom-up approaches to think creatively about solving social, cultural and environmental challenges. In such projects, where design can really affect the lives of people, the designer is merely a facilitator, learning from others and combining skills and expertise to co-create better solutions and outcomes. This multidisciplinary, collaborative and human-centered process has finally brought the real value of design into perspective, serving the 99% and obliterating its egoistic past.’

The speech is about 20 minutes and focuses on the challenges we face in the MENA region when it comes to collaboration.

 

From Hong Kong to Eindhoven to Casablanca

Every year, the months after Beirut Design Week give us a chance to travel and meet like-minded people in order to develop international partnerships and collaborations.

Our journey starts in Honk Kong in collaboration with the International Gender Design Network, the Design Faculty of the Honk Kong Polytechnic University and Design Research Company from Cologne, Germany. Between October 10th and 12th, during the Social Innovation 10 Day Festival at the Jokey Club Innovation Tower, we participated in a conference and exhibition entitled: The Great Small, and gave a workshop on Cultural Perspectives on Gender Stereotypes, creating a comparison of gender inequality in mass media between Central Europe, Eastern Asia, and the Middle East.

   Participants of the workshop were asked to observe examples of Gender stereotypes in German, Lebanese and Chinese media, and to discuss their impressions and share stories about the cultural values the imagery represents. This brought forth many critical reflections and also surprising results with regards to what some cultures define as ‘normal’ gender behavior, while others perceive it quite shocking.

A week later we were invited to the Dutch Design Week, which takes place annually in Eindhoven, home to the famous Design Academy and the Philips factories now converted to design spaces. On October 20th, we took part in a co-design workshop entitled: When Co-Design Works in collaboration with PROUD Europe, which was later followed by a conference on social innovation as a main event of Dutch Design Week. In the workshop, participants were asked to share their experiences in their respective countries, focusing on challenges with co-design projects.

The high profile conference included keynote speakers from the Design Council in the UK, including governmental representatives as well as speakers from IDEO.org and a handful of other multinational organizations known for their social impact work.

The trip ended with a visit to the Design Academy final year exhibition where previous Desmeem participant Tamara Barrage had just graduated with a Master degree and was setting sail back to Lebanon.

From The Netherlands we ventured south to North Africa to take part in a workshop developed by EUNIC in Casablanca, Morocco from the 5th – 12th November. This workshop was focused on training cultural entrepreneurs and operators to learn more about developing strategies for organizational growth as well as meeting other cultural managers from the MENA region in order to establish partnerships.

  Guest speakers from different cultural organizations from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Serbia, Belgium, France, Spain and the UK, provided valuable insight in order for all participants to develop a global perspectives on the challenges faced by Cultural managers in different fields.

Creativity and Regeneration in Mar Mikhael

On July 17th, GAIA Heritage organized a SWOT conference entitled  “Creativity and Regeneration in Mar Mikhael” at the abandoned Brasserie du Levant, an old beer factory in the area. Mar Mikhael is currently one of the trendiest areas of Beirut where the hippest bars and restaurants are situated, as well as  designer/ architect/ artist communities mixed with metal workers and  greasy garage shops. Like all upcoming neighborhoods in metropolitan cities, this area has also been under the real estate microscope causing construction of high rises at every corner and destruction of heritage architecture, which inevitably result in tripling rents, inviting large crowds to the overflowing bars, and eventually forcing the small designer boutiques and ateliers out. Seeing that this has been quite a recurrence in Beirut with the previously trendy neighborhoods, this conference aimed to bring together major stakeholders in the region along with government officials to discuss the issue at hand and collectively suggest solutions through dialogue.

The day was divided into an introduction and research panel, introducing the MEDNETA and the cooperation of this project with other historical cities, as well as a summary of the socio economic research results that were accumulated by GAIA as well as other sources. Then came two discussion panels; the first which dealt with the subject of ‘The Creative Economy: Issues of Sustainability in the Context of a Rapidly Changing Neighborhood”, and the second entitled: “The Mar Mikhael Neighborhood: Arts, Crafts, and Design’s Engagement with the Public Space”.

The speakers of the first panel were:

• • Dr. Khater Abou Habib (Chairman of KAFALAT)
• • Mr. Emile Nasr (CEO l’Agenda Culturel)
• • Prof. Stephen Hill (Economist, Sohar University)
• • Ms. Sarah Hermez (Principal Creative Space Beirut)
• • Mrs. Rosy Abourousse (Principal Rosa Maria Jewellery)
• • Ms. Doreen Toutikian (Director, MENA Design Research Center)

Moderated by Ibrahim Nehme, editor of The Outpost magazine, the panel was a discussion between designers in the area, cultural entrepreneurs, and investors. We presented Beirut Design Week, its causes and goals, within the framework of Mar Mikhael, as it is one of BDW’s main focus areas. Two of BDW’s participating designers spoke about their work their challenges. And eventually a discussion with the audience was developed about the needs of designers to grow in such a milieu given the current context of Beirut.

The second panel speakers were:

• • Dr. Mona Harb (Associate Professor Urban Planning, AUB)
• • M. Serge Yazigi (Urban Planner, head of MAJAL)
• • M. Nabil Itani (Head, CDR CHUD WB project)
• • M. Mario Khoury (Central Bank, Investment Department)
• • Mrs. Maria Halios (Owner, Maria Halios Design)
• • Mrs. Christine Codsi (Partner, Tawlet/Souk el Tayeb)
• • M. Karim Bekdache (Owner, Karim Bekdache Architecture Studio)

Moderated by Dr. Elie Haddad, Dean of the Art and Design Faculty at the Lebanese American University, this panel was fervently defending rights of citizens in the city and insisting that the government must enforce the laws to protect the rights of citizens -especially when it comes to protecting small industries like that of crafts and design against the pressures of rising rent costs, real estate ventures, and the increasing number of bars without enforced regulations.

The Conclusion panel members, headed by the discussion leader Dr. Georges Zouain, head of GAIA Heritage, included:

• • H.E. M. Raymond Arayji (Lebanese Minister of Culture)
• • M. Alexis Loeber (EU, Head of Cooperation Division)
• • M. Ibrahim Nehme (Editor The Outpost)
• • Dr. Elie Haddad (Dean LAU School for Design & Architecture)
• • Professor Sofia Avgerinou‐Kolonia (Director of Urban and Regional Planning Department, NTUA)

All speakers expressed support for future initiatives related to Mar Mikhael’s Arts, Crafts and Design. Moreover, the final panel concluded in hopes of strengthening the rule of law in the neighborhood and innovation in the realm of the creative economy. This project has been funded by the European Union.