Since its founding 10 years ago, the Hasso Plattner d-school Afrika has aimed to ground its approach in the continental context.
It hosted the Afrikan Design Thinking Convening 2026 at the University of Cape Town in June, bringing together educators, researchers, students and leaders from across the continent to share ideas on what design means for Africa.
The Africa chapter of the Global Design Thinking Alliance was launched, linking continental institutions practising design thinking to 42 member institutions in 25 countries.
The alliance partners with the existing Afrikan Design Thinking Network, a community aiming to build institutional and leadership capacity in Africa “grounded in an ubuntu ethos that recognises that no one institution can do this work alone”.
Design thinking, according to d-school Afrika, is a “discipline that focuses on a design-led mindset to understand challenges, identify opportunities, and co-create solutions for complex, real-world problems”.
Prof Mugendi M’Rithaa, an adviser to the school, says this way of thinking is “picking up momentum in both scope and depth” on the continent.
M’Rithaa, an industrial designer, educator and researcher at Machakos University in Kenya, says d-school Afrika has made “significant progress in engaging design thinking practitioners on the continent”.
Rooting design thinking in the real world was one of the topics covered at the convening. Jewel Thompson of Ashesi University, Ghana, says: “We want to teach students to ask: ‘Who am I?’, ‘Who are we together?’ and ‘How do we build solutions to what other people are suffering from?’”
Jenni van Niekerk, the convener of the Afrikan Design Thinking Network, says d-school Afrika set out to use African storytelling.
We must challenge these frames and ask: Whose knowledge is this, and who was it made for?
— Babalwa Ngcongolo
This connection to and empathy with “unique contexts” is fundamental to what M’Rithaa calls participatory design, an area in which he says d-school Afrika is offering leadership. And the continent has a role to play in global design thinking. “The African voice,” says M’Rithaa, “is particularly relevant to the understanding and application of collaborative or co-design, as well as participatory design, within complex design-thinking settings that respect diversity in every sense.”
Among other topics covered was language, its power and its implications in the teaching context. Babalwa Ngcongolo, a coach at d-school Afrika, noted: “Language is not a neutral vessel; it communicates power and identity … we must challenge these frames and ask: Whose knowledge is this, and who was it made for?”
Richard Perez, director of d-school Afrika, tells the FM that the word “convening” was “in the spirit of what we do, co-creation”. Afrika is spelt with a K, Perez says, because that is how it’s spelt in most languages, other than English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.
The Hasso Plattner d-school Afrika is named for the man behind the foundation that is the sole funder of the school. Plattner co-founded SAPS, a software business. The Plattner Foundation supports two other d-schools, at Stanford University in California and in Plattner’s hometown of Potsdam, Germany.
Initially housed in the Graduate School of Business at the V&A Waterfront, in 2022 the school moved to the UCT middle campus in Rondebosch. It has a six-star rating on the Green Star sustainability rating system. Perez is pleased with the location, and not only because parking is easier. “It needs to be easy for community members to come here.” It has a staff of 24 and 29 part-time faculty from diverse backgrounds.
Tourism minister Patricia de Lille was mayor of Cape Town when the city won World Design Capital status. At the school’s 10th anniversary, she spoke of the collaboration and energy that went into that project, among them popular open-streets days. There was also some ribbing about the city’s unfinished freeways.
As part of the World Design project, about 600 UCT students, drawn from the urban planning, engineering and architecture disciplines, designed solutions for the city. Their plans were exhibited at the city hall and lodged with Transport for Cape Town, the city’s transport authority.
De Lille urged the city to “finish this”, and UCT vice-chancellor Prof Mosa Moshabela hinted at how pressure might be applied to bring finality to the project. Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, he reminded the gathering, is an alumnus of UCT.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.