Design is in

Today we are covering something that many may feel does not relate directly to design, but design can learn lessons from the small and peaceful country of Costa Rica, a country in Central America, and the first in the world to abolish its standing army.

One person’s intention can change the way thousands of others live. In 1948, after just five weeks of civil war, the leader, Jose Figueres, announced, “'The Regular Army of Costa Rica today gives the key to its military base to the schools ... The Government hereby declares the National Army officially abolished.” As a result, the nation’s resources were transferred into more worthy causes; namely, the improvement of healthcare and education. The country’s military bases became schools. Figueres also banned the Communist Party, gave women the right to vote, granted black immigrants full citizenship, and established a presidential term limit. Figueres nationalized the banks in order to promote economic diversity and eliminate coffee grower's control over the banking system. For decades, the elite coffee growers had dominated Costa Rican society and economy. Figueres also created The Supreme Electoral Tribunal. 

Today Costa Rica has the highest standard of living in Central and South America. There is ‘cradle to the grave’ healthcare for all Costa Ricans, with special services for women, children and seniors. Costa Rica has the second highest literacy rate of 96%, in Latin and South America, and an average life expectancy of more than 75 years. Costa Rica has no enemies or terrorism, and the last elections saw a voter turnout of 90%, a lot more than what most countries can boast of. 

Costa Rica’s neighbours are struggling with civil war, military repression and poverty. Dr. Oscar  Arias Sanchez, who was President of Costa Rica from 1986-1990, and 2006 to present, advocates education and vehemently believes too many countries sacrifice education to fund armies. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his work to establish peace and democracy in the region.

Costa Rica translates as ‘rich coast’, and the nation lives up to its name. It is near the top in the Human Developmental Index, the Environmental Performance Index, the Happy Planet Index, and is also the greenest country in the world. Former President Rodrigo Carazo Odio comments that, "Costa Ricans have cultivated a civilized spirit, a spirit opposed to militarization and violence. Armed with this spirit, the people are capable of seeking peaceful solutions to conflicts and respecting the rights of others." He states that this respect has survived and flourished because "education has fostered such an attitude and because in the absence of [military] weapons with which to impose an idea, the only weapon left is reason."

Why are we covering the country of Costa Rica today, on a site called ‘design is in’? Well, because in some ways the ‘design’ of countries, institutes, states and systems, are of prime importance. Innovation in leadership is the need of the hour. Creativity, change, and innovation is most needed in governance. Design is creating holistic solutions, not short term arrangements that create a new problem in place of the old one. Design is also about having the vision to take a bold step, even if it means doing something no one has done before, trading immediate economic gain, and power domination for more meaningful benefits, for countless future generations. 

Hats off to you Costa Rica, hope there are more courageous enough to go your way.

By Armeen Kapadia

Education needs experiments. In India, especially, we need something entirely different. Digital StudyHall (DSH) is on an experimental trail. They describe their approach as an education equivalent of Netflix + YouTube + Kazaa.

Live classes by the best grassroots teachers are recorded on video and then stored on computer discs, which are distributed to rural schools. Education experts are working in tandem with computer scientists to explore pedagogic approaches in the rural context. 

Firstly, DSH is focusing on creating a video database of everything. (usually in the local language) Going a step ahead, they have structured the sequencing of these videos to fit into the current state board curriculums so that any school can use it. Some of the best teachers have recorded their discourses. What they have done here is go beyond the flash-ware and slide-ware kind of modules. This approach believes that teachers are still a prime agent in the learning environment. Although the output is aligned to the syllabus, the teachers have re-interpreted the syllabus in terms of interactivity.

Secondly, DSH adopts a decentralized network. Although content is produced and disseminated for local use, it is shared with the other towns and cities. The videos are recorded in the contextual learning environment instead of recording it in schools in cities. The relevance of content is key in creating this database.

Thirdly, the school needs a tv, dvd player and an inverter. They know that children can't learn by just watching videos. They have adopted mediation-based pedagogy. It means that there is a mediator, usually a teacher, between the students and the TV. The mediator pauses the video and engages children in activities, games, even a q&a session.

Lastly, the web2.0 application that they have developed doesn't require physcial infrastructure. The computer discs are transported by the postal system.

Digital StudyHall works best in the Indian context. It is striving to break new ground in schools across India.

By Sanjay Basavaraju

IdeaPaint Kit

A paint that transforms surfaces into a dry-erase board: IdeaPaint. The very fact that such a product encourages instinct and decreases resistance to express openly is fascinating. It can become a brainstorming canvas in offices or expressive canvas for kids in playrooms.

Applications can be many for this patent pending product. IdeaPaint is planning to increase its presence in schools, serving as a low-cost solution. The spaces within schools can now evoke creativity. If I were to take IdeaPaint back in time when I was growing up, my mother could have written down how many clothes went for laundry on the wall, marked how many days the milkman didn't deliver the milk, reminded my father of paying electricity bills or didn't have to bother what I was scribbling on the wall. 

It is perfect to jot down things. You could coat an entire room and go berserk. The possibilities are endless. It costs $4 per square foot. IdeaPaint claims that it is environmentally free too. This post on apartmentherapy.com features 8-ways to use IdeaPaint in your home.

IdeaPaint has the potential to transform traditional classroom into 360 degree dynamic learning environments. Target uses it in volunteers school libraries. The product is gaining momentum in the education sector. Many investors are funding IdeaPaint because they see tremendous market potential in the product. IdeaPaint has taken $5 million in its first venture funding from Breakaway Ventures.

IdeaPaint is certified as the most environmentally friendly dry-erase product available.

By Sanjay Basavaraju

MobilEdu on iPhone

MobilEdu is a mobile application that allows students to perform a variety of tasks that is otherwise only accessible through secure networks such as adding and dropping courses, tracking on-campus shuttle bus and reviewing their grades. A nascent stage of MobilEdu called iStanford was launched on October 1, 2008.

The idea of powering campuses with mobile application was an idea of Kayvon Beykpour, a student at Stanford. He co-founded Terriblyclever Design with his boyhood friend Aaron Wasserman without any angel or venture capital funding. It is already profitable. Initially they focussed on managing web presence of brands such as Comcast and Sprint on Facebook. Later on they pitched to several other brands based on the strategy that they were youngsters and that they understood how youngsters used facebook. But their idea of powering the education system with a mobile application MobilEdu seems to me their future. It is a brilliant example of bridging today's education and technology.  The success of iStanford has led Terriblyclever to focus on MobilEdu.

In a Time magazine article, Tom Black, Stanford's registrar says "The key is they're integrating [the iPhone app] with our central system. Usually student apps aren't allowed to go anywhere near that. We're breaking some ground here."

Such a move reflects on the quality and value that iStanford offers to students and faculty members at Stanford. During implementation of such a system, security and privacy of the information was a concern. Apparently these concerns are taken care by the Stanford information systems. Such an application also challenges administrators in higher education to rethink their strategies of sharing information.

Such a system works in Stanford because 2500 of the school's 8000 students have an iPhone; another 1,500 have iPod Touch which can run the app. Many schools have been reaching out for MobilEdu. It is believed that the future of MobilEdu is to connect every campus that is interested in adopting it. With many campuses interconnecting, it can take on Facebook Mobile. As of now Duke University is also powered by MobilEdu. They call it Mobile Web.

It all began with the launch of iStanford and this video (which Steve Jobs liked it). You can download iStanford for free. But we now await the next release, which forays into social networking.

By Sanjay Basavaraju

P.S:  The Terriblyclever website is witty. Love it.

Rendered image of Jugnu

Jugnu (English: Firefly) is a nano-satellite (3 kg) to be launched by student team at the IIT Kanpur. Of course, several faculty members and experts from ISRO are guiding these students. Apparently, an MoU is already signed between IIT Kanpur and ISRO. Jugnu will be launched in the polar orbit from Sriharikota, by the end of this year.

Aptly named as Jugnu, it is 34 cms long and 10 cm wide. With approximate budget of 2.5 crores, it seems like one of the costliest fireflies around. The function of the satellite is to gather information regarding flood, drought and disasters. Jugnu will take 14 to 15 rounds of earth to gather information. An indigenously designed hi-tech camera for near remote sensing and GPS receiver are fitted in the satellite. Jugnu will send photographs regarding agriculture, weather, river courses and soil to the base station. The project is in the final stage. It will be handed over to ISRO in November for further testing and launch. 

It would be for the first time in the history where a student team will be credited for designing, fabricating, testing and flying a satellite that is mostly made of aluminum alloy at an altitude of about 800 km above the Earth's surface. Although it sounds ambitious, it appears that the project is under control. Sanjay Govind Dhande, the Director of IITK, said: "Though the MoU between ISRO and IIT-K for the project was signed in February, regular review sessions are being carried out by ISRO to check the progress."

Jugnu's design will have to overcome many challenges as it will have to survive high vibrations and high doses of radiation that can affect the system memory. Due to the limited power availability, there are many constraints in adding many functions.

Jugnu is in a race to beat other projects under development, such as Pratham (IIT Bombay's satellite), VITSAT and StudSat (built by about 8 different colleges). All four are first generation of Indian nanosatellites. It remains to be seen if Jugnu becomes the first Indian nanosatellite to be launched into space.

By Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju

The role of designers is constantly changing, and this is clearly visible in the new courses developed by institutes across the world. The lines between D schools and B schools are blurring to create a new breed of design-managers, or management-designers. One such place is the D.School at Stanford.

Started by none other than David Kelly, also the founder of the design firm IDEO, the Stanford D School believes that great innovators and leaders need to be great design thinkers. Known as the Hasso Plattner School of Design, the focus is on radical collaboration, and a multi-discipinary approach. Design thinking is the glue that binds people of different disciplines together. Worldwide, B-schools are slowly turning towards D-schools to better their own way of working. Today, just management is not enough, and B-schools realize the value of design thinking, a systems level approach, and the difference it can make in problem solving. Innovation has become critical to management as corporations are increasingly striving for increased revenue. Hardcore administration is not enough anymore, as creative leadership is increasingly needed in a globalized world that is facing some level of crisis in economics, environment, and sustenance.

The Stanford D-school is not the first of its kind. There have been other such programmes in different places around the world, such as the one at MIT, and the program at Parsons. There is also Design London, a collaboration between Imperial College Business School and the Royal College of Art. All these schools have a strong focus on research, collaboration, entrepreneurship, incubating new ideas, and the inter-disciplinary nature of design.

This move to mix management and design is not welcome by everyone though, as many designers feel they would not like managers ‘telling them what to do’, or ‘interfering’ in the design process. Management might help designers better articulate their decisions and strategies, how to manage teams, encourage designers to research thoroughly, and help designers to deal with facts and figures in a better way. A lot of designers do have these skills, but they are not honed in a traditional design school, and often graduates fresh out of design school struggle to pick up these skills in their first few years of industry experience.

Design is much more than just making things beautiful, and design education needs to cater to the new roles that design is playing in an increasing number of sectors. Design is not exactly art, its not exactly science, and not exactly management, but somewhere involves all three and much more. There are always ongoing debates on whether design and management should merge, whether design is art, and so on.

Previously, the business world was using design, now design is the business.

By Armeen Kapadia

The world is a mess. Agree or Disagree.

It depends on what your definition of ‘world’ is. In developing countries, ‘world’ for a lot of people is their village. This is truer for women, who rarely get a chance to receive education, or work away from home. There cannot be an educated people without educated women. If general education had to be limited to men or to women, that opportunity should be given to women, for then it would most surely be passed on to the next generation. The importance of women’s education in national, and in fact global development cannot be over-stated.

If more women were educated, the net effect worldwide would be phenomenal. This is exactly what thegirleffect.org is working towards. This website tells us simple facts concerning the education and empowerment of women in the developing world. It also tells us the impact women’s education would make in improving the overall conditions of communities worldwide. These are simple facts, which make you realize the importance of education the girl, such as an extra year of secondary school raises a girl’s lifetime’s wages by 15 to 20%.

The Girl Effect has a simple and amazing logo, which communicates its layered meaning. To spread news of their movement, they have several downloads such as stickers, wallpapers, posters, banners and so on. The site is simple, with easy navigation, bold links, and it gives you choices on how you want to help. Don’t miss the ten basic points on how you can help a girl anywhere. And most importantly, don’t hesitate to help any girl you can, in any way. Whether it is getting her into school, keeping her in school, or reducing her workload at home, it needs to be done. As they say on the site, “The revolution will be lead by a 12-year old girl.”

The Girl Effect is one of the nominees of the Webby Awards 2009 in the Activism category.

By Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju

Some ancients believed the earth was not a sphere, but flat, much like a piece of paper, and you would fall off if you carelessly wandered too close to the edge. We now know that the earth is spherical, but something tells me its flattening itself out again, in terms of knowledge being freely shared. Increasingly, more people have access to knowledge and resources that we could not imagine ten, or even five years back. 

There is a young website Academic Earth, brainchild of Richard Ludlow, that seeks to make world class education freely available to all. They have uploaded thousands of videos of recorded lectures from the world's top universities, from some of the most brilliant scholars. You and I can see all this, yes, we can literally listen to classes happening miles away. As a student at Yale, he was struggling with a linear algebra class, and while hunting online he came across a full video from an MIT professor. You can read more about him and Academic Earth here and in a q&a round here.

The website is well structured, with a clean design, and not that boring academic look. It is extremely user-friendly, letting you browse by universities, subjects, top rated instructors, or top playlists, depending on your need. At the moment the six participating universities are (hold your breath!) Berkeley, Havard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. Subjects comprise everything from computer science to religion, and astronomy to physics. You can choose to listen to 'courses', which can comprise of several (as many as twenty-four) separate videos of a little over an hour each. Such courses will give you an in-depth view of the subject. There are also featured lectures of much shorter durations, anything from four minutes to an hour. 

What they have done, is create a sustainable, democratic, ecosystem for world-wide education, with the belief that knowledge is meant to be shared. This, like Ted Talks, is one of those ideas that can change the world. Students in small-town India, in Tokyo, in Egypt, anywhere, with access to a computer and the internet, can avail of knowledge sharing with the top universities. Of course some may argue that learning through a video is not the same as actually being there, but that doesn't take away from the fact that this is a big step forward in education. With already more than a million visitors, and more than 50% of those from outside the US, this is the future of education, and is going to empower millions world-wide.

By Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju