Gender and design was the focus of a presentation delivered by the University of Leeds’ Dr Lisa-Dionne Morris who visited the Faculty of Informatics and Design recently.

The presentation was one of several activities Morris participated in while visiting CPUT as part of the Participatory Tools for Human Development with the Youth project.

The partners in the project are theUniversity of Lapland, the University of Leeds, PACO Design Collaborators, Italy, the Namibia University of Science and Technology, CPUT and the SA San Institute.

Lecturer Vikki Eriksson, said Morris, who is the Head of Industrial Design at the University of Leeds, had worked with CPUT students from all levels – first years to postgraduates – “to expand their horizons, to share practice and to inspire”.

“The real benefit of research projects is the ability to bring academics and professionals from all over the world into our studios and classrooms. Prof Morris, who recently engaged with students form the Faculty of Informatics and Design, embodies this. As the Head of Industrial Design, at the University of Leeds, Prof Morris provided postgraduate students with interesting discussion points and contributed to the growing scholarship with the design research field,” said Eriksson.

“The practical and ‘hand-on’ sessions with other students focused on learning through prototyping and play. Although the engagement was fun and interactive, the elements explored spoke to global, real-world challenges,” she added.

Asked what she had taken out of the experience Morris said: An understanding of the cultural differences and the significance of cultural differences and diversity when it comes to product development, to establish what the priorities are to different students and to different people.

Students, academics and a community organisation are reaping the rewards of a successful transdisciplinary course recently hosted by CPUT.

A total of 21 participants attended the Sustainable Product Service Systems (S.PSS) course, which was entitled: Methods and tools for community based research projects: Distributed design and distributed information for volunteer organisations in SA.

Ephias Ruhode, Associate Professor: Transdisciplinary Studies in the Faculty of Informatics and Design (FID), said the participants learned design approaches and the toolbox to designing solutions for social innovation for sustainability.

The community partner for the course was Action Volunteers Africa (AVA), a community organisation that trains volunteers in a number of disciplines.

AVA mentors provided students with challenges facing their organisation and the participants had to use the tools that they were taught in the course to design solutions.

“Solutions which students designed ranged from business innovation, digital storytelling for volunteer self-improvement to sustainable ICT innovations,” said Ruhode.

The course facilitators came from China, Brazil, the Netherlands, Stellenbosch University and CPUT.

Ruhode said the course provided long-term benefits: “Beyond the course CPUT solution designers will continue to work with AVA until the solutions are developed and implemented. A PhD student and a Masters student have already begun to work on their theses based on the AVA challenges. Going forward, FID’s Department of Research, Innovation and Partnerships will design similar courses on transdisciplinary research to be offered to researchers across the university.”

The course was one of the activities of the Learning network of networks on sustainability (LeNSin) project.

According to its website LeNSin is an EU-supported (ERASMUS+) project involving 36 universities from Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and Central America, aiming at the promotion of a new generation of designers (and design educators) capable of effectively contributing to the transition towards a sustainable society for all.

• CPUT and Stellenbosch University are the South African partners in the LeNSin project. Prof Ruhode is the African coordinator of the project.