David South Consulting

Tag: South-South Solutions

  • Press Release 2 | Southern Innovator

    Press Release 2 | Southern Innovator

    Press Release for General Distribution

    Fourth Issue of UNDP Magazine Southern Innovator Launches at Expo

    United Nations, Nairobi, Kenya, 31 October 2013

    • Fourth issue of Southern Innovator launched at Global South-South Development Expo 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya
    • 60-page color magazine gives snapshot of fast-changing world

    The fourth issue of Southern Innovator magazine has launched at the Global South-South Development Expo 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya. Southern Innovator Issue 4 visits the new cities being built to tackle the challenges of a rapidly urbanizing 21st-century world. The magazine also highlights some of the solutions being devised to the challenges people face as the world becomes a majority urban place.

    Some innovators are building new cities from scratch, applying the latest thinking and hard-wiring in cutting-edge information technologies and innovative environmental measures to create ‘smart’ cities and eco-cities. Architects are designing and refining homes that are beautiful and functional, easy to build, affordable and conserve energy. Social entrepreneurs are innovating ways to create liveable and socially inclusive urban areas, often in places where planning has been scant and where incomes are very low. All those featured in the magazine were chosen for their focus on improving human development and their ingenuity and fresh thinking.

    Southern Innovator champions a 21st-century global innovator culture. The magazine profiles and celebrates the innovators across the global South finding new ways to tackle poverty, create wealth and improve human development and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In its first issue in September 2011, Southern Innovator featured the people who are re-shaping new information technologies – from mobile phone apps to Internet technologies. Many of the innovators profiled in that first issue came from Kenya.

    SI (southerninnovator.org) is based on intensive research and produced by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation in UNDP (UNOSSC) (formerly the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation in UNDP). UNOSSC organizes an annual Global South-South Development Expo (southsouthexpo.org), a roaming celebration and gathering of Southern innovators previously held in New York, Washington, D.C., Geneva, Rome and Vienna. This year’s Expo is being held in Nairobi, Kenya (28 October to 1 November 2013) and is hosted by the UN Environment Programme (unep.org).

    SI is being distributed through the United Nations’ network and partners and reaches some of the world’s poorest and remotest places, as well as the vibrant but stressed growing global megacities. It is hoped the magazine will inspire budding innovators with its mix of stories, essential information, facts and figures, images and graphics.

    We hope you enjoy the magazine and find its content interesting and illuminating: a snapshot of a fast-changing world awash, as we found out, with
    innovators, creators and do-ers making their world a better place. It is possible to sponsor issues of the magazine, either through helping to fund its print run, or through sponsored inserts covering that issue’s theme with relevant content for our readers.

    For more information on Southern Innovator, contact Cosmas Gitta at
    cosmas.gitta@undp.org.

    Press Release 1

    Press Release 3

    Online archives: southerninnovator.org; http://www.scribd.com/SouthernInnovator. Follow @SouthSouth1

    United Nations General Assembly: Sixty-ninth session, Item 24 (b) of the provisional agenda, Operational activities for development: South-South cooperation for development, 17 July 2014.
    The research informing Southern Innovator Magazine played a part in the formulation of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/southern-innovator-scale-up-fundraiser/

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • Press Release 1 | Southern Innovator

    Press Release 1 | Southern Innovator

    Press Release for General Distribution

    New Magazine Targets Innovators in Global South

    United Nations, New York, 20 September 2011

    • Global magazine Southern Innovator profiles innovation culture ending poverty
    • 60-page color magazine gives snapshot of fast-changing world

    Southern Innovator (SI) is a new magazine for a fast-changing world. It profiles and celebrates the innovators across the global South finding new ways to tackle poverty, create wealth and improve human development and achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs). In its first issue, Southern Innovator features the people who are re-shaping new technologies – from mobile phone ‘apps’ to Internet technologies – to overcome poverty and to improve the quality of life in some of the poorest places on earth.

    SI is based on intensive research and is produced by UNDP’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation (www.southerninnovator.org). The Unit is the leading organisation in the world tasked with the goal of sharing knowledge across the global South. It organises events including the yearly South-South Expo (www.southsouthexpo.org), a roaming celebration and gathering of Southern innovators previously held in New York and Geneva, Switzerland. This year’s Expo will be held in Rome, Italy (5 to 9 December 2011).

    SI is being distributed around the world through the United Nations network and partners and reaches some of the poorest and remotest places as well as the vibrant but stressed growing global megacities. It is hoped the magazine will inspire budding innovators with its mix of stories, essential information, facts and figures, images and graphics. The magazine will evolve based on reader responses and this first issue is very much the beginning of a journey. As became clear while researching this first issue, many things can change in a short space of time. Few could have imagined the rapid take-up of mobile phones in Africa and how these phones have become integral to development goals across the continent.

    SI magazine is a quarterly publication and the next issues will launch in September and December of this year.

    A summary for publication is here:

    “Southern Innovator (ISSN 2222-9280) is a quarterly magazine published by the United Nations Development Programme’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation. Launched in May 2011, SI is a new magazine celebrating creativity and innovation emerging from the global South. It explores entrepreneurial solutions to development challenges and uncovers the trends and events shaping the rise of the South in order to spur action on ending extreme poverty and toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”

    We hope you enjoy the magazine and find its content interesting and illuminating: a snapshot of a fast-changing world awash, as we found out, with innovators, creators and do-ers making their world a better place.

    For more information on Southern Innovator contact Cosmas Gitta at cosmas.gitta@undp.org or editor David South at southerninnovator@yahoo.co.uk.

    United Nations General Assembly: Sixty-ninth session, Item 24 (b) of the provisional agenda, Operational activities for development: South-South cooperation for development, 17 July 2014.
    The research informing Southern Innovator Magazine played a part in the formulation of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/southern-innovator-scale-up-fundraiser/

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • Profile of African Innovators Continues to Rise

    Profile of African Innovators Continues to Rise

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    A mix of developments is proving that African innovators no longer need to see themselves as lone operators working in isolation. Awareness of the continent’s talent has never been higher and is grabbing attention from the world’s media. In turn, more and more resources are being made available – from funding opportunities to get-togethers where innovators can meet like-minded people, to ego-boosting praise that helps raise profiles and attract investors.

    This summer saw the launch of a new publication called African Innovator Magazine (africaninnovatormagazine.com). It is a good example of how perceptions have switched to recognizing that the continent is awash with innovators who have a lot to say.

    Billing itself as “Technology insights for Africa’s decision makers,” African Innovator interviews business leaders on the continent about how they are driving innovation within their organizations.

    Launched at a dinner on July 31 in Johannesburg, South Africa (http://www.flickr.com/photos/innovationdinner/sets/72157630881776882/), the quarterly magazine – with its glossy production values, high-quality photographs and design – is a reflection of how far the information technology business has come in Africa. The first issue asks “What is Innovation?” and features a broad range of African technology innovators, from Nigerian tablet personal computer maker Saheed Adepoju (http://enciphergroup.com/about/) to one of the world’s best-known technology innovators, South African-born Elon Musk (http://elonmusk.com/).

    Publisher Abby Wakama told IT News Africa that the magazine would initially be distributed in South Africa, with plans to expand into Kenya and Nigeria.

    “Our aim is to grow the reader base and branch out into new regions,” Wakama said. “The vision is to be the premier voice of Africa’s larger ICT community, covering issues that impact on commerce, trade, industry and the lives of everybody who uses IT.

    “Readers do have a choice of publications that talk about ICT that cover technology and products. But there are very few that have an inside track into innovation in Africa. There are not many publications that discuss how technology is making an impact in the lives of Africans.”

    For innovators strapped for cash to take their ideas forward, there are several new Africa-based funding sources to turn to.

    In East Africa, the Rwanda Innovation Endowment Fund (RIEF) (http://www.mineduc.gov.rw/spip.php?article21) is a collaboration between the Government of Rwanda and the United Nations. The Fund aims to promote research and development (R&D) of “innovative market-oriented products and processes in priority areas of the economy” to increase the country’s wealth and economic competiveness.

    For Africans as a whole, there is The Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) (http://innovationprizeforafrica.org), an initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Innovation Foundation (AIF) (africaninnovation.org). The prize hopes to place African innovators and entrepreneurs at the heart of the development agenda. It will be awarded to innovators who develop new products, increase efficiency or find ways to do things better and save money in Africa.

    Africa Review, published by the Nation Media Group in Kenya, is “a digital news platform” providing “smart insights on African news and to examine important social and political trends in the continent.” It recently came up with a list of 20 East African “bold young innovators to watch”.

    The 20 were selected because all of them are working on mobile phone applications and are creating “life-changing mobile apps in health care, education, finance and agriculture.”

    They include:

    • Jamila Abass from Kenya, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) for M-Farm (http://mfarm.co.ke/about), which is helping farmers get real-time retail prices for their products.
    • Tanzania’s Erric Mutta, founder and CEO of Problem Solved Ltd, set up the MiniShop mobile phone application for small businesses to make accounting and inventory control easier and more transparent – in turn making it easier to access credit.
    • Jessie Gakwandi Benimana runs Rwandan company Sail Ltd (http://sailltd.com/) and the Get-It application (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU8SCfyzf9Q), which helps people to find restaurants in the capital Kigali.
    • Everyone knows Africans like to tell stories, and Victor Miclovich from Uganda is helping them to do this online. His StorySpaces (storyspaces.net) website “builds on the age-old African tradition of storytelling” for the digital age.
    • Tanzania’s Eric Lwambura is using technology to save lives during pregnancy. He is founder of Crystal Interactive Systems (CIS) (http://www.crystal-int.com/), which has developed a mobile phone-based application to assist doctors to detect problems during labour. It is designed for health centres that can’t afford more expensive and sophisticated equipment.
    • Kariuki Gathitu from Kenya who founded Zege Technologies (http://zegetech.com/home/), is working on innovative ways to transfer money. His latest development is M-Payer, helping small businesses manage their payments.

    Read more about the East African technology innovators here: http://www.africareview.com/Special+Reports/-/979182/1513900/-/xpmsurz/-/index.html

    Resources

    1) Southern Innovator: Browse the back issues of Southern Innovator magazine. Website: http://www.scribd.com/SouthernInnovator

    2) Innovative Africa: The New Face of Africa: Essays on the Rise of Africa’s Innovation Age by Will Mutua and Mbwana Ally, Publisher: Afrinnovator.  Website:http://book.afrinnovator.com/

    3) The Coming Prosperity by Philip Auerswald, Publisher: Oxford University Press.  Website: http://auerswald.org/

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • Better by Design in China

    Better by Design in China

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    In recent decades, China has been known more for its inexpensive manufactured goods than as a producer of high quality products. But this is changing as the country seeks to move up the economic chain.

    China’s long-established design traditions were largely overlooked as the country made its breakneck push to become the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. But now Chinese manufacturers want to be known for high-quality designs and products rather than just for cheap-and-cheerful merchandise.

    China is a critical lesson for the rest of the global South, and offers much inspiration to any country trying to develop, modernize and eradicate poverty.

    The country is the main reason for the dramatic reductions in global extreme poverty rates, and it can be proud of using its average yearly economic growth rate of 10 per cent to lift 440 million Chinese out of poverty – the biggest reduction of poverty in history (The Economist). The strategy of exporting manufactured goods into Western markets at competitive prices has dominated the past 20 years.

    But China faces a dilemma as other nations in the global South are moving into this niche. It needs to quickly become a high-value nation, with unique products and designs generated in the country.

    Luckily, a renaissance in Chinese design in the last five years has been gradually grabbing the attention of the world’s creative community.

    Innovative Chinese designers are creating home furnishings and interiors that are being snapped up by European companies.

    The Italian kitchen utensil design company Alessi turned to eight Chinese architects – including Ma Yansong and Yung Ho Chang – to design a range of trays called (Un) Forbidden City. The architects’ designs were manufactured in Italy – a reversal of the pattern that has dominated for the past 20 years.

    The architects drew on Chinese traditions and 21st century technologies to design the trays. One was made using a 3D scanner which captured images used to make a mould.

    The drive to change and transform China’s global economic role was promoted in 2011’s Beijing International Design Week (http://www.bjdw.org/en/), with its theme of transforming “Made in China to Designed in China.”

    “When you have so much of a manufacturing base in one place, it’s natural that people start thinking about how to climb the value chain,” Philip Tinari, director of Beijing’s Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA) (http://ucca.org.cn/) – a champion of new artists and designers – told howtospendit.com.

    “Chinese design has become something to rally around and, unlike art, enjoys great official support because it’s a way of improving China’s long-term economic position, as opposed to expressing thoughts about what’s been going on.”

    Other Chinese designers grabbing attention include Chen Xuan, who makes tables; chair-maker Gui Yang; Li Bowen, a maker of wicker chairs; and Ge Wei, a maker of jewellery boxes.

    Designer Huo Yijin makes contemporary tea trays, using heat-reactive lacquer coating to create dazzling effects.

    “Users can see the wonderful effect of water and temperature reacting on the tea trays when they drink Kungfu tea in the traditional way,” Huo explained.

    Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province – a city that has been making ceramics since the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) – is now attracting craftspeople from around the world looking to tap into its expertise and skill. One attraction is Mr Yu’s Big Ware Factory. Its unparalleled ability to create giant-size pottery is a design niche with much potential.

    Many foreign creatives are being drawn to China for its can-do attitude and the ability to break with conventions stifling creativity in the West. The next five years could see the world’s design centre of gravity shift eastwards again.

    Published: November 2012

    Resources

    1) Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA): The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) is a comprehensive, not-for-profit art center serving a global Beijing public. Website: http://ucca.org.cn/

    2) ChinaShijitanContemporaryArtCenter: A mixed-use art venue with experimental theatre, exhibition space, art gallery and production spaces. Website: http://www.ar-chiasmus.cn/project_6.html

    3) Pearl Lam Galleries: Pearl Lam Galleries lead a stable of International and Chinese artists who are multidisciplinary, refuting the hierarchy of art forms. The galleries do not follow the model of Western galleries; rather, they have evolved from the philosophy of Chinese Literati, which does not segregate between the different art disciplines. Website: http://pearllamgalleries.blogspot.co.uk/p/about.html

    4) School of Design of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA): The Central Academy of Fine Arts, located in Beijing, the capital of China, is an academy where culture, history and art are flourishing, which enjoys the best art resources of the world. Website: http://www.cafa.edu.cn/aboutcafa/lan/?c=1101

    5) Beijing’s legendary 798 art district: “798” is located in the Dashanzi area, to the northeast of central Beijing. It is the site of state-owned factories including Factory 798, which originally produced electronics. Beginning in 2002, artists and cultural organizations began to divide, rent out, and re-make the factory spaces, gradually developing them into galleries, art centers, artists’ studios, design companies, restaurants, and bars. Website: http://www.798space.com/subpage_en.asp?classid=17

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/20/accessing-global-markets-via-design-solutions/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/12/afro-coffee-blending-good-design-and-coffee/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/20/baker-cookstoves-designing-for-the-african-customer/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/08/29/brazilian-design-for-new-urban-middle-class-world/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/04/the-brck-kenyan-developed-solution-to-boost-internet-access/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/10/china-sets-sights-on-dominating-global-smartphone-market/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/01/26/designed-in-china-to-rival-made-in-china/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/06/11/indonesian-wooden-radio-succeeds-with-good-design/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/04/popular-chinese-social-media-chase-new-markets/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/10/04/putting-quality-and-design-at-the-centre-of-chinese-fashion/

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023