Better x Design: Emeka Okafor
"Makers with Ph.Ds stood next to makers from the side of the road - it is not about who you are or where you come from, but what you have done." At A Better World By Design, a three-day conference organized by students that I attended last weekend, founder of Maker Faire Africa (and creator of TED Africa) Emeka Okafor shared with us his hopes for the continent's future of innovative technology design and enterprise.
A self-described venture catalyst, Emeka Okafor is a man that champions unsung heroes. When organizing Maker Faire Africa, he witnessed the coming together of hundreds of traditionally overlooked individuals who build everything from beekeeping mechanisms to windmills, birdfeeders, and distilleries. "From hi-tech to low-tech, these people are making products -- not because they are told to, but because of necessity."
Okafor asks, "What can we do to nurture and nudge the self-sustaining fabricative process?" Scrolling through project after project of simple ingenuity, he states that these people do not need position papers, or grandiose speeches—instead they need a platform. "We're in the process of identifying, locating, and invigorating them," he says. "[We are] trying to create an arena for bottom-up self-selection, a culture that nurtures invention."
Okafor invites us all to Maker Faire Africa 2010, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya.
Article
-
Undivided Intentions
The late architect David Boone was always one to take his work home with him—he just kept it in the home’s office. The new residents of his 1972 house embrace a more fluid approach to…
Product
-
Animal Blueprints
As previously mentioned, I came across a couple of gift ideas for my gift guide that weren’t exactly gadgets, or gadget related. This is a company I discovered last year and one that I think…
Videos
-
Universal Design: Public Bathrooms
For the second offering of our two-part series on Universal Design, the folks from Smart head over to some public restrooms in New York, illustrating how principles outlined in the first video could…
-
Universal Design: Public Restrooms
In the first video of a two-part series, New York–based firm Smart Design examines the intersection between Universal Design principles and the limitations of public bathrooms.
Events
-
Maker Faire 2011
Started in San Mateo, California in 2006, and also being held in Detroit and New York, Maker Faire is the premier event for grassroots American innovation. As the World's Largest DIY Festival, this…
-
Ambiente Design Fair 2011
With over 4,300 exhibitors Ambiente 2011 is the largest consumer goods trade fair in the world, offering a complete spectrum of individuals, decision makers, themes, products and concepts from…
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising
Related Products
-
Animal Blueprints
As previously mentioned, I came across a…
Latest
-
02.08
Fair Chairs
We continue our coverage of the 2012 Stockholm Furniture and…
-
02.07
Seven from Stockholm Design Week
It's about mid-way through the 2012 Stockholm Design Week and…
-
02.07
Hotel Fasano Boa Vista, Brazil
Just a few months ago, Fasano Hotels opened a sprawling…
Follow
Dwell
-
Big news involving @HWKN_arch @marchitizer @MoMAPS1 and new pal Pedro Gadanho: http://t.co/5Hv55IlF #architecture
-
RT @Sight_Unseen & @coolhunting: Flash sale site for eBay & Craigslist @BureauofTrade culls rare web finds http://t.co/Z86Hlnf4 #shopping
-
We love the new Isay Weinfeld-designed hotel in Sao Paolo: nat'l setting & great #design & vintage finds inside http://t.co/fIQJCCZg #travel
-
Wooden candle holders by Bengt & Lotta at Iris Handwerk in Stockholm. #products #design http://t.co/5OE3YZ6x
Great profile of Emeka Okafor. I had a friend years ago who got kicked out of the peace corps for gathering clothing designers in Africa, and helping them establish their businesses for exporting their clothing to the US. Even then the clothing was very innovative, and the styles were in high demand in the states, giving these small villages international businesses.
Thank You.... so often the industry of design goes unnoticed as a neccesity...more thought of as a luxury. I am grateful to you for acknowledging this incredible contribution by Emeka Okafor. He is truly "Healing Homes (Countries) by Design" Be Well.. ~melody
I had the pleasure of attending the conference and meeting Mr. Okafor. It was an eye opening experience. It was simply fantatastic. Are there any other conference of this type?
The modern design of Africa is modern design as we see it. The designers need to be credited for their work and not have their works nor lives stolen by European and Asian showroom owners. The problem of the "Modern" design model as we know it was that it leaned toward neo-naziism and its economics were not sustainable to human life and alot of what we are wowed by was at the expense of people-groups, mostly Black and African people groups. Is it really a good thing for African nations to follow suit in becoming "undertakers"--morticians--from which entrepreneurship and/or enterprise is derived from, for the sake of technological progress? How does anyone produce and further technology without stimulation by genocide and war? Is it possible? I think Africans out of their integrity and moral greatness will be at the forefront a new mode of design-business that is sustainable to not only air and trees but to human beings and the sanctity of human life. I love creative design and especially modern design, but I love to see people feeding themselves, their families and alive even more.
RSS Feed
Add a Comment