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Using Human-Centered Design to Fight FGM The UNFPA Hack Lab | Made by People
Lessons from the UNFPA Hack Lab Female genital mutilation (FGM) is one of the most entrenched human rights violations affecting communities across Africa. . .
AI in Africa: Why Human-Centered Design Determines What Works | Made by People
There is no shortage of enthusiasm about what artificial intelligence can do for Africa. The potential is real and, in places, already being realised. . .
AI and Africa’s Growing Workforce: How Design Thinking Helps | Made by People
Artificial intelligence is no longer a future technology for Africa — it's a present one. Across the continent, AI is being applied to some of the most . . .
Design Thinking for Business Transformation in Africa | Made by People
What problem does design thinking actually solve for businesses? At its core, design thinking solves the most expensive problem in product and service development: building the wrong thing. Organisations invest enormous resources into solutions that don't land — because they were designed around assumptions rather than evidence, or because the people who built them never […]
Design Thinking in East Africa: Tradition, Craft, and Innovation | Made by People
When design thinking is discussed in African contexts, it is almost always framed as something arriving from elsewhere. Workshops to be facilitated. Frameworks to be introduced. A methodology developed in Western institutions, now being generously applied to African problems. We find this framing incomplete — and, in a meaningful sense, inaccurate. The principles at the […]
Building Digital Products for Africa: A Design Thinking Guide | Made by People
Africa's digital economy is not on the horizon — it's here. From mobile money to agtech, edtech to healthtech, the continent is producing digital products that are reshaping industries and reaching users that global platforms have long ignored. With the market projected to reach $180 billion, the opportunity for building digital products in Africa is […]
Using Design Thinking to Fight FGM: The UNFPA Hack Lab | Made by People
Using Human-Centered Design to Fight FGM: Lessons from the UNFPA Hack Lab Female genital mutilation (FGM) is one of the most entrenched human rights violations affecting communities across Africa and beyond. Deeply rooted in cultural tradition, the practice causes lasting physical and psychological harm to the women and girls subjected to it. Ending it requires […]
Designing for People, Not Products: The Art of Human-Centered Design | Made by People
Most products fail not because of bad technology, but because of bad assumptions. Assumptions about what users need, how they behave, what constraints they operate under, and what they will actually adopt and sustain. Human-centered design (HCD) exists to replace those assumptions with evidence — and to ensure that the people a product is meant […]
What Does Software Development Cost in Africa? | Made by People
At Made by People, one of the most common conversations we have with prospective clients goes something like this: a founder or programme manager comes to us with a clear idea of what they want to build. They have done some research. They know someone who had a basic website built for Ksh 100,000. They […]
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