Ashesi’s Design Lab Specializes In Design Thinking With Positive Results

Ashesi University is one of the most well-known and popular universities in Ghana. Founded in 2002 by Patrick Awuah Jr, a Ghanaian engineer, and former Microsoft employee, Ashesi has grown to become of the most recognisable names in Ghana.

One of Ashesi’s outputs is its Design Lab (D:Lab). It is an innovation-promoting within the Ashesi entrepreneurship ecosystem. It was established in 2015.

Since 2021, it has been functioning as one of the units operating under the Ashesi Entrepreneurship Center which was established to harmonize and reinforce Ashesi’s support system to raise ethical entrepreneurial leaders and contribute to the bigger entrepreneurship ecosystem.

..the D:lab has consistently engaged at least 15% of the student population with a strong gender balance, representation across majors, participation of staff and faculty…

Specializing In Design Thinking

The D:Lab offers design thinking and design-making project management support to students, staff, and faculty on building innovation projects. This is mainly done by structuring and categorizing innovation projects into 3 main buckets:

• long term platform projects (profiled projects for students to work on)
• fellows (innovation concepts developed by students)
• next-gen projects (relatively more technical projects with targeted support)

D:Lab projects are centered on having interdisciplinary teams that consist of the various majors on campus (Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Engineering, and Business administration).

These teams are guided to align their focus with the sustainable development goals (SDGs). More importantly, the teams get to develop prototypes of products, processes, or systems they conceptualize with the potential to solve user needs in a defined context.

Aside from offering project management support, the D:Lab provides training and capacity building for students with programs such as hackathons, maker sessions, mini Ted-like contents, exhibitions, field trips, among others.

Sometimes, some of these events and training sessions are in collaboration with external entities such as Futurize, On The Move e.V and UNICEF, and many more.

Generally, the work of the D:Lab covers relevant areas in industries including but not limited to agriculture, health, education, information technology, and engineering.

Over its time frame of existence the D:lab has consistently engaged at least 15% of the student population with a strong gender balance, representation across majors, participation of staff and faculty, and key collaborations with external partners to drive innovation outcomes.

Achievements and Accomplishments

The D:Lab measures its successes based on innovation concepts explored and prototypes built, innovation events and programs organized and impact on participants, engagements with other innovation stakeholders, and other related pointers relevant to its operations.

Here is a list of innovation projects done by students; programs, and events, among other significant strides made by the D:Lab:

HuruPay

$21K Grants won for further development and acceptance into Celo Camp

Recently, Philip Mburu, a D:Lab fellow working on a cryptocurrency project has won $21k from Prezenti (a grant giving organization that supports businesses in the Celo community or network).

His business, Hurupay, is a cryptocurrency payment system that seeks to encourage the adoption of stablecoins in the transactions of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Africa. Their mission is to empower African communities and drive economic growth through blockchain technology.

Their solution eliminates paperwork, reduces the bank of charges of 2-7% to a crypto charge of 0.5%, hedges the possibility of inflation, and seamlessly enables the 60% unbanked Africans to be banked with just a phone number, internet connection, and an email address.

IT-Hub

Cash Prize and Recognition by Igniting Dream Prize 2023

Gabriel Domoninge Naa, the founder of IT Hub, a project under the Ashesi D:Lab that seeks to promote information literacy (IT) literacy among students especially those in deprived communities through practical training sessions. Their goal is to equip the youth with the necessary skills and motivate them to take on opportunities and careers in technology.

Early this year, they won a cash prize at the Igniting Dream Prize 2023, organized by Coalition for Positive Impact (CPI). The purpose of the event was to support entrepreneurs in the Northern region of Ghana with business training and funding to scale up their businesses. At the end of the pitching competition, Gabriel came out as the 3rd runner up.

Biostove

Final Round of Aspire Leadership Grants Program

Biostove is a project that seeks to build and create an affordable biostove that is not dependent on wood or complex mechanical systems as compared to other biostoves in the market. The project is in alignment with SDG 7 (access to clean affordable energy) and SDG13 Climate action. They submitted their proposal for the Aspire leadership Grants program last semester to qualify for an award worth USD 10,000 and they successfully made it to the final round of the program.

The Aspire leadership grant program is a fully funded online leadership development program founded by Harvard business school professors to allow a community of peers and world class educators from over 150 countries to receive networking and mentorship support.

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