Co-Design Academy

Co-Designing Academy: Heritage & Reaching Into the Past in Cairo @ AfriCHI ‘25

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Who we are

Welcome to the Co-Design Experience at AfriCHI 2025. This is a school that provides students from diverse backgrounds with the fundamentals of co-design and an opportunity to explore methods in a project. The goal of the Co-design Experience, first initiated in 2018 by African-based HCI scholars, is to build capacity within HCI communities across the African continent, enabling students to engage directly with communities and collectively address social challenges. We do so acknowledging the resource limitations and inequalities that exist in many under-served communities and thus seek to provide pathways for community-led initiatives supported by computing technologies. The event at AfriCHI ‘25 will be the latest iteration of the co-design initiative, with the most recent event at PDC in Malaysia in 2024. Previous projects have included water and sanitation, community-building initiatives, land ownership, and dealing with stray dogs, to name a few. Joining the experience presents an opportunity to address topics of importance to citizens and communities of Cairo, using co-design techniques that are facilitated by leading co-design and HCI researchers. The co-design experience will take place before AfriCHI 2025 and will include co-design lessons, discussions, and activities with citizens.

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School Objectives

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Explore co-design approaches and best practices
Apply co-design in a short project with a focus on Global South contexts
Enhance knowledge of co-design and share approaches in the Africa
Foster networking opportunities and establish connections between SIGCHI chapters in the Africa and the Global South
Encourage collaboration among African and international researchers and students in HCI, Participatory Design, and related disciplines

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This will be achieved through online lectures and a two-day project with community partners and student participants grappling with co-design principles while addressing a community-identified challenge. Through short talks, group activities, and entering the challenge space in the field, all participants will be given an opportunity to learn about the particular context in Cairo, and the potential of co-design and collaboration can support communities.

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Planned Services/Activities

The program will involve around 12-15 students collectively working on a project with a local history museum in Cairo. The challenges of interest will emerge from the community collaborators exploring diverse ideas and solutions as it relates to the museum space and culture. If you would like to be a part of the collaborative and participatory learning experience at AfriCHI 25, please complete this form by 20 August, 2025.

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Eligibility:

Students interested in participatory design and community-based co-design
Clear interest in exploring co-design principles in research
Applicants from all over the world are welcome though we will naturally prioritise African applicants
Online participation is mandatory, you will have to be available for 4 weekly sessions starting in the first week of October.
To participate in the onsite project in Cairo, which is also mandatory , you will have to attend in-person the two days before the AfriCHI conference
A strict attendance policy will be applied

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Co-Design Academy Chairs

Jaydon Farao

Folasade Adedeji

Nosipho Mavuso

Amira Youssef

Mentors include:

Shaimaa Lazem

Nervo Verdezeto

Melissa Densmore

Hafeni Mthoko

Christian Sturm