Action Lab: It All Starts From Local Transformation

Cornelius & Jaime

“Today, we must expect to be living this turbulence for a long time, in a double world where to realities live together in conflict: the old ‘limitless’ world that does not acknowledge the planet’s limits, and another that recognizes these limits and experiment with ways of transforming them into opportunities” (Manzini, Design, When Everybody Design, MIT Press, 2015).

During April and May, at Tobby Vision Computers, students and institution staff participated in an intense workshop focused on Creative Thinking applied to  Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Beyond global buzzwords and tasteless business design implementations, the core of the program to learn how to observe local issues, analyse them by evaluating and/or validating community assumptions, and work on them as a leading innovator, in pursue of value–added solutions and finally facing the challenge to become entrepreneurs by triggering new business model ideas for new or existing socio–economical sectors.

Beyond teaching, my goal in Cameroon as a Product Designer and a Creative Mentor was to absorb and be inspired by the local culture and the richness of its people, share global views through personal experiences and inspire others to act on detected pain points, issues that affect the community, and opportunities to improve life in all aspects.

I believe in a positive transformation for the community, for the city, for the country. I believe opportunities do not appear if people don’t search for t hem, I believe growth starts from having a common vision and working together towards that end. And for all these, I am completely sure all the fellows I have had the chance to meet and exchange ideas with during these days, they are more than ready to lead the way.

Action Lab is the first step of this transformation. Action Lab is an initiative started by Tobby Vision Computers and Jaime Garcia in order to provide tools, training, support, and further follow–up and development of local innovators and new entrepreneurial business ideas.

Everyone, absolutely everyone at this moment has been an innovator, despite skillsets, education, experience, creativity, status. What we look for with the Action Lab is to make everyone aware of these innovations, making them become a conscious creative act.

Jaime Garcia is an experienced Product Designer based in Tokyo, Bogota and New York, partner of MEANWHILE ASSOCIATES. Jaime earned his Master in Business Design in Milan, Italy, and is currently a PhD candidate at Keio University. His research focuses on the emotive value of design for mobile societies based on implementations of future scenarios and the materialization of new technologies. Jaime Garcia engages in creative mentoring and is an integral part of multidisciplinary projects across the globe. His past clients include major brands such as British American Tobacco, Hewlett Packard, and Sony.