The Innovation School at The Glasgow School of Art
teaches design as a human-centred practice that can
be applied universally to local or global issues, and so
acknowledges the stakeholders, systemic elements
or actants that lie beyond the human. This Future
Experiences project asked the Innovation School’s
graduating B.Des Product Design students to address
one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today,
Sustainable Development, which is defined by the United
Nations as: ‘development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.’

Now, more than ever, there is a need for greater
cooperation at a global level between governments, civil
society, the private sector and other stakeholders to
ensure that those with the least still have an opportunity
to prosper. Sustainable Development recognises that,
despite more people around the world living better lives
compared with a decade ago, inequalities and climate
change threaten to undo the progress made in fields such as
healthcare, employment and education. It helps economies
to grow through the use of innovative technologies that
can unleash opportunities for shared prosperity. It aims
to ensure everyone has access to nutritious food, quality
education and freedom of speech. And it attempts to
do all of this without harming the environment, while
seeking to respect local culture, traditions and values. A
global action plan initiated by the UN in 2015 sets out 17
Sustainable Development Goals that must be achieved in
the next decade as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development if we are to end poverty, protect the
planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere. These goals now inform ongoing Sustainable
Development work all over the world, and also helped guide
this Future Experiences project.

The project was completed in January 2020, as the
deadly and disastrous Covid-19 pandemic was just
beginning its spread around the world. This unprecedented
catastrophe reinforced the importance of supporting those
most in need – the citizens of developing regions in the
so-called ‘Global South’. In April 2020, the heads of all
the UN’s major agencies issued an open letter warning of
the risks the virus posed to the world’s most vulnerable
countries. It called on wealthier nations to increase funding
and help to tackle issues such as the cessation of aid as a
result of cancelled flights and disrupted supply routes.
These and many other concerns highlighted during the
crisis are among the topics explored in this project, which
feels even more relevant and urgent than when it was
initiated in the summer of 2019.

The project’s main focus was on how design can support
development work in the Global South by helping providers
move beyond legacy approaches and explore new practices,
projects and directions of research. The students stepped
outside of their comfort zones and engaged with people
living and working in developing nations in order to
identify how design innovation might best be used in the
context of Sustainable Development. Their speculative
visions offered an alternative to existing development
frameworks, prompting providers of development to
reconsider their modes of operation or how they engage
with users. In particular, the students focused on
empowering communities by proposing new products,
services or interactions, as well as alternative forms of
civic organisation or behaviours, that could help these
communities to enhance their own sustainable futures.

Research and practice within the field of Sustainable
Development is currently undergoing a significant shift
away from a colonial model that saw international aid
being administered by the richest members of the global
capitalist North to resolve perceived problems in the
poorer South. The students were asked to imagine a global
landscape ten years from now in which citizens living and
working in developing countries across the Global South
are in control of their own development agenda, which in
a globalised world, is always also in relation to the North.Based on this more participatory context, the Innovation
School’s human-centred, research-driven approach was
used to explore new ways of initiating, funding and
sustaining projects aimed at providing lasting benefits
for specific communities. The outcomes ranged from a
new healthcare system that blends traditional and modern
medicines, to a technologically advanced refuge for women
moving to cities for work, and a service that promotes the
use of cleaner energy within homes in rural Africa.

For this year’s project, The Innovation School partnered
with the University of Glasgow and the Sustainable Futures
in Africa Network to provide the students with direct
access to academics and development professionals working
within the field of Sustainable Development in the Global
South. The insights the experts provided about everyday
life in nations such as Malawi, Uganda, Botswana and
Nigeria helped to inform solutions that address real-world
problems. The ambitious collaboration allowed both the
Innovation School and its project partners to examine new
ways of integrating design and innovation practices into the
planning of future Sustainable Development projects.