Kate Walker | Design Indaba

Campaign reconnects refugees with their moms

Refugee Phones turns commercial radio into personal media for refugees to contact their mothers. >
Grotesque sculptures comment on food waste and production

Japanese artist Ayako Fudamoto creates lifelike sculptures of deformed livestock using fake food samples. >
Floating bio-filtration system cleans up river litter

Melbourne-based designer Rowan Turnham builds a modular plant system that captures trash from an estuary. >
Architects designing for social improvement

billionBricks project manager Astrid Hugo shares advice on how to design for the homeless. >
Artist invites humans to bond with worms

Amy Youngs’ exhibition educates people about the benefits of worm composting at home. >
Dave Hakkens’ DIY plastic recycling machines

Industrial designer shares blueprints for recycling machines so that anyone can make plastic products at home. >
Backpack-cum-tent designed for urban camping

Melina is a portable tent designed to inspire nomadic city living. >
Janice Wang: How sound affects our taste perception

Oxford student Janice Wang creates multisensory experiences across multiple disciplines and ideas. >
Cyborg beetles designed for search and rescue

University team develops a remote-controlled beetle that could replace mechanical drones. >
Tuomas Markunpoika elevates the humble pencil to a work of art

Finnish designer, Tuomas Markunpoika uses everyday objects like pencils as raw materials in his designs. >
Zero-emissions fridge helps Mozambican farmers adapt to extended drought seasons

Mozambican farmer, Gilberto Tethere designed a cooling silo to preserve grains in harsh farming conditions. >
Go-getters of the digital art movement

Digital design duo Reed + Rader talk VR, AR and breaking down the barrier between real and simulated worlds. >
Talking umbrella keeps people out of the rain

The Oombrella uses sensor technology to tell users when it is about to rain. >
Algae-based water bottle decomposes when empty

Product design student comes up with a 100 per cent natural alternative to the plastic water bottle. >
Immersive 360-degree world drawn with a permanent marker

Accomplished artist Oscar Oiwa exhibits “Oiwa Island 2” at the Setouchi Triennale art festival. >
Power plant makes electricity out of cheese

Renewable energy group Valbio built a power plant that generates clean energy from a byproduct of cheese production. >
Osborne Macharia on how storytelling can change perceptions

The Kenyan photographer touches on the power of narrative photography with his series “Melanin-0”. >
“Kenya’s League of Extravagant Grannies”

Osborne Macharia’s latest photographic narrative tells the tale of three retired ministers jet-setting around Africa. >
Fontus self-filling water bottles

Water bottles designed to harvest water from the air using an internal condensation system. >
Nature already has a solution to water contamination

Researchers look into an ancient Native American method of purifying water with cactus goo. >
Virtual reality used for drug rehabilitation

Programme at the University of Houston treats drug and alcohol addiction with immersive VR scenarios. >
Electric-assisted handcycle prototype proposed as low-cost wheelchair in Bangladesh

Researchers design a solar-powered vehicle as a possible upgrade of the widespread manual wheelchair. >
Pigeon Air Patrol reports London’s air quality to tweeters

Plume Labs sends a fleet of racing pigeons into the sky to monitor London’s pollution index. >
A movement to clean-up and beautify the city of Bhopal

Bhopal I-Clean Team is a spot-fixing programme started by a group of locals who are determined to tidy up their city. >

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