Sustainable Development and the Global South was a project was jointly conceived by the Innovation School at Glasgow School of Art in partnership with the Sustainable Futures in Africa Network, and the University of Glasgow.

Graduating final year BDes Product Design students from the Innovation School were asked to consider the changing relationship between Sustainable Development and the Global South. Working with experts from the Sustainable Futures in Africa Network; the project’s partner, and academics at the University of Glasgow, the students explored what might happen in a global landscape ten years from now, where Sustainable Development has evolved to the extent that new forms of work transform how people engage, learn and interact with each other. The collection curates and displays the diverse range of future products, services and experiences designed by the cohort for the people who might one day live and work within these future contexts. Here the graduates worked with academics and inhabitants of communities across countries and contexts to explore a collaborative approach to the imagining of the future: to utilise the design skills of giving form, of visualising, of making tangible and shareable to something as tricky to describe as the future. In doing so, they unleashed their own and their collaborators’ imaginations, creating possibilities that challenge our contemporary sense of the possible and the desirable. Should people commodify and sell their own genetic material? Could waste plastic material ever challenge monetary exchange within communities who value quality of life over financial gain, ecology over economics?

The Individual stage saw students explore their individual response to the Future World that had been created in the first stage. Each student developed their own response to the research by iteratively creating a design outcome that was appropriate to the subject matter. This culminated in each student producing a designed product, service or system and a visual communication of the future experience which they had created.
 
Included below is a description of each students’ work. Stage 2 data folders are named for the appropriate student. 

Alice Harper:

The future of education will have a core focus on accessibility for all. Teaching will be removed from traditional settings and will become more tailored to an individual’s needs, occurring anywhere and at any time. The Sankofa Journey App helps individuals to reach their career or personal goals. It supports users who missed out on a proper education due to circumstances such as religious priorities or gender inequality that affect many people in the Global South. The app matches university students with those who are unable to continue their education. The mentoring service ensures greater equality can be created within communities. Once the pupil has completed enough lessons, they can become a mentor and carry on sharing their knowledge with others. 

Breagh Baird:

The CultivAid system helps farmers assess important factors affecting the growth of crops, such as soil conditions and climactic events in response to challenges posed by abnormal environmental conditions. The CultivAid wearable sensor collects and transfers data to the CultivAid Platform as the farmer works the land. The sensors correlate to the changing climate whilst learning how to predict approaching weather, soil hydration, nutrient levels, and pH balance. The farmer receives data and basic advice to help them anticipate changes that might affect their crop yield and productivity. Farmers can also access the CultivAid Platform through an app used to trade knowledge and resources, creating a global farming community focused on adapting and surviving as climate change progresses. 

Callum Ferguson:

Recycling waste material is uncommon and seen as unimportant in many developing nations. Plastibank is a new economic system that rewards users for col-lecting plastic waste, which can then be reused to limit the amount natural resources being transformed into virgin plastic. The Treasure Hunters deposit plas-tic at the Plastibank, where it is sorted, shredded and weighed. They receive credit based on the weight of material they collect, which is calculated by a ma-chine called the Exchanger based on a new material stock market. The Plastibank transforms the waste material into plastic granules that can be used by makers to create new products or returned into the Global supply chain. 

Chantal Roth:

S.U.T.E.C. is a housing association aimed at providing communal living spaces for women in urban contexts that are safe, technologically advanced and environmentally friendly. The concept is informed by research suggesting that many women in urban slums feel unsafe living alone. In particular, they dread having to walk long distances at night to use the toilet. S.U.T.E.C. is a women-only refuge that provides a safe environment for women as they begin new lives in the city. The building incorporates essential amenities including a toilet, shower room, shared garden and a communal kitchen, so the occupants don’t need to go out unless they want to. A workroom provides a space where women can work together and socialise. The refuge also promotes sustainability by utilising solar power for electricity and heating, as well as reusing waste and saving water. 

Conor Keenan:

The Usual Place is a community of music makers and consumers. It is a framework of beliefs that can be manifested in whatever form best suits the surround-ing socio-economic context; from a closed global network where the technology already exists, to physical spaces where thoughts, beliefs and cultures can be shared and cultivated. As an example, The Usual Place is envisioned within a South African community in 2030. Users pay a subscription and re-ceive unique local music. They enjoy the exclusive tracks at home before exchanging it for new content. This forms a closed, circular platform based on the continuous sharing of independent music. The pride users feel in their local culture helps to unite the community and is represented by The Usual Place’s special symbol. 

Eilish McArthur:

By 2030, aid should no longer be something administered to the Global South by the Global North. There should be opportunities for exchanging knowledge and skills rather than simply providing finance and other resources. The Global Knowledge Exchange builds on the role of the Community Ambassador identified as part of the Mobility group’s research. The service sees ambassadors in the Global North and Global South team up to discuss ideas that are important to their communities. Using virtual-reality headsets and a series of tools to aid their conversation, the mentors are able to uncover knowledge which they share with their communities. The three artefacts are used as tactile input devices to support Diagnosis, Discussion and Celebration. The mentor can also wear the objects as jewellery to prompt conversation within the community. 

Emma Chisholm:

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increased global emphasis placed on the pursuit of new cures and vaccines. The Blended Healthcare system aims to develop cures whilst introducing cultural sensitivity in medicine by encouraging collaboration between different practices. This involves creating a standardised healthcare system that unites traditional and conventional medicine, giving patients the option of various treatment methods depending on their symptoms. The system introduces a new healthcare role – the Treatment Mediator and Consultant (TMC). They operate within surgeries and pharmacies, informing patients of the different treatment options available to them. They also provide information to laboratories focused on creating new cures. Patients can access their own health records and biometric data using dedicated machines that provide updates on advice from the TMCs or doctors.

Euan Robertson:

Tacc is focused on helping people to live more sustainably by encouraging small behavioural changes in everyday life. It targets people who have a desire to be more sustainable but feel daunted by what might be required. Tacc creates a network that helps users realise they are part of a greater whole and that their combined efforts can make a big difference. The service analyses a user’s unique circumstances and provides a personalised plan demonstrating steps they can take. The digital platform provides clear goals and visual data outlining how small sustainable acts add up throughout the day. Tacc also connects users to like-minded people so they can share their experiences and learn from each other. The result is a global community which is attempting to live more sustainably and create impactful change to benefit future generations. 

Helena McDonald:

Wise Women aims to improve access to healthcare for women in rural communities within the Global South, whilst simultaneously creating roles for women in the healthcare system. The Wise Women are trusted members of the community, trained by their elders, whose role is to advise other women about preventative health measures, treat simple conditions, and refer more complex cases to specialists. They use wearable ‘Techxtiles’, created from weaving together fabric and conductive fibres, to aid diagnostics and treatment. This speculative project explores how the roles of women in the textile industries in some African cultures might evolve as the world’s technological capabilities develop. Most crucially, it aims to highlight a move away from the clinical ‘West is best’ mindset, towards one of empathy and touch. 

Holly Zambonini:

‘If you’ve got a body, you’ve got something to sell’ looks at the future of the gig economy in the Global South. It focuses on what could happen to those who lose their jobs to automation, who may have nothing left to sell but their bodies. The project is based on the current issue of body commodification, which sees people in the Global South make a living through the transnational kidney trade, hair trade and surrogacy. It poses the question of what the gig economy might look like if it was possible for buyers in the Global North to purchase another person’s genes from the Global South in order to change their own genetic code using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. ‘If you’ve got a body, you’ve got something to sell’ draws attention to the need for Sustainable Development to continue supporting those left behind by changing economic models. It highlights the responsibility of governments to develop innovative solutions for those who will inevitably lose their jobs to automation. 

Indre Strazdaite:

This project builds on research conducted by the Mobility group, which focused on the importance of communication in maintaining strong communities. One of the speculative personas that emerged from that research is the Community Ambassador. They gather important information from a global network and feed this back to their own community, in this case a Samburu tribe in Kenya. The Constitution Cloth is a system that promotes conversations around rights, values and diversity within the tribe. Members of the tribe participate in a collaborative event organised by external designers from an NGO. During this event they are invited to contribute statements that become part of their community’s constitution. Alongside the discussions, skilled artisans work together to produce the Constitution Cloth as a symbol of unity. The cloth garment is worn by the Community Ambassador to represent their tribe during gatherings with other tribal leaders, as well as further international information gathering sessions. 

Jennifer O’Rourke:

If rural communities in the Global South are to successfully adopt renewable energy, the associated technologies need to be integrated appropriately into everyday life. Renew is a renewable energy exchange that enables members of a future community in Malawi to better value and share energy with each other. Individuals can see how much energy they are using on their own domestic energy meter. The meter is linked to a home energy vane located on the outside of their property. This vane has variable speed patterns that indicate that the household may have excess energy to trade with another user for services or resources. Renew therefore acts as a new form of currency, encouraging more sustainable attitudes towards energy usage and promoting the self-sustaining exchange of resources within the community. 

Jessica Judge:

SenseVoice is a public service that encourages communities to capture their unique values through different senses. This non-linguistic form of expression offers an effective way of collecting and communicating important Memories, Aspirations and Judgements. A Value Navigator invites participants to capture an aspect of their community using the most appropriate physiological sense. Local creatives then transform these sense portraits into outputs such as exhibitions or presentations that can be shared with other communities, schools or governments. By experiencing the positive or negative sensory values in this way, the SenseVoice network can appreciate how others around the globe 

Joao Vidal Lourenco:

Belief systems define the fundamental worldview of a culture by explaining aspects of the natural and metaphysical world, and encapsulating a society’s psychological and social practices. The beliefs of minority communities have been overlooked during centuries of colonisation. ReÍcon asks us to imagine, “What if these aspects of culture were to be valued, protected, and celebrated?” Tribal myths are turned into artefacts, designed to invite exploration and trigger discussion with elder members. In this way, they unveil stories, the oldest mechanism for learning. The artefacts are used to teach virtues such as good judgement and awareness of our roots, as well as raising deeper philosophical questions. The aesthetics of these artefacts would reflect their attributes and the materials of their village’s natural environment. They are accompanied by information about history and how to interact with deities in the divine realm through prayer, music, or other rituals. 

Kathrin Brinkmann:

Habitat is a service providing public green space that allows city dwellers in the Global South to escape the hustle and bustle of their environment. Faith plays a major role in the Global South and is considered a primary need. Habitat therefore seeks to create more opportunities to engage with faith whilst also advoc-ating a reconnection with nature. The compact spaces for prayer or meditation are integrated into the cityscape, providing a capsule of greenery that helps to re-establish traditional connections between faith and nature. Habitat aims to increase the enjoyment of the user’s prayer times as well as the enjoyment of nature, hence encouraging greater care in the interac-tion with both. 

Kourosh Khalilan:

The project proposes a mandatory public service programme for young people living in urban parts of Nigeria. The service aims to conserve rural wetlands in the River Niger's delta region, which are home to a vast amount of flora and fauna. Communities living around these wetlands rely heavily on the ecosystem to survive, but pollution from the petroleum industry and other threats including local conflicts and poor land management are damaging this precious natural resource. The project specifically focuses on the conservation of mangrove trees. Young people are trained in landscaping and irrigation, learning how to support the growth of local flora. 

Kristen McGhie:

Women in rural Malawi are still subjected to a tradi-tional initiation ceremony when they reach sexual ma-turity. This involves sending them away from their community to learn how to cook, clean and perform other household chores. They are also forced to have sex with a paid sex worker to rid them of their ‘child dust’. Women Deliver is an NGO that aims to replace this antiquated practice with a ceremony during which young women are educated about sexual and menstrual health. During the ceremony, women are also gifted a wearable device in the form of an earring that secretly delivers contraception to prevent un-wanted pregnancies. The service helps women reach maturity and finish their education without becoming pregnant, if that is their wish. 

Luke Fallow:

Mother is a speculative LGBTQ health brand, offering discreet care under the guise of consumer products through an imaginative distribution network. The project is a response to the current persecution of people pursuing same-sex relationships in some countries in the Global South. Brand ambassadors or ‘Mothers’ act as representatives for the service’s members, providing information on risks the community may face and advising on a range of products to be distributed to members. These might include items relating to self-care, health and peace of mind. By posing as consumer goods and infiltrating existing supply networks, Mother will covertly provide illicit care and support to people forced into living secret lives. 

Marta Kawecka:

Wove In is a system that preserves craft skills by promoting cooperation between makers from differ-ent generations and communities. A byproduct of a West African crop called fonio is transformed into rope that can be woven into baskets and other tradi-tional objects by an older generation of artisans. Younger innovators living closer to cities apply new approaches and technologies to develop sustainable products using the material. By merging the old and new techniques, the service creates contemporary products that retain a sense of their heritage. It also promotes the growth of fonio, which is an orphan crop that assists with biodiversity, food security and sustainable land use. 

Nella Piatek:

The Habitat Education and Restoration Agency (H.E.R.A.) is a government-funded organisation whose mission is to shape and instill sustainable, habitual behaviours in participants. This speculative system is placed in a preferable future where the Sustainable Belt, an area between the urban and the rural, is dedicated to educating the population on how to live with the health of all of Earth’s occupants in mind. The project draws attention to how our environment influences our behavioural habits and makes a statement that wellbeing and future thinking should no longer be a luxury. Thus by designing an ultimate self-sufficient sustainable habitat, it shows how an environmentally conscious mindset could spread across society. H.E.R.A. gives individuals from urban and rural communities the chance to devote a stage of their lifetime to the Sustainable Belt. Each individual across society is given a obligatory 6 month period, where they are asked to participate in the program at any given time of their life, along with a possibility of revisiting the compounds gradually throughout their life. Participants undertake a personality test to determine skills, strengths and behaviours that are used to place them in a relevant sector where they contribute to the growth of the community. In this manner, the project aims to equip and empower people to gain and grow their ecological knowledge and develop sustainable habitual behaviour.

Nicole Wills:

As landfill sites and refuse take over our land, our communities and even our homes, we should train ourselves to value discarded materials. Musi Co. teaches people to treasure the waste that engulfs our urban environments. It aims to to create worth and spread culture by harnessing resourcefulness. Participants in the Global South collect useful waste materials and convert these into new, unique musical instruments. The instruments are used to play music that is shared with subscribed members of the Music Co. community around the world using a portable Pod device. This sharing of music with members in different countries creates a global network united by a passion for music and a desire to create culture from waste. The service also creates various opportunities for employment, as people are needed to gather materials, build the instruments, manage subscribers and oversee the service’s operation. 

Pier Stevens-Rosa:

The ubiquity of technology and issues related to planned obsolescence have resulted in electronic waste worth €60 billion currently rotting in landfill globally. Much of this e-waste is exported to coun-tries in the Global South as it is easier to dispose of there. E-Cycle is a speculative brand aimed at helping communities affected by e-waste. It provides services including workshops, tech repairs and the sale of e-cycled tech to help create a new economy around af-fordable technology. Users can join workshops and learn how to repair their electronic items, or can bring items in for repair and observe the expert technician repairing it. They can also purchase items or trade their own broken tech to promote e-cycling behav-iours. An optional membership scheme enables them to gain qualifications so they can become an e-cy-cling expert and take on a leadership role within the organisation. 

Rhona Brown:

Biovase tackles the many issues associated with cur-rent cooking practices in rural areas, the biggest be-ing indoor air pollution and its impact on our climate. Biogas provides an alternative source of clean do-mestic energy that helps to mitigate the emission of dangerous greenhouse gases. The Biovase service encourages users to create clean energy using household waste. A digester device mulches food waste, accelerating the chemical process that pro-duces the biogas. The user can see how much gas is being generated, which helps them appreciate the value of their waste. The gas is transferred to the Bio-vase vessel, which the user can personalise with their own decoration. This artefact references traditional vessels and can be used to transport and share ex-cess fuel with friends or neighbours. 
Rosie McKenzie:

Local Coin is a digital alternative currency targeted at financially poor and resource rich communities in the Global South, which are often exploited by wealthy organisations in the Global North. Money can also be a source of exploitation and corruption by govern-ments and central banks. Local Coin bypasses the current system and allows communities with little conventional wealth to control their own resources and stimulate their economy. Users trade goods or services for credits that are stored in a digital ac-count. They can also track their community’s progress in relation to others around the world and share knowledge through the platform. Rather than focusing on the accumulation of wealth and re-sources, the currency promotes a collective effort to preserve and enhance the environment by focusing on local transactions with inherent value. 

Ruth Kupianien:

Toolstool is a service for prompting discussion among rural communities that may be affected by a loss of cultural identity as increasing numbers of inhabitants leave to live in cities. The kit is used in workshops aimed at encouraging people from different parts of society to discuss their shared values and concerns. Each participant receives a Toolstool, which they bring to the meeting and assemble together. Whilst sitting on their stools, the participants record their thoughts on a reflection sheet included in the pack-aging. These sheets help guide further conversations and are ultimately returned to a project leader tasked with compiling them in an exhibition that all members of the community are invited to attend. The Toolstool provides a neutral stimulus for important discussions within communities and will eventually become an icon associated with the act of meeting up to share and learn. 

Sarah Yang:

The Empow{h}er menstruation kit was developed in response to a lack of education and resources about female hygiene and care in some developing regions. Mothers can sign up for the service, which would be provided by the United Nations or organisations supporting human equality and women’s rights. The kit provided to girls in advance of experiencing their first period contains information about the menstrual cycle along with products including reusable sanitary pads and instructions on how to make them. It also includes a paper-rose soap, cleaning products, important vitamins in the form of sweets, and a test that can be used to check blood for diseases. The Empow{h}er service aims to help girls throughout this transition and promotes com-munication between different generations of women on what can be a taboo topic. 

Struan Stuart:

Mutua is a service provider established as a subsidiary of the United Nations in response to Goal 17 of its Sustainable Development Goals. This Goal aims to revitalise partnerships between the Global North and Global South, enhancing the exchange of knowledge and helping to promote trade. Mutua aims to provide technological guidance to a range of stake-holders interested in partnering with people in diverse communities around the globe. The service offers training for ‘Technological Ambassadors’, who can participate in residencies aimed at building knowledge and identifying needs for new technologies in specific contexts. By pairing people and companies from the Global North and Global South, Mutua en-sures that technology projects are implemented in ways that are useful and sustainable.