ABSTRACT
For over 25 years, Design Indaba has been inspiring and empowering people to create a better future through design and creativity. We are not simply a think tank but a do tank. Above all, we recognise the incredible power of design to convene, coordinate, and focus great minds. As designers, we can take this power out of the studio and onto the streets, reshaping spaces and improving services. This chapter provides an overview of several key projects, from urban acupuncture to public assembly design, to illustrate the role that design as an expansive and socially conscious practice can offer. To be a designer is to be an optimist, dreamer, thinker, researcher, instigator, provocateur, demonstrator, visualiser, storyteller, educator, changemaker, activist, reformer, and humanitarian. Design’s power lies in uniting people across civil society, academia, government, and business to create genuinely useful, effective, sustainable interventions for global issues.
