Tunapanda Institute

Phil wanted to share his passion for human-centered design (HCD) with a social-impact organization in an international context. He sought to volunteer with a partner organization that was familiar with the practice. Through my network in Washington, DC, he eventually connected with Tunapanda Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Tunapanda is a nonprofit that provides technical, professional, and business training services to equip young people with the skills to solve local and global issues.

For two months Phil lived a short walk from Tunapanda's headquarters in Kibera. He worked closely with the co-founders to frame specific organizational challenges and then moved through research (e.g., interviews and non-participatory observation), synthesis, ideation, and prototyping exercises in order to develop program and organizational recommendations.

Moreover, Phil participated in day-to-day activities with students and staff, and facilitated retrospectives for the leadership team. As another outcome of the engagement, he ran a two-day HCD workshop for 10 participants in a train-the-trainer model. The staff members used Ideo's HCD framework to explore challenges with Tunapanda’s leadership development program, culminating with the development of a simple solution prototype.