Design Sprint 4ETS in Bogotà

Promoting Civic Coexistence in Colombia

Studio SHIFT continues its mission to promote social innovation through engaging and impactful design projects. A prime example is the Design Sprint 4ETS, an intensive workshop format facilitating the co-creation of solutions to complex social challenges.

What are Design Sprint 4ETS?

The Design Sprint 4ETS is a format devised by Studio SHIFT and implemented throughout 2023 with the support of Regione Lombardia, along with the Lombard social enterprises Alchimia di Bergamo, Sociosfera di Seregno, and Itaca di Romano di Lombardia. The format is based on an iterative and collaborative design process generated from an original adaptation of the well-known Design Sprint 2.0 methodology. It actively involves various stakeholders, including designers, third-sector entities, policymakers, and end-users, generating concrete proposals to address identified challenges. These challenges include awareness campaigns to promote tolerance and respect for diversity, digital platforms to facilitate citizen communication and collaboration, and inclusive public spaces designed to foster social interaction. The design experience of Design Sprint 4ETS has been documented in the volume “DESIGN FOR SOCIAL. Accelerating innovation in social enterprise,” demonstrating the crucial role of design as an accelerator of innovation in social enterprises.

Design Sprint 4ETS in Colombia: Overseas Social Innovation

Building on the learnings and outcomes of national initiatives, Studio SHIFT has launched the format overseas with the “Design Sprint 4 ESAL Bogotà” project: an international experience involving local entities in Colombia to address issues related to civic coexistence.

Shifter Daniela Montenegro led this special edition of Design Sprint 4ETS in her hometown, Bogotà. With the support of Studio SHIFT, which believed in the project to the extent of self-producing it with its 1% for Social, it was possible to engage a partnership of Colombian local organizations and institutions, including REDLAD, Corporación OCASA, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Facultad Arq. y Diseño – Design Factory Javeriana Bogotá, Fundación SandBox, Inngesta, and Fundación Lápiz de Acero, with the special support of Cooperativa Itaca.

Guided by Daniela, participants in Design Sprint 4ESAL – young experts in Strategic Design, Service Design, and Social Design – focused on promoting civic coexistence against racism and social discrimination phenomena, addressing challenges related to expanding voices, strengthening aesthetic identities, inclusion, and empowerment of the NARP community (Negros, Afro, Raizales y Palenqueros) residing in the city of Bogotà.

Specifically, through an intensive co-design process, participants collaborated with operators from Corporación Ocasa and the Local Youth Council NARP to develop new ideas and transform them into promising prototypes for the benefit of the community. They also experimented with a citizen participation mechanism implemented in the city of Bogotà (participatory budgets) during the phase of the methodology where the impact and effort of the proposals are evaluated.

The results:

• Group 1: Ukoloni wa kiakili
  An innovative space where young people from the NARP community in Bogotà are offered the opportunity to express their worldview. With activities focused on the meaning of braiding and uramba, information is documented to enrich cultural spaces.

• Group 2 – Trenzando desde la raíz
  A toolbox for individual workshops, led by a leader, promoting self-awareness and cultural attachment. It fosters self-learning and youth participation in community dynamics, aimed at young NARP people born in their territory and forced to leave, or born in the city, and those seeking to strengthen their identity.

• Group 3: Pazifica
  Safe inclusion spaces, where cultural and social processes are stimulated through sensory experiences and the transfer of ancestral knowledge, promoting territorial reappropriation of the NARP community through alliances with various sectors, such as youth houses, cultural houses, and NGOs.

• Group 4: Ekuba
  A traveling circuit that helps NARP communities who want to feel safer and more secure through the requalification of public spaces by jointly raising awareness among the inhabitants of Bogotà, reducing profiling and racist stereotypes compared to traditional campaigns and initiatives addressing diversity and inclusion in Bogotà.

Projects like these demonstrate Studio SHIFT‘s commitment to being a positive agent of change, promoting social innovation and civic coexistence at both local and international levels.

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