THE IDEAS THAT MOTIVATE US
Read about our perspectives and ideas through our publications, posts and articles.
DALBERG DESIGN WINS MULTIPLE WORLD CHANGING IDEAS AWARDS
We are honored that Dalberg Design and three of our projects have been recognized in the 2019 Fast Company World-Changing Ideas Awards, which honor products, concepts, companies, policies, and designs that are pursuing innovation for the good of society and the planet. Dalberg Design, The Human Account, Tech Bets for an Urban World and Design for Health all took home Finalist or Honorable Mention citations in the awards. Learn more
WHAT CAN GAME OF THRONES TEACH US ABOUT DESIGN?
Robert Fabricant
The set design of “Game of Thrones” embodies the changing role of design as an expression of privilege, comfort, and authority in the real world, from the middle ages to contemporary life. Read more
MAKING CONSENT COUNT FOR DATA PROTECTION
Priti Rao and Varad Pande
In Live Mint, Priti Rao and Varad Pande share learning from our work on privacy and consent in India. Even poor people who couldn't read or write, when made aware of what they were consenting to, cared deeply about it. What are potential solutions, and what does this mean for service providers? Read more
DIGIFARM WINS WORLD CHANGING IDEAS AWARD
DigiFarm, the winner of the developing world technology category of Fast Company’s 2018 World Changing Ideas Award, gives farmers advice, lets them buy seeds and fertilizer, and can even give them loans–all from a simple feature phone. Dalberg has worked closely with Mercy Corps and Safaricom to conceptualize, design, develop, launch and pilot multiple iterations of the DigiFarm platform. Read more
WHERE ARE THE MEN? EMERGING DESIGN INSIGHTS IN THE BATTLE AGAINST HIV
Melanie Kahl and Rachel Regina
The burden of HIV/AIDS on women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa is well known. Young women between the ages of 10 and 24 years old are two times more likely to acquire HIV as young men of the same age and up to five times as likely in some segments. Gender inequalities, harmful gender norms, and age disparate relationships are key drivers of disproportionality of the epidemic and major barriers to achieving an AIDS-free generation. While there has (rightly) been significant investment in HIV programs to empower women and girls and address their vulnerabilities, there is a missing piece in the response to HIV globally: the considerable gaps in HIV education and services for men and boys. Read more
WHEN WILL DESIGN GET SERIOUS ABOUT IMPACT?
Robert Fabricant
In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Robert Fabricant argues that social impact designers must shift their focus from designing individual products and services to shifting the fundamental dynamics of development work by addressing problems such as: a technology-first mindset that assumes adoption and engagement are someone else’s problem; the lack of skills in the development community to test and iterate solutions before committing to expensive pilots; and the lack of funder support for experimentation. Read more
MOST PROGRESSIVE UX FOR SOCIETY
Robert Fabricant
프로그 디자인 출신 로버트 파브리칸트(Robert Fabricant)와 라비 차트파(Ravi Chhatpar)는 달버그 세계 발전 자문단(Dalberg Global Development Advisor)의 안정적 기반과 전문적 자산을 디자인과 접목해 사회에 긍정적인 변화를 가져 오고자 파트너쉽을 맺고 사내의 독립된 조직으로 디자인 임팩트 그룹을 설립했다. 개발도상국의 균형 잡힌 발전과 투자를 추구하는 달버그는 디자인 임팩트 그룹의 인간 중심 디자인 방법론을 통해 사회 변혁에 주목하는 디자인 컨설팅을 제공하고 있다.
LEARNING FROM CLIENTS: HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN TOOLS
Ravi Chhatpar
In this article Ravi reflects on the farmer persona human-centered design exercise at the Cape Town Learning from Rural Clients workshop in November 2015, and provides a mini treasure trove of HCD tools and resources, from personas and journeys to ideation and prototyping.
16 AMAZING DESIGN AGENCIES YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
Vivian P. Li
In this article, Vivian Li from Tradecraft includes Dalberg Design as one of the 16 noteworthy agencies that produce incredible work today, yet they’re harder to surface and difficult to qualify as an agency because of the nature of their work. Vivian explains why each one deserves recognition and provides examples of their best work.
FISHERMEN FIRST: PROTECTING THE PEOPLE BEHIND WHAT WE EAT
Robert Fabricant & John B. Thomas
In this post on the Huffington Post Green Blog, Robert Fabricant and John B. Thomas discuss the violations of human rights inherent to the fishing industry today, and offer some promising ideas for intervention to contribute to a more sustainable food system and improve the lives of fisherfolk.
THE ETHICS OF INNOVATION
Robert Fabricant & Chris Fabian
In this post on SSIR, Robert Fabricant offers an ethical framework to bridge the worlds of startup technology and international development to strengthen cross-sector innovation in the social sector based on nine principles that UNICEF and other development sector actors developed and adopted.
MOBILIZING BANKING FOR INDONESIA'S POOR
Trevor Zimmer, Michael Mori
In this article published in MIT Innovations journal, Michael Mori and Trevor Zimmer assess the demand for mobile financial services and branchless banking (MFS/BB) among poor Indonesians and suggests how businesses should design and market financial products to incentivize adoption. It also evaluates the factors that regulators should consider when designing MFS/BB regulations.
THE RAPIDLY DISAPPEARING BUSINESS OF DESIGN
Robert Fabricant
In this opinion piece on Wired, Robert Fabricant offers his reflections on the rapid consolidation of the design business in 2014 and makes the case for a healthy, independent design practice to tackle broader social issues that do not fit within a single corporate mandate.
MEET YOUR NEW R&D TEAM: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
Robert Fabricant
CSR is generally viewed as a way to “give back” to communities that a business operates in. What happens when you reverse that model and place these investments at the front-end of your corporate innovation strategy? In this post on HBR.org, Robert Fabricant discusses an approach to social innovation that can drive both new opportunities and new behavior within your organization while achieving social impact?
WHY IS AN APP WORTH AS MUCH AS A SMALL OIL FIELD?
Robert Fabricant
In this post on HBR.org, Robert Fabricant examines Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp in light of the increased importance of user experience as an increasingly valuable resource online. He applies on the concept of “option value” first applied to the oil business to the mobile tech industry in emerging markets.
DIGITAL DESIGN FOR EMERGING MARKETS
Robert Fabricant & Ravi Chhatpar
In the MIT Innovations Journal, Ravi Chhatpar and Robert Fabricant explore how design in emerging markets can address the dual challenges of textual and technical literacy and move to a more robust concept of fluency that encompasses a broader set of contextual and cultural factors into design decisions.
DIY INNOVATION
Rodrigo Canales, Charlie Cannon, Christopher Fabian, Robert Fabricant, Erica Kochi and Rebecca Rabison
In this article for the Rotman Management Journal, Robert Fabricant introduce a framework for building a powerful innovation capacity within your organization and ways to measure how innovation adds direct value to your core business.
8 LESSONS FOR CREATING SOCIAL IMPACT
Robert Fabricant
In this post for Fast Company, Robert Fabricant describes some of the challenges designers face as they work in social impact and highlights eight lessons learned from his experience on Project Masiluleke and other social impact partnerships
HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN AND THE LAST MILE
Robert Fabricant, David Milestone and Claire Qureshi
Community health workers (CHW's) are the last mile in public health and critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Yet many in global health view CHW’s as inadequate replacements for trained health professionals. In this post on SSIR, the authors provide a framework that places front line workers at the center of program design strategies, strengthening their role as a vital link between communities and the health system.
3 MOST VITAL THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT SOCIAL DESIGN
Robert Fabricant
In this post for Core77, a leading forum for designers, Robert Fabricant shares three of the most vital things to understand about the field of social design: "avoid the Big Idea trap", "respect the practical bits" and "a fresh perspective will only get you so far".
SAVINGS GROUP FUEL DIGITAL DESIGN FOR SMALLHOLDERS IN RWANDA
Melanie Kahl, Montana Cherney, Sebastian Barrera and Ashish Kumar
When applying human-centered design to financial inclusion, it’s often revealing to look to informal solutions to better understand gaps and opportunities in formal systems. While these insights about the mechanics, agility, trust, and intimacy of savings groups suggest compelling opportunities for mobile innovation, the DD team looks at how past experiments to bring technology into these contexts have often fallen short and further explores new strategies.
WHY YOU SHOULDN'T CALL YOURSELF A SOCIAL GOOD DESIGNER
Robert Fabricant
In this interview for Fast Company, Robert Fabricant discusses his work to design new solutions to improve health outcomes in the developing world, but why he never calls it "giving back."
"EARLY IN THE PROCESS": AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT FABRICANT
Robert Fabricant
In this interview on the Impact Design Hub, Robert Fabricant discusses the challenges and opportunities for designers working in social impact and why he founded the Design Impact Group at Dalberg.