IDDS 2019 Preparation Summit Kampala.

Starting 31st January to 2nd February 2019, the Centre for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation together with partners like IDIN, IDIN Uganda chapter, Innovation consortium, YSAT Uganda,Kulika Uganda and Eco-Life Foods Uganda. This was strategically organised for the partners to share ideas and in a planning workshop for the upcoming International Development Design Summit (IDDS) Uganda 2019. The summit will be a two and a half-week hands-on summit which will be hosted in Rhino Camp, a refugee settlement in Northern Uganda. It will run from 21 August – 7 September 2019 under the theme “improving household livelihoods in humanitarian settings”.

The goal of this summit is to empower local innovation through design to improve household livelihoods and to build a community of problem solvers that will continue developing bottom-up innovations beyond the summit. This summit will be the second of its kind in Uganda as the last summit took place in August 2016. This was an intense, three-week, hands-on design experience to co-create and improve technologies to address the health and environment challenges faced by the three billion people who cook food with traditional cookstoves or open fires.

Participants of the 2016 IDDS summit Kampala posing with the US Ambassador to Uganda Deborah Malac

IDDS Cookstoves brought together participants from East African countries with user-centered, design and innovation expertise, research and development findings, manufacturing know-how. Participants worked with testing facilities like CREEC, as well as engaged with local communities and cookstove users to aid the design process, which is informed by feedback on both performance and usability of the stoves.From that knowledge, participants built and tested different cookstove prototypes to address problems presented by the local community.