A Co-Creative Design Project with a Mayan Community in Guatemala
The “Digital Study Trip” is part of the CAS Design Cultures of the MAS Strategic Design and is a collaboration among ZHdK,
MIT D-Lab, and Link4 Guatemala. In this online design experience participants got to deepen their intercultural design and social skills, practiced co-creation and strategic design with members of a Mayan community in Guatemala.
The course consisted of classes and interactive sessions with lecturers from MIT D-Lab, ZHdK lecturers and experts from the Guatemalan organization Link4, who guided the remote co-creation with Mayan community members. Further topics of the course were: “Design for Social Innovation”, “Co-Creation”, “Intercultural Competences”, “Innovation Ecosystems”, “Systems-Innovation”, “Entrepreneurship” and “Inclusive Business Strategies”.
This digital study trip to Guatemala was the first of its kind. Through interactive maps, live video recordings, sounds immersions, and live video co-creation sessions, participants had the unique opportunity to digitally travel to Guatemala and to contribute with their creativity to the local development. Concepts and ideas from the course will be implemented by the local Mayan community with facilitation support from the organization Link4.