BUILD Ideathon 2020 - Highlights
22 Dec 2020 (Kuwait City): With the support of the Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency (SDC) and the Grey Area Collective, en.v recently concluded an eight-day long virtual Ideathon, which brought together local CSOs, students, developers, designers, academics, marketing professionals and others with migrant workers from across nationalities and sectors to collaboratively develop practical and innovative solutions that effectively improve the lives of vulnerable migrant communities in Kuwait.
The Ideathon kicked off by pairing teams with facilitators, which included local and international designers, creatives, activists, producers, social innovators and data scientists. We were also able to count on the support of guest speakers and evaluators from migrant-rights.org and Community Mobilization in Crisis. The goal was to gather as a community to co-create ways for migrant workers in Kuwait to access resources that could give them more agency over their precarious situations. Seven days of carefully curated human-centered design activities yielded ten innovations that could be further expanded to help the lives of migrant workers. Thanks to the support of a variety of prize partners, participants were also given the opportunity to meet each other in person following the event and share an intimate and celebratory experience, including meals at a variety of local eateries, as well as dance, art therapy, crafts and yoga classes. Built on a collaborative rather than a competitive model, the Ideathon placed a big emphasis on strengthening networks and building lasting connections amongst individuals from diverse backgrounds and communities.
Of the ten project ideas that were developed, three have been selected by program partners and external evaluators to move forward to the next phase. The first project is a mobile application that would help case workers supporting migrants do their work more effectively and efficiently; the second is a creative awareness-raising and co-building project specifically targeting shepherds living in isolation, and the third is an information-sharing platform and bulletin that would help build community amongst migrant workers from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, as well as provide easy access to key support information. en.v and Grey Area will continue supporting the project teams over the course of the next year as they further strengthen and refine their concepts and develop and implement an initial pilot.
