Co-creating Solutions for Change with Joseph Kwesiga and Shola Olabode-Dada

May 30, 2022

30

min listen

Episode Summary

When approaching a problem, it's tempting to quickly approve the first or most obvious solution that comes to mind. But what if we implemented an approach to problem-solving that considered all of possible opportunities and evaluated them with data in mind?

On this weeks episode, we talk with Joseph Kwesiga and Shola Olabode-Dada from YLabs – a diverse team of physicians, designers, economists, developers, public health professionals, educators who are focused on implementing youth driven solutions to some of the largest problems that are facing young people's health and economic opportunity all around the world. 

Joe and Shola talk about how they use human centered design—an empathetic approach to problem solving—to design and implement programs in partnership with youth that come as close as possible to the outcomes they are looking to achieve.

Show Notes

When approaching a problem, it's tempting to quickly approve the first or most obvious solution that comes to mind. But what if we implemented an approach to problem-solving that considered all of possible opportunities and evaluated them with data in mind?

On this weeks episode, we talk with Joseph Kwesiga and Shola Olabode-Dada from YLabs – a diverse team of physicians, designers, economists, developers, public health professionals, educators who are focused on implementing youth driven solutions to some of the largest problems that are facing young people's health and economic opportunity all around the world. 

Joe and Shola talk about how they use human centered design—an empathetic approach to problem solving—to design and implement programs in partnership with youth that come as close as possible to the outcomes they are looking to achieve.

Joseph is a UX designer from Uganda with a passion for all things creative. He has experience in UI design, UX design, content strategy, product management, online media coordination and digital marketing/analytics. Joseph attended the School of Visual Arts and holds a master’s degree in Design for Social Innovation. When he’s not designing the perfect user experience, you can find him producing music, sampling fine cheese, or trying to pronounce the word "synthesis.”

Shola Olabode-Dada is a behavioral scientist that promotes healthy behavior change among youth by conducting research, synthesizing information, and fostering relationships with key stakeholders. As would a detective, she collects the evidence and explores all possibilities to decipher the mystery of how young people make decisions about their health. Shola is passionate about this type of work because she wants to participate in dramatically improving the health and economic success of young people who lack access to the resources to live a fulfilling life. Her specialties include applied research methodologies, program evaluation, the application of behavior change design to digital health products, and stakeholder engagement. Shola holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in community psychology from North Carolina State University.

Read a full transcript and more at https://wecandothis.co/episodes/027

YLabs Website → https://ylabsglobal.org

Joseph on Linkedin → https://linkedin.com/in/joseph-kwesiga

Joseph on Instagram → https://instagram.com/madjinbea

Change by Design by Tim Brown (CEO, IDEO)  → https://ideo.com/post/change-by-design

Instagram → https://instagram.com/wecandothisco

Twitter → https://twitter.com/wecandothisco

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Follow Sean at the links below:

Instagram → https://instagram.com/seanpritzkau

Twitter → https://twitter.com/seanpritzkau

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EPISODE CREDITS:

Music by Darren King on Soundstripe

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Sean Pritzkau: Hey there and welcome to episode 27 of We Can Do This. I'm really thrilled for our episode today with two team members from YLabs. YLabs was founded at the Harvard Innovation Lab in 2016 in response to a need for innovation in partnership with youth. What I love about YLabs is they are a diverse team of physicians, designers, economists, developers, public health professionals, educators who are focused on implementing youth driven solutions to some of the largest problems that are facing young people's health and economic opportunity all around the world. And they're a big proponent of human centered design, which is an empathetic approach to problem solving.

[00:00:45] Sean Pritzkau: And for those of our listeners that are familiar with design, some of these topics may be familiar. And even the language that they're using to address real problems around the world are some of the ways that we approach problems in businesses and organizations, and really at the heart of it is creating solutions that are addressing problems that people actually have.

[00:01:08] Sean Pritzkau: And the solutions, aren't just a solution, but are the best possible solution that we feel like we can implement. So this episode, we'll be talking with Joseph , who is a UX designer from Uganda with a passion for all things creative. He has experience in UI design. UX design content strategy, product management, online media coordination, and digital marketing and analytics.

[00:01:33] Sean Pritzkau: He attended the school of visual arts and holds a master's degree in design for social innovation, and also joining us. We have Shola Allah Bodie data who is a behavioral scientist that promotes healthy behavior chains among youth by connecting research, synthesizing information and fostering relationships with key stakeholders.

[00:01:51] Sean Pritzkau: As with a detective, she collects the evidence and explores all possible. To decipher the mystery of how young people make decisions about their health Shola is passionate about this type of work, because she wants to participate in dramatically. The health and economic success of young people who lack access to the resources to live a fulfilling life.

[00:02:10] Sean Pritzkau: Her specialties include applied research methodologies, program evaluation, the application of behavior change design to digital health products and stakeholder engagement show the holds a M S and PhD in community psychology from North Carolina state university. So really excited about this episode. I think this is going to be something.

[00:02:31] Sean Pritzkau: Maybe new for some people in the audience in a different approach that has real takeaways that you can apply into your own research, into your own work. As you're seeking to create solutions to the problems that are in your own industry or area of expertise or interests. So let's jump in and have this conversation with Joseph and Sola from our YLabs.

[00:03:10] Sean Pritzkau: All right. Hey there. And welcome to this episode of We Can Do This. I am really excited here today to be talking with Shola and Joe from YLabs, both of you, welcome to the podcast.

[00:03:24] Sean Pritzkau: Yeah, it was said for both of you to be here, we've been talking and I've been in conversation with some of your colleagues at YLabs and just been able to learn about your organization, the work that you do, and some of the methodology in practice. How you approach solving, uh, important and pressing problems and some really pumped that both of you are joining me today.

[00:03:49] Sean Pritzkau: If both of you just want to briefly just say hello and introduce yourself and share maybe your role at YLabs. 

[00:03:56] Joeseph Kwesiga: So I'm Joseph, go by Joe. I'm a senior product designer at wild labs, and you have been with them for a couple years now. Almost all them. Working on a lot of projects ranging from mental health to ministration health and see abortion.

[00:04:13] Joeseph Kwesiga: And 

[00:04:14] Shola Olabode-Dada: I am, Shola a loaded data and I am a senior behavioral scientist at YLabs based in Rwanda. And I have worked, uh, probably almost three years now as well. And my background is dilute psychology. 

[00:04:32] Sean Pritzkau: Awesome. So both of you been, it seems like around organization for about three years and that puts you right before the pandemic.

[00:04:39] Sean Pritzkau: It sounds like. I mean, what was that like jumping in to a new role at a new organization right before the world experience some, you know, significant. It was 

[00:04:50] Shola Olabode-Dada: exciting at first I thought it was great. I actually did a project in Rwanda initially in 2019, and then was set to go to Kenya for another project focused on HIV aids.

[00:05:03] Shola Olabode-Dada: And that was 

[00:05:04] Joeseph Kwesiga: interrupted. And I was mean in Kampala and flying back and forth between compiling Rwanda for all of our projects. Um, Uh, adolescent sexual health and every two weeks we back and forth until COVID hit and then it was not so not so chill, but we're doing pretty well with remote. And so far, we still get to put out really good work.

[00:05:29] Joeseph Kwesiga: Yeah. 

[00:05:30] Sean Pritzkau: I've been, uh, you know, really intrigued by the distributed nature of your team because as we'll learn, as we talk, you know, your organization. You know, a really diverse group of industries represented and expertise and backgrounds, but am I correct that you were fairly distributed and remote prior to the pandemic?

[00:05:50] Sean Pritzkau: Yes. Yeah. So I imagine, you know, were able to roll with some of the punches a little bit differently than others. It 

[00:05:57] Shola Olabode-Dada: became more extreme, way more extreme. 

[00:06:00] Sean Pritzkau: Well, let's jump in. I mean, first this hearing that you both joined around the same time, you know, on, on your team, you know, what was it about YLabs that made this interesting role to kind of transition into and, uh, you know, an organization that really piqued your interest?

[00:06:17] Sean Pritzkau: I 

[00:06:17] Joeseph Kwesiga: think for me, it was interesting because of my background and essentially. My upbringing was so I'm a UX designer from Uganda, and I'm really lucky to have had a very worldly upbringing in that sense. So a lot of formative years were spent in like low and middle income countries. So I was never quite apart from the disparities in there.

[00:06:37] Joeseph Kwesiga: And eventually you really start to notice a lot of the, the work being done in the world doesn't really help the people that needed the most. My father, for example, he worked with the African development bank. He was very passionate about creating positive impact for underserved communities. I think that rubbed off on me as I now operate in the intersection of design and development, and I wanted to apply myself to things that had real impact, and I still wanted to have the freedom to be creative.

[00:07:03] Joeseph Kwesiga: I felt that that creativity and innovation is stifled a bit in large. Bureaucratic organizations. So I couldn't be happier, useful in that kind of context. So while that is, was a, a great fit. 

[00:07:14] Sean Pritzkau: Yeah. Well, it sounds like it. 

[00:07:17] Shola Olabode-Dada: As so many other young children, I wanted to be a doctor when I was younger and I didn't know it at the time, but I always had an interest in the mind.

[00:07:26] Shola Olabode-Dada: And I didn't know that I wanted to actually be a psychologist. And I was serendipitously came upon psychology and just understanding the mind and how it affects behavior. I then had an interest in. During my graduate program, I was watching, I went to this film festival and watch this documentary called born into brothels, which is about this woman who goes into the brothels of Calcutta India.

[00:07:55] Shola Olabode-Dada: And she teaches the young children. Photography as a way to get them out of their circumstances. And that was really inspiring to me, like learning a new skillset, also encouraging and promoting behavior change to promote just healthier living and more fulfilling life. And that kinda led me down the path of behavior change and to YLabs.

[00:08:17] Sean Pritzkau: So for those of us who aren't familiar with, YLabs do you want to, or maybe one of you just share briefly? What is, YLabs, what kind of work do you do and what is unique about your. 

[00:08:27] Shola Olabode-Dada: So my understanding and my take on why Laos is that we are a global health research organization and we do design as well as research.

[00:08:36] Shola Olabode-Dada: We typically use different methodologies, but it could be mixed methodology using traditional research, qualitative and quantitative, but we often use human centered design and human centered design is creative problem solving approach that we use to. Focus on the beneficiaries of an intervention. And we sent her the needs of those people who are benefiting from the intervention or whether that be a service or product and they are centered.

[00:09:06] Shola Olabode-Dada: And also we engage them in the process. So engage them in the research process and addressing their. 

[00:09:13] Sean Pritzkau: So, what is it about this approach that you've noticed unique or better results through, you know, really embedding yourself into the group that you were looking to serve and learn about their needs. 

[00:09:25] Joeseph Kwesiga: So essentially, like HCD is a problem solving approach, right?

[00:09:29] Joeseph Kwesiga: So it looks to address core needs, people having so back again, different the products and services and systems experiences, anything that, so it's an empathetic process. So you're really focused and you pay attention to people's perspective. No, I didn't cover that their actual pain points, the process encourages you to immerse yourself in the context and the needs that are in need of, or that you're solving for in, or they truly understand how they're affected by your designs.

[00:09:54] Joeseph Kwesiga: That immersion process helps you better identify and define the problems all too often. We don't quite have the right idea in a lot of intervention out there and what the actual problem is. So without that real perspective, in that frame of mind, A lot of things fail in terms of like their intended outcome.

[00:10:11] Joeseph Kwesiga: So once you define the problem, you can actually start to address it through ideation and a lot of iteration as you go. So prototyping and testing ideas, and you keep cycling back in order to apply your learnings and all this time you're involving the stakeholders that you have identified. And that while as we have a youth driven design approach, so everything we do directly involved.

[00:10:34] Joeseph Kwesiga: And includes youth in our processes. So we research, we co-design, we test and we iterate with you all while evolving and deepening our understanding of the factors youth face in the ecosystems they inhabit. Yeah. 

[00:10:48] Sean Pritzkau: I love that you shared, I mean, that word, empathy. You know, really stands out to me is, you know, having this, you know, really getting in the trenches with people and hearing about and experiencing, you know, what they're going through and the problems, you know, some things are defined really well, but what they're not like many of us have been on the receiving end of maybe a solution that was, seems like it was designed without even thinking about them.

[00:11:11] Sean Pritzkau: And. Not only can it be less effective, but it can be harmful. Right. So there's a lot of good resulting from this approach. Do you want to share with us about maybe a project, something that can help us maybe illustrate this approach and how you've taken this approach with a specific project? 

[00:11:28] Joeseph Kwesiga: Yeah. So we've wrapped up a pilot of a project.

[00:11:32] Joeseph Kwesiga: Called the cocoon project. So for some context, the cocoon project is located is based in the bitty bitty refugee settlement. And that's located in the west Nile region of Uganda. And the settlement is primarily occupied by south Sudanese. And it's one of the largest refugee settlements in the world currently home, like over 240,000 refugees, so that the project was addressing limited access to sanitary pads, washing supplies, and safe private spaces for menstrual health and in humanitarian crises.

[00:12:01] Joeseph Kwesiga: So. Together with young ministers while I've stopped to design safe spaces and services for managing the illustration amongst displaced populations. And to address the issues faced by administrators, wireless palliate of the cocoon mini, which is a semi permanent latrine and bathing area that's built within household compounds and the settlement, and is accessible to families in the surrounding area.

[00:12:25] Joeseph Kwesiga: And it's estimated that the project was able to serve roughly around 300 administrators, proudest three months. So these like units, we built out, they were modifications of bash shelters and featuring things like high privacy walls and locking doors and like the non latrines and dedicated disposal areas for sanitary products were added to the space because they were lacking the area.

[00:12:48] Joeseph Kwesiga: Disposal bins. So a bunch of like tools that would either help ministers easily access the sites and to improve their safety, improve their privacy, or just give them actual tools. They need to actually help the rightfully manners demonstration. So in this whole process, you know, again on us getting to the pilot, but this whole process was gleaned from countless rounds of iteration and research all the while involving youths from beginning to end.

[00:13:14] Joeseph Kwesiga: So the ideas we were allowed to. To iterate on and develop where the D has given to us from the young women and girls in the settlement, but also, you know, still involving men too, because again, they're part of that ecosystem. And in order to get an effective solution, you have to also address the barriers or the potential people that can influence those solutions or those outcomes.

[00:13:38] Joeseph Kwesiga: At the end of the pilot, you know, we ended up constructing 20 of these many units and. Some were constructed for exclusive use by administrators. And some were kind of like made public to just general pasture buyers, but still for, um, young women and girls. And since the creation of the mini spaces, 47% of the ministers reported that.

[00:13:59] Joeseph Kwesiga: We're having more discussions about menstrual health with boys and men in their community. Considering that's a very taboo topic. It's kind of hard for young women or young girls to talk about these things because it kind of can make them a target or it's highly shunned upon. And we also spoke with like about 109 ministers at the end of the pilot.

[00:14:16] Joeseph Kwesiga: And 95% of them were saying that the cocoon maybe had made administrational management easier for them. So just the addition to these spaces and like the improvement of infrastructure helps people. Manage themselves better, but also, um, it had ripple effects on their actually day to day. So it increased water access in the bitty bitty settlement.

[00:14:36] Joeseph Kwesiga: Like they're very strapped for resources. Their water is one of the resources that in high demand, but isn't easy to come by. There's few access points. So bringing these water points attached to the cocoon is not only does it help them in terms of accessing water, but also gave them more means in which they can help themselves Madison station and also safety.

[00:14:54] Joeseph Kwesiga: Walking 10 kilometers to a water point and not getting anything only to get to a pump and realize the water is not flowing. You know, that's, that's a large amount of time taken up for young girls that could be otherwise be in school or having other activities. So yeah, many ways that there was ripple across from the, from the, the work able to bathe anytime of day something that, you know, we take for granted every day.

[00:15:16] Joeseph Kwesiga: But, uh, having agency over when you can, um, go to the bathroom, clean yourself, clean your. Experiencing more mobility again, because like you have the option to re visit a space that is made for you and not have to wait or search out a place where you can discreetly manage your mental health. And as a proof of concept, that's like the cocoon minis were really affordable, especially in the context of the humanitarian humanitarian crises, because we see a lot of big projects that kind of are pushed for, I guess, helping or managing refugees issues.

[00:15:53] Joeseph Kwesiga: So we kind of put forward a low cost alternative that involved the communities or directly, and was easy to build rapidly within three weeks. So in terms of just scalability, Having that proof of constantly you don't need to have a lot of money. You don't have a lot of resources to be able to have means in which you can get young ministers, young girls with.

[00:16:13] Joeseph Kwesiga: And I think one of the really big parts is that at the end of the three month pilot, there were no safety incidents involving the minis or young girls. And again, this was attributed to the fact that there was obviously the safety components built into the actual facilities, but also wildlife has a very rigorous I safeguarding and protection policy that, you know, we kind of take into the work quite seriously.

[00:16:34] Joeseph Kwesiga: And a lot of those backing ethos spreads into the work and rightfully so, and the ability to have a. Stigmatized topic and a very hard topic for not just young women and girls to talk about should or just general people in the, in the context. Talk about there being no safety incident involved with it.

[00:16:51] Joeseph Kwesiga: And for that to be an improvement for these young girls was definitely a massive win for the. 

[00:16:56] Sean Pritzkau: Wow. I mean, first incredible work. It's so interesting hearing kind of like the start to finish of exploring a problem and you know, really how you're using this process and, you know, results that come from it.

[00:17:08] Sean Pritzkau: The thing that I found most striking really is how you, you probably go into this problem. Assuming making assumptions and hearing you share about this, you're hearing about how interconnected some of these issues are and addressing one problem might be addressing. Several. And you might not know that unless you really embed yourself in the community that you're serving.

[00:17:29] Sean Pritzkau: One of the things that you said towards the end is you're able to kind of conduct this experiment over a short amount of time with relatively little resources compared to if you were to make a full commitment and kind of jump in and figure out, you know, before testing, I'm curious. Um, and I think this would be beneficial to.

[00:17:47] Sean Pritzkau: Our listeners is, how do you, you know, in your process of coming up with this test or this experiment, or this phase, how do you really define, like in set some parameters around, what does a test look like and what is the extent that you want to take your experiment? 

[00:18:05] Joeseph Kwesiga: So again, this is done over like a, quite a few rounds of research and prototyping, but, um, essentially what we're looking for when we start out is that our research phase.

[00:18:16] Joeseph Kwesiga: Is, you know, set out to first answer or, you know, test our assumptions because it is true. We are going with a lot of assumptions. We want to hear directly from beneficiaries themselves about if, what we think is true, if not, let's explore what is actually going on here. So from that, we're able to start prototyping, you know, rapid prototypes, like seasoned, but you know, very low budget, low scale simplest paper prototypes.

[00:18:37] Joeseph Kwesiga: If you want. And just to test ideas, to get quick ideas out there and see what sticks and having the people you're designing for inform what they want. And from there, we can move into higher fidelity prototypes, where, um, we did some about three months of testing for our live prototypes. So things people could actually interact with that.

[00:18:58] Joeseph Kwesiga: We didn't have to commit fully. And there was a range of ideas that we had like set out for this project in specific that were pertaining to things beyond just menstrual health. We were looking at aspects on financial inclusion, income generation storytelling sessions for members and deal with education too.

[00:19:16] Joeseph Kwesiga: So there's a lot of like very desired, possible outcomes for. But it comes down to after the end of this, like, you know, we do speak to the, the committee members and the beneficiaries as we go along, but it really comes down to when you're working for either a being a bed or a, a project, you also have to think about it and display a lot more practical scales, the feasibility, the scalability, the impact potential.

[00:19:40] Joeseph Kwesiga: And desirability. So it can be highly desired by everyone in the community, but it might not be as feasible in the longterm, or it might not have as much impact as something else could. So you really do have to, we make a bit of a measuring metric for ourselves in this, and we kind of determine which was the best one to move forward with.

[00:19:57] Joeseph Kwesiga: But ideally all those things that are desired that were put forward, have merit in what could be applied to these projects or these areas. But since, yeah, that's how the, the testing went and the pilot itself was now the culmination of all that knowledge for the past two years of active study research and iteration that testing into this three month boil down of, we're going to put this one idea out there and we're going to make sure that we've kind of checked our T's and crossed our eyes.

[00:20:25] Joeseph Kwesiga: And from that we still got feedback, which is great that, you know, it's, it's never really a, an end cutoff point to. The design process, you just have to be open to once something is over, still get that feedback and assume that there's always more you could do. But yeah, that three months was essentially the combination of two years work.

[00:20:43] Sean Pritzkau: Wow. So I understand you. I mean, your background is really in the psychology and understanding the behaviors that you know, the things to look at to understand your results. Given a project like this, like what kind of things are you looking for and how are you determining, what are the kind of key behaviors that you're looking to shine?

[00:21:01] Sean Pritzkau: The spotlight on to understand, you know, are, these is what you're experimenting on. You know, are we seeing some indicators of positive metrics? 

[00:21:10] Shola Olabode-Dada: Anytime I go into any project I look to see what's the behavior we're trying to change. Cause most products or services is trying to change some kind of behavior.

[00:21:19] Shola Olabode-Dada: And so with this particular project, I did a little consulting on it and just trying to understand what, what we want the young girls to engage in. And in this case, we wanted to increase the menstrual health and menstrual hygiene increased their self-efficacy, their confidence in managing their own menstrual.

[00:21:40] Shola Olabode-Dada: Um, just trying to identify those barriers and figuring out what is preventing them from doing that and making sure our prototypes and any type of intervention we develop addresses those barriers and something could be desirable, but if it's not addressing the barriers, then we have to try to iterate on something to make sure it's addressing the, there.

[00:22:02] Shola Olabode-Dada: I 

[00:22:02] Sean Pritzkau: mean, this whole process is super interesting. And it's funny coming from, like, my background is more in like the marketing and design branding aspects and hearing some of these, the shared language, you know, I think it could be intriguing for people that maybe look to solve programs with design interfaces and things and see how these can be played out in the real world.

[00:22:22] Sean Pritzkau: I'm intrigued also. And I'm curious what you both would have to say with other people that are looking to address, you know, Meaningful problems, whether they are in a nonprofit organizations themselves, you know, they're engaging in some other work. And many of us aren't, you know, researchers by trade don't have the expertise in conducting this real strong qualitative research in, you know, using methods that they may have studied.

[00:22:48] Sean Pritzkau: But what are some tips and maybe takeaways that someone could take if they want to. Take a more empathetic approach to addressing the problems that they're. Well, 

[00:23:00] Shola Olabode-Dada: all of the type of research that I've been involved in over my career has always been participatory and participatory with those who are benefiting from the intervention or from the surface.

[00:23:10] Shola Olabode-Dada: And so anything that I would suggest would involve engaging and working with in partnership with those who are benefiting from the design or the service that you're providing, because those who best to give that kind of input and to. Inform what happens in that intervention, but the people who are going to be served by it.

[00:23:32] Shola Olabode-Dada: And then also one of the things that we're trying to do at wild lives that we've already kind of gotten the ball rolling is to adjust quality as it relates to human center design. Apply to adolescent sexual reproductive health. So identifying what quality looks like in this space of HDD and public health, and that is something that we are putting out there in the world so that people can refer to and see, okay, this is a good standard to implement one way or doing this type of work, even if they are using HDD or just engaging with the community to implement some kind of project.

[00:24:09] Sean Pritzkau: That's really good. 

[00:24:11] Joeseph Kwesiga: Yeah, I would still like for, you know, folks like me that are, you know, in the design space, especially when you're going to be working anything to the development sector, touching people's lives in a more intimate manner. It's just to check your assumptions. Like there's all too often when designers or anyone is presented with a problem.

[00:24:30] Joeseph Kwesiga: Our minds start jumping to solutions, whether they be like, you know, very out there in terms of like, I'm going to, I could make this and this and this, I'm going to sketch it all down here. I have all these ideas, but those are your ideas. The people that have the answers have their own ideas and relate to that.

[00:24:45] Joeseph Kwesiga: Just be sure that you're always checking that these are your assumptions. You can test them, but you really have to be in a position where you're raised to listen and do the harder part, which is work towards the hardest solutions. 

[00:24:59] Sean Pritzkau: Yeah, we're, we're very wired to kind of jump in and try to solve things.

[00:25:02] Sean Pritzkau: I, I learned that through my wife, always trying to solve her problems. She was like, listen. Well, I think there's a lot of ways that people can kind of benefit from even taking a stab at some of these approaches, you know, listen to others and, you know, really responsibly taking that approach. One thing I, if I was to add, I learned so much just from being on your website, I love the way that you've taken.

[00:25:24] Sean Pritzkau: Case studies and the projects that you've worked on and really laid them in this kind of problem solution format and kind of next steps. I think just by looking at an organization like your. Seeing the projects that you're working on and kind of the philosophy behind how you've gone step-by-step is for me personally, was just such a learning experience because you can look at what you're doing and emulate some aspects of even, you know, like the research project or like you were talking about, and this design process.

[00:25:54] Sean Pritzkau: And begin to implement it. And it sounds like something that itself, you know, you iterate on over time and as you learn more things about each project, you can apply those learnings to the next. And I think that's really, really crucial for, for anyone to, to take those insights and move in and apply some chains to ongoing work as we wrap up.

[00:26:13] Sean Pritzkau: Is there anything else that you want to share with our audience today? 

[00:26:17] Joeseph Kwesiga: I mean, aside from the framework Shola gave a shout out to, I will say that. We put out our annual report as someone that has read, I think a total of three annual reports in my life. This was by far my favorite way to read a lot of talented designers and great minds were on this.

[00:26:37] Joeseph Kwesiga: And personally, I think it's a critical, and lastly, I spoke about the victories and project, right. And I summarized if that could even be believed there, but we have so much documentation on. The processes, but also the outcomes and just the story behind this whole project. So all these assets on the projects live on our website and, you know, I would definitely encourage if you were interested in either the methodology or just the outcomes, or maybe you want to learn more about Mr.

[00:27:06] Joeseph Kwesiga: Health or just work in emergency contexts, definitely check out the projects online, or, you know, feel free to email either of us to get more information about those things. Awesome. 

[00:27:14] Yeah. 

[00:27:14] Sean Pritzkau: Your websites. That's a fantastic resource. Even how you're modeling, just showing your work to, you know, so people can see, you know, the work that you're doing and kind of follow you over time and see the, how you engage in meaningful work.

[00:27:28] Sean Pritzkau: So any other thoughts? 

[00:27:30] Shola Olabode-Dada: Just check out our website, ylabsglobal.org. And we're on Twitter @ylabsglobal on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, you know, all the socials and you can learn about the quality and standards framework that I mentioned as well as the cocoon project that Joe mentioned and all of the other projects that we have ongoing or in the past 

[00:27:51] Sean Pritzkau: that completely.

[00:27:52] Sean Pritzkau: Fantastic. I'll definitely link up the YLabs website and your social media accounts, as well as a few of the relevant projects as they're on your website. I'll include those in the show notes for those listening. Definitely take a look, you know, like I said, you're, you're amazing storytellers and the work that you share is, is so good.

[00:28:07] Sean Pritzkau: Thank you for both of you for sharing some time today, emits you know, the really important work you're doing. It was great talking with both of you. And again, like I said, this. The second time we've had two guests on. So it's so interesting hearing from, from both of you. So thanks for joining.

[00:28:37] Sean Pritzkau: Awesome conversation. Like I said, YLabs is really inspiring and their approach and the really innovative take that they take on creating solutions to these problems that face youth all around the world. Human centered design may be a new topic for some of us. And there's a lot of great resources on this topic online and great books.

[00:29:00] Sean Pritzkau: So I'll reference a few of those in the show notes. Look a bit more in the human centered design. You'll also find links to wild lab's website, where they have almost two dozen projects on their website, where you can look at the problem, the research that they conducted, the ways that they involved youth into the decision-making process and into their research, and then ultimately how they either implemented solutions or identified the best next step towards solutions to that problem.

[00:29:31] Sean Pritzkau: So you can jump onto their website and look at the projects that they mentioned as well as other ones in Rwanda, El Salvador, Kenya, India, Nigeria. So, thanks again for listening to the podcast. I'm really excited about some episodes that we have coming up. So definitely if you have not subscribed to the podcast, Go ahead and subscribe on your favorite player.

[00:29:55] Sean Pritzkau: You can also leave a review in iTunes or share this episode with someone that you think would benefit from it. So thanks again, and I'll see you next week.

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