Promoting big ideas to disrupt the status quo, the Disrupt!/Design!/ campaign kicked off Friday 11 April with its first training session for ten Lebanese design teams looking to take their projects from the drawing board to the board room and beyond in search of funding.
The teams—which include veterans as well as plucky newcomers in fields as diverse as architecture, engineering and traditional handicraft—are all vying to be among the three teams selected for a crowdfunding campaign that will launch in June during Beirut Design Week.
This time around we collaborated with Beirut Design Week and Zoomaal. Disrupt!/Design!/ will provide the teams with mentorship from a panel of international experts. These mentors will push the teams to refine their proposals while addressing the specific needs each faces. As they hone their pitches, the teams will also benefit from crowdfunding training by Zoomaal, which will include storyboarding, writing, video production and presentation.
The teams are:
Ray Chawki Ghafary and Charbel Afif
Recognizing that traditional below-the-knee prosthetics have left many amputees ashamed, the team aims to make a prosthetic that users could wear proudly. With more attractive covers and an emphasis on aesthetics, the team wants to battle the stigma many amputees face.
“We’re not reinventing the prosthetic,” Ghafary said, “we’re enhancing its usage.”
Adib Dada, Yasmina Choueir, May Khalifeh, Raya Tueny, and Alia Fattouh
Though its project is still in the development phase, this team has a series of major interventions planned around the Beirut River. Among them, the team hopes to crowd-fund a project to build a footbridge linking Badawi and Bourj Hammoud, and to build parks on either side of the river.
Dima Boulad, Pamela Haydamouth, and Celine Khairallah
Looking for a way to convert unused corners of urban sprawl into gardens and green space, the team hopes to partner with the municipality to identify city-owned plots that are currently lying fallow. Boulad said the key to success would be fostering a sense of stewardship among neighbors and allaying any mistrust within the community.
“If you give people trust, they give it back,” Boulad said.
Tamara Qiblawi and Mireille Raad
The KnoozRoom team hopes oral history and creative storytelling can prompt recognition of new memories of the Lebanese civil war. The team plans to screen its 27-minute documentary film in a Spears Street bomb shelter-turned-interactive space in order collect untold stories that upset existing narratives of the war.
“The aim of the project is to solicit stories of human survival,” Qiblawi said.
Fadi Mansour, Karl Hitti and Candice Naim
Inspired by regional refugee crises and frequent power outages, this team is producing portable solar lamps. While tapping into a disappearing heritage of glassblowing within Lebanon, the team hopes to serve underprivileged communities with a safe and sustainable solution to the basic need for light.
Angelique Sabounjian, Missak Hajiavedikian and Cynthia Raffoul
Perhaps more than any other corner of Beirut, Bourj Hammoud retains a bevy of local craftsmen and ateliers. This team is seeking to build bridges between generations of Bourj Hammoud’s craftsmen and artisans by creating links among the future makers, the established craftsmen, and the suppliers.
“It’s creating this full circle in the production cycle,” Sabounjian said.
Hassan Kanj and Rawad Hajj
Between coders and designers, there isn’t much common ground, which is why this team believes if coders knew the basics of design and designers knew the basics of coding, collaborations would be a breeze.
“If they can understand, they can appreciate,” said Hassan Kanj.
With a platform for collaboration between the two communities, the team hopes to make it easier for designers and coders to find each other.
Dina Alwani, Ayman Moadad and Ali Ahmad
With its 2D animated web series drawn from the experiences of daily life in Lebanon, this team of animators hopes to entertain and educate Lebanese young and old about the issues affecting their nation.
“It shows what everyone is suffering from,” said Alwani. The key to the series, Ahmad stressed, is that it will draw attention to the issues as well as the inaction that allows them to persist.
Collette Hogg and Mazin Sidahmed
Seeking to draw a positive collaboration out of the conflict in Syria and influx of refugees within Lebanon, this team hopes to forge bonds around Syria and Lebanon’s shared history of crafting tile mosaics and glassblowing. While traditional methods of producing these tiles and glass have all but disappeared in Lebanon, the team hopes displaced Syrian craftsmen could work with artisans in Lebanon to reintroduce these time-honored techniques while fostering dialogue.
Cyril Kallab, Iva Kovic, Rana Taha and Laeticia Honeine
Feeling that designers and makers have been left out of the supply chain that leads from craftsmen to consumers, this team hopes to work with established craftsmen to fill in the missing links. By bringing designers into the fold, the team is seeking to influence the market for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Check back for more updates as the collaboration continues!