Tag: community
Mary Nyaruai Mureithi
Powerful advocate for dignity, gender equality, and a sustainable future by amplifying grassroots voices on global stages. Beyond Nyungu Afrika, she empowers the next generation of female entrepreneurs as a pan-African pitching and entrepreneurship trainer, helping young women confidently present their ideas and reach their full potential. For Mary, design is activism, and every product is a step toward systemic change.
Driven by an activist heart and firsthand exposure to the harsh realities of period poverty, where girls are forced to exchange sex for pads, use unsafe alternatives, or suffer health issues from poor-quality products, Mary designed a better solution. Through Nyungu Afrika, she pioneers a circular economy model that transforms agricultural waste, like pineapple leaves and maize husks, into a patent-pending, biodegradable, tree-free pulp for eco-friendly sanitary pads. Her innovation tackles both period poverty and the harmful impact of imported disposable pads on health and the environment.
From Sarajevo to Kyoto: Crafting Sustainable Design Futures
NEXT GEN DESIGN by David Jablonski
Too Late to Be a Pessimist: A Radical Vision for Urban Food Systems
Daniel Podmirseg
Committed to bringing food production back into daily urban life.
Daniel is an architect by training with a strong interdisciplinary background in urban innovation and sustainable design. Educated in Vienna, he studied at the University of Technology, the University of Applied Arts, and the Academy of Fine Arts, where he presented his diploma project on Vertical Farming for London in 2008. Driven by a passion for integrating architecture with ecological and energy-efficient solutions, he pursued a doctorate in technical sciences at Graz University of Technology. His doctoral research, conducted at the Institute for Buildings and Energy, explored the Contribution of Vertical Farms to Increasing the Overall Energy Efficiency of Cities.
Daniel thrives outside of his comfort zone, constantly learning and pushing boundaries through multidisciplinary collaborations. His work reflects a commitment to bringing food production back into daily urban life while reimagining cities as ecosystems that balance innovation, sustainability, and quality of life.
Birgit Lohmann
Bridging design, research, and curatorial innovation, Birgit continues to shape contemporary design discourse.
Foreseeing the impact of digital media, in 1999 she co-founded designboom, the world’s first online magazine, illustrating information on art, architecture, and technology.
Beyond her editorial work, Birgit has contributed as a design historian for international auction houses and justice departments, while continuously engaging with the design community through lectures and exhibitions, leveraging her extensive experience in design and product development.
As of now, Lohmann is involved with various initiatives, including her new project called “NOT COMPROMISED,” which debuted at Milan Design Week 2024. The exhibition challenged perspectives on sustainability, featuring works like Boonserm Premthada’s outdoor collection made from elephant dung. Advocating for non-anthropocentric coexistence, for a world where human presence protects rather than harms, while fostering education and public dialogue in contemporary art.
Amanda Pinatih
Amanda is an art historian, PhD candidate and Curator of Design and Contemporay Art at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She revisits the museum’s collection from new perspectives, exploring the intersections between design, art, social, political, decolonial, environmental and economic issues.
Recently, she has co-curated the exhibitions Unravel: the Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, When Things are Beings and Formafantasma – Oltre Terra.
Meanwhile, as part of her PhD at VU Amsterdam, Pinatih is studying Indonesian objects related to issues of memory and belonging in diasporas, analysing their activation by contemporary artists to commemorate or reinterpret their hybrid identity. She is also co-founder of the Design Museum Dharavi in Mumbai (IN), the first museum of its kind, that was based in the homegrown neighbourhood of Dharavi.