Humanity Innovation Project @HumanityInnov

Most agriculture programs are judged on yields, inputs, and whether farmers can get their crops to market. Those matter. But, did the advice reach the farmer in a form they could actually use? Extension officers do important work, but one officer may be responsible for thousands of farmers. Manuals are usually printed in a national language, not the one spoken at home. A WhatsApp group helps if you have data and a phone with a charge. And farming advice usually comes with a deadline. When to plant, what to do about a pest, when to harvest before the rain. If it arrives late or in the wrong form, or in a format that is easily missed or ignored, the moment has often passed. We come at this as a designers, so we tend to ask how something gets used, not just what it says. If you work in agricultural extension, we’d really like to hear from you: how much of your material is designed to be understood by someone who doesn’t read? #AgriculturalExtension #AgTech #SmallholderFarmers #SustainableAgriculture #RuralDevelopment

Translation and localisation are not the same thing. A translated health leaflet says the same words in another language. A localised one uses the words that community actually uses, and does not assume a reading level the audience does not have. But even a well-localised leaflet still has to be read. Localising is work for people who know the community, and we don’t do it. What we can do is build devices that carry a partner’s localised content as spoken audio, so it reaches people who cannot read it, in the language they think in. If you have content that is right but is not reaching people, let’s talk. humanityinnovation.com/#talk #HealthLocalisation #AudioFirst #TranslationServices #InclusiveDevelopment

A clinic visit is a few minutes long, and most of what a patient needs to understand does not fit in it. Health workers know this. It is why every programme produces a leaflet. The leaflet then goes home with someone who may not read it, may not read that language, and may not want anyone in the house to see it. What survives that journey is what the person can remember, or what someone can explain to them again later, at home, without an appointment. That gap is where we work. If you run a health programme, what is the piece of information that keeps getting lost between the clinic and the household? humanityinnovation.com #Healthcommunication #GbonlalHealth #PatientEducation #HealthEquity

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The hard part of a programme is rarely the information itself. It is the last step, where somebody has to understand it well enough to understand. If that is familiar, we would love to hear about it. Tell us what your programme is trying to get across, who it needs to reach, and what has not worked so far. The contact form is on our website. humanityinnovation.com/#talk

We made a book in Xhosa, Sesotho and English, built to be passed hand to hand. The case was won. Got a hard to reach audience? Talk to us: humanityinnovation.com/#talk x.com/i/article/2109…

This book is printed in Xhosa, but it speaks three languages: Xhosa, Sesotho and English. We made it with Abrahams Kiewitz and Jubilee South Africa for the gold miners' class action, to help reach former mineworkers and their families. They don't all speak the same language, and not everyone reads. Printing a separate edition for each language would have meant three print runs and a lot of guessing about how many of each to send where. So we printed one book. When you switch it on, it asks in all three languages which one you'd like to hear. After that, every page plays in the language you chose. It also works for someone who can't read the page at all, and that's often the person a programme most needs to reach. If you're working through the same language question on your own project, the contact form is on our site. humanityinnovation.com/#talk

The devices speak Yoruba. That is the part people keep responding to, and it is the part that mattered most to our partner. The STEM GARDEN INITIATIVE teaches practical science to learners in Nigeria, including how to grow food. Mary Ameh , who runs it, wanted the material to reach every learner in the classroom : those strongest in Yoruba, those strongest in English, and those who cannot easily read a printed page. Audio helps with each of these. Learners hear the lesson in the language they think in, and a learner with low vision follows the same story, at the same time, as the rest of the class. We worked with her on a set of prototype audio players carrying a story about a school garden, produced as English and Yoruba editions from one recording script. This is early. They are prototypes, they are in learners' hands now, and we are waiting to hear what works and what does not. If you teach in more than one language, we would like to know what you have found. humanityinnovation.com/#talk #TechForGood #HumanCentredDesign #EdTechAfrica #STEMNigeria #SocialImpact #MultilingualEducation #SocialImpact #InnovationInEducation #STEMGardenInitiative @marykings_ameh

People ask what working with us actually involves, so here is the division. You own the subject matter. The content, the translation, the final approved wording. It is your programme and your credibility, and nobody outside it should be writing those words. We work on structure with you: how the story is ordered, what sits on which page, how someone moves through it, and the object it lives in. Illustration goes to a local artist, almost always. Recording needs no studio. The audio hardware is modest enough that a phone in a quiet room does the job, which means you can use a voice the community already knows. A teacher, a nurse, a community leader. If you have a communication problem you have been turning over for a while, the contact form is on our site. humanityinnovation.com #SocialImpact #InternationalDevelopment #CommunityLedDesign #GlobalHealth #ParticipatoryDesign #SocialInnovation

Journalist Nomatter Ndebele ( muckrack.com/nomatter-ndebe… ) and photographer Thom Pierce (thompiercestudios.com ) went to the Eastern Cape to document a programme we had a part in. The Guardian published what they came back with. It was run by the Treatment Action Campaign, with HIV i-Base and ModernART 4 South Africa. South Africa had rolled out a new three-in-one antiretroviral and a great many people needed to understand what it was, how to take it and what to expect. TAC's own research found that at the Eastern Cape clinics they surveyed, three quarters of patients were living with HIV, and that the obstacles to information were stigma, adult illiteracy, language, data costs and unreliable electricity. We worked with them on the object, a solar-powered book that narrates its own pages. The medical content, the languages and the community health workers who carried the books into people's homes were all theirs. The photographs are worth your time. theguardian.com/global-develop…

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@ITUSecGen @ITU @EmmanuelMacron @AlboMP @AlarKaris @WilliamsRuto @IlianaIotova @UNESCO_DG @unicefchief @volker_turk As AI reshapes children's digital lives, safety and accessibility need to evolve together. Children deserve technology that is not only safe, but designed around their real needs and circumstances.

Most briefs we receive open with a specification. A quantity, a format, a date. The ones that turn into good work open somewhere else, with a problem the organisation has been circling for a while. We are a product development studio. Twenty-five years designing physical products, thirteen patents, and a long stretch of that spent on making information usable by people who cannot rely on print, electricity or connectivity. What we do not know is your programme, your community or your subject. That part is yours. So the conversation we are after is not what we make. It is what you are trying to get across, to whom, and what has already been tried. The contact form is on our site. Fifteen minutes is usually enough to tell whether there is something here. Website: humanityinnovation.com #HumanCentredDesign #ProductDevelopment

A programme can be well funded, carefully designed, and run by people who know their subject, and still come apart at the point where someone has to understand something in order to act on it. Usually that point is a printed leaflet, or a poster, or a text message. Each of those assumes the person reads, reads the language it was printed in, and has power or signal. For a lot of the people programmes are built to serve, one of those is not true. We make tools for that situation. There are around 10,000 in use, mostly through programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. If you run a programme, we would be interested to hear where this sits in your work. #LastMileComms #GlobalDev #HumanCenteredDesign

It's starting today Humanity Innovation is a place to develop new ideas for getting useful information to people who have the hardest time reaching it. Solar-powered talking books were where we began. Since then we've had a few good projects, a lot of big ideas, and some wonderful conversations with people who have real problems to solve. Today we're beginning to share that effort more openly, and this page is where we'll do it. If you just followed, thank you. There isn't much here yet, but over the next three months we'll share the ideas we're exploring, what we've learned from past programs, and where we're headed. Questions, comments, and introductions are all welcome. If you know of a problem that deserves a fresh idea, we'd love to hear about it.