Brita Fladvad Nielsen

Key challenges of product development for humanitarian markets

There is a clear increase in the frequency, complexity and length of humanitarian crises. This trend has driven the attention of donor governments to the private sector in search of more cost effective solutions for the provision of aid. While the challenges that emerge when humanitarian values meet business interests in the humanitarian market have been explored, little is known about the perspective of enterprises from the private sector and how they approach the humanitarian aid context. This study aimed at exploring how characteristics, specific to humanitarian aid affect product development activities. In fact, mismatches between business and humanitarian systems go beyond the creation of logistical systems and extend to product development activities and adjacent servicing. We consider the findings a contribution to the definition of priorities for the future collaborative development of products and services by private sector and humanitarian aid stakeholders.

The Role of Utility Companies In Municipal Planning of Smart Energy Communities

Bergen and Oslo municipalities focus on integrating energy concerns into city planning and regard this as an opportunity to further lower greenhouse gas emissions. Due to a lack of tools and clear definitions of what Smart Energy Communities (SECs) are and how planning should be done in order to affect the overarching emission reduction goals, utility companies end up taking a leading role as advisors and influence definitions and strategies in the final design. Based on two case studies of SEC projects in Norway, the authors highlight the need for increased work to create feasible and understandable definitions and strategies for the planning of SECs. In our case studies, city planners struggle to include energy aspects in the early planning phase and to align their objectives of citizen well-being and reduced private car dependency with energy concerns. At the same time, utility companies respond to the perceived threat of more self-sufficient communities by depicting a role closer to the end-user and by offering a pragmatic cost/benefit view on the planning of energy supply options.

Out of Context: Ethnographic Interviewing, Empathy, and Humanitarian Design

ABSTRACTUser-centered and participatory design methods focus on the importance of understanding, and including, the end user in concept development. Current theories especially emphasize so-called “empathic design methods” and the necessity of designing for the “cultural context.” Current design theory therefore assumes that people have a static culture and a set value system. These methods are often difficult to apply when designing for vulnerable people: in this case in a refugee or post-disaster setting. When people are displaced and have gone through life-changing events, they have been uprooted and their individual and collective cultural identities interrupted. New motivations and cultures emerge, often together with an identity crisis. In addition, if designers wish to use empathic design methods for the challenging field of emergencies, we need to find ways of understanding the refugee; also when field access and traditional participatory methods prove difficult. In this article I explore the pote...