Methodology

The Activist Lab is a workshop of four days, based on the methodology of Human-Centered Design. Human-Centered Design is “a methodology that starts with building a deep empathy with people you are designing for” and uses ideation, creative methods, co-creation, and prototyping to ensure the end products serve the needs of the people you are designing it for.

This means that the Activist Lab focuses on a very specific and, most of the time, a very local issue of concern: a bridge in Mitrovica, Kosovo that divides instead of connects two parts of town; a public part in Beirut, Lebanon that is closed for the public; or Syrian refugees who have no voice in the political debate on refugees in The Netherlands.

The maximum amount of participants of an Activist Lab is 25 persons; small enough to work creatively together on a common cause and big enough to have the knowledge, skills and energy to develop something new and relevant.

Most of the time the participants will work in groups of 4 to 5 persons. Ideally, each group includes a mix of participants from different backgrounds, with different skills: activists, artists, designers, coders and journalists. This diversity is necessary to discover new possibilities and to co-create something completely new and energetic.