ROELF MULDER, HND Ind Des (CPUT) cum laude

Roelf Mulder is a pioneer in the field of product design in South Africa, and a leader in Innovation and Design Thinking. With a career spanning more than 30 years, he combines expertise in design for sustainability, universal design, interaction design, service design, ergonomics, prototyping, product development, value engineering and design management, with a commitment to participatory and co-design practices. The results are innovations that have delivered substantial social impact and/or the realisation of economic development opportunities for … XYZ Design clients. Roelf also provides leadership to Cape Town’s burgeoning design community. This role includes serving on the Boards of Directors of the Montebello Craft Centre and the Cape Craft and Design Institute (CCDI) and as a Council Member for the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and the National Council of Design South Africa (DSA). He is a founding member of the Cape Town Design Network (CTDN), the Network for Africa Designers (NAD) and the Industrial Design Society of South Africa (IDEASA), and has consulted to the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) Design Institute, and been a judging panellist on their Awards programmes.

Robert brings a tremendous wealth of consulting experience and business acumen to the … XYZ Design team. Having consulted both locally and internationally on complex business system implementations, Robert works closely with the interdependencies that lie between business requirements, technical design, functional utility and human (user) interaction. Design-thinking is a strong component of Robert’s interests which, when applied within a systemic framework, assists in generating appropriate strategic interventions to problems. More specifically, he instils a design-thinking framework within an organisations systems and processes to ensure innovation drives value, responsiveness and growth. This involves building new processes and strategies that traverse the intersection between culture, process and the environment. At … XYZ Design his role is to ensure our internal systems, processes and methodologies meet the dynamic needs of our clients.

RICHARD PEREZ, EMBA (UCT) with distinction, MDes (RCA), DIC (Imperial College), BSc Mech Eng (UCT)

Richard Perez combines engineering, design and business acumen to drive innovation for clients; applying a design process for better innovation for businesses seeking to be competitive in a knowledge economy era. His interests include the role of innovation and design in Africa’s drive towards business sustainability and human capital development. Richard has been consulting for nearly 20 years in the new product development and innovation domain. Focusing on the balance between convergent and divergent thinking strategies and design thinking methodologies to promote innovation, he has extensive experience in design strategy, new product development and innovation management. He also offers the firm’s clients the benefit of his in depth knowledge regards the interrelationships between finance, marketing, innovation and operations in relation to new product development. His entrepreneurial background further adds real world experience and value. In recent years he has travelled extensively to Europe and China assisting newly developed fast moving consumer good businesses transition from design to mass production.

The … XYZ Design team includes qualified professionals from the following disciplines: industrial design, mechanical design, graphic design, electro-mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, mathematics and prototyping technicians. This dynamic team has created designs which have been featured in many international exhibitions including the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial, New York, USA (2010), the EXD’09 Lisbon, Portugal (2009), Design Indaba’s the Most Beautiful Object in South Africa (2007), NEWAFRICA, Copenhagen, Denmark, (2007), Romad+design piu, Rome, Italy (2006), The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) NY, Permanent Collection (2005) the Universal Forum of Culture, Barcelona, Spain (2004) and The Victoria and Albert Museum, permanent Collection, London, England (1998).

PROF MUGENDI M’RITHAA, DTech: Design (CPUT), HDHET (CPUT), MDes: Ind Des (IIT-B), BDes (Honours) (UoN)

Mugendi M’Rithaa is a Design Research Associate at … XYZ Design. An industrial designer, educator and researcher, Mugendi is passionate about various expressions of socially (responsive and) responsible design, including Participatory Design, Universal Design and Design for Sustainability. He has a special interest in design for development on the African continent and is associated with a number of international networks on design for sustainability, industrial design, and universal design within industrially developing realities and contexts.

VAHID MONADJEM, BCom (UCT), BSc Electro-Mech Eng (UCT)

Vahid Monadjem is CEO of Nomanini, a innovative start-up dedicated to serving emerging market consumers by building a low-cost, community-inclusive scalable distribution network for prepaid airtime. Previously, he was an associate and the Global Fellow for Product Development for Emerging Markets at McKinsey&Company where he served clients in four continents on strategy and implementation projects in a wide range of industries, from consumer goods to telecommunications. Before McKinsey, Vahid worked as a mechanical engineer at … XYZ Design and co-founded an electronic engineering design firm.

DR DAVID BOONZAIER, DIC (Diploma of Imperial College), MBCHB (UCT), BSc Mech Eng (UCT)

David Boonzaier is a Technical Viability associate at … XYZ Design. Having studied Medicine and Engineering he contributes to the firm’s knowledge and expertise in the fields of physics, electronics and universal design. This strengthens our research capability through which we assist clients with an analysis of their products from a variety of perspectives in order to unlock potential, new technologies which might open up new market opportunities.

HUGO VAN VUUREN, AB: Economics (Harvard)

Hugo van Vuuren is … XYZ Design’s African Strategist associate. He is a founding fellow of The Laboratory at Harvard. Born and raised in South Africa, he is deeply interested in Africa and the intersection between design, technology, and innovation. He was selected as a 2009 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, a TED2010 Fellow, and a 2010-2011 Student Fellow at The Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Currently, he is completing a Masters in Design Studies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.