My Personal Experience in the 2^nd Mogadishu Global Goals Jam

My journey began when I saw the application for the Global Goals Jam in the social media platforms. Three major themes were the focus of the event. That is Quality Education, Decent work and economic growth and reduced inequalities. The one that was the most interesting one to me was “Quality Education”. After that, I immediately applied for the it and was accepted despite it being competitive process where 300 candidates applied. I was happy to be among the selected 50.

 Now here comes the long awaited day, 22^nd  September 2021, Day one of the Mogadishu Global Goals Jam was such a different day in my life. After registration, the first activity we did was to create a T-profile, where each person wrote his interest and the skills he had. We then put the paper on the wall. After which we were matched with the person that we shared similar skills and passions which helped us in networking. I was then selected to be among group 1, which comprised of 6 persons, 3 girls and 3 boys and our facilitator.

 The activity that followed was group building where we assigned each other roles and responsibilities as a group. I was assigned to support the team in researching the identified problem. Each of the other members were assigned to a role as well. From there we started defining the problem faced by disabled people by looking at the ‘How’,’what’,’where’,when’,’who’  ‘why’ of the challenge.From these process our group chose to purse a problem faced by blind people. After analysis of the problem hypothesis, we thought of a solution hypothesis around a mobile application platform to support the blind population with education and general support. We then went to the field to conduct user research in one of the disability schools in Mogadishu to proof our hypothesis and create empathy with the user. The next step we did was create an empathy map to guide our solution hypothesis. This resulted in the team to pursue a mobile application called “I CAAWI’ which helps blind people to access education support from volunteers online as well as get general support.

 Hamdi Ali Farah sharing her experience of day one and the user interviews conducted on behalf of group one.

 we continued with solution hypothesis. Below are the some of the proposed features of the app.           1: text to audio feature:  the blind students will download their textbooks that are not written in Braille language as pdf book, and then the application will convert to audio.

Second feature is Volunteers: The application has a volunteer section, which is available for people who are blind,a feature they will use when they need support. For instance, when the blind person goes to a supermarket wanting to buy something, they will call the volunteers to help them find the item they want.

In the second day of the event, the team converted our solutions into a storyboard, the team also did business model canvas, which helped us to analyze our ideas as a business, find out, who is our partner, what is our mission, what is our client relationship and other valuable information such as the risk and unknowns of our initiative

The group finally presented the idea to the Global Goals Jam facilitators where the presentations were assessed based on defined criteria.

The major skill I learnt from the Mogadishu Global Goals Jam is the ability to apply the human-centered approach tools in my day to day life.I also had the opportunity to network with individuals whom we shared similar goals and interest.Finally,I learnt to conduct user interviews to create empathy and iterate solution we were building.

In conclusion, I would like to encourage other university students especially girls to aim at attending similar initiatives in the future.

Finally,I would like to send a big thank you to Simad University Institute of Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship(IITE Institute) for giving me this wonderful opportunity .