Project location: São Paulo/Vila Nova Esperança (Spring/Summer 2016)
Host: International Development Innovation Network
Host: International Development Innovation Network
September 7, 2016
Vila Nova Esperança is a vibrant and beautiful community of about 300 families located in the periphery of São Paulo, Brasil’s largest city. Children and teenagers are always keeping its streets busy. The Vila is a place where soccer matches are improvised in every corner, bicycle wheelies are a basic skill for any bike owner, and kite fights decorate the breathtaking landscape of Sao Paulo’s skyline that can be appreciated from its highlands. One of the 15 innovation centers that the International Development Innovation Network, a D-Lab-born organization, supports around the world, is located at the Vila. It is there where, innovation, design and technology are utilzied as a tool and method to engage community members in the process of building their way out of poverty. This is where my MISTI Brazil experience took place from April to July 2016. The community’s innovation center has become a reference point in the community. Tempei, the center’s ninja manager is in the center from 11.00 am to 5.00 pm Tuesday through Saturday, to greet and work with anyone who shows up with a project in mind. Tempei is highly respected and admired because of his extraordinary design and making skills, respectful and fair attitude, and willingness to help others; but also because of the almost magical ability he has to do and fix the impossible. |
Among many other initiatives, the center engages young people so that they further develop their creative capacity, and prepares them to be the innovators that their community needs them to be. Many talented young girls and boys have canalized their talents and creativity into skills like bicycle mechanics, carpentry, and sewing; and projects like sound systems and dog houses. Fixing and modifying bikes is one of the preferred activities at the center. From 6-year-olds to 25-year-olds come in to adjust their breaks, pump up their wheels, fix punctures, among many other common bicycle nursing work.
What is not as common, are the wonderful designs and ideas that these young folks have come up with to modify their bikes, in what is nothing less than the Vila Nova Esperança version of Pimp Up your bike. Churrasqueiras, a tail-like extension that scratches the ground when doing wheelies, is one of the most acclaimed modifications, and it’s typically made by welding together old bicycle parts and steel parts that have been rescued from the trash. Modifications to make the bike look more like a motorcycle are also common, for example by attaching motorcycle seats, or even motorcycle mirrors.
When you think of invention and innovation, images like robots at the MIT Media Lab, or an eureka moment by a genius often come to mind. After my experience at the Vila Nova Esperança Innovation Center, when I think of innovation, I now picture a group of explosively creative and viciously energetic young people, making cool projects in the periphery of São Paulo, making use of their sharp minds, plentiful life experiences, materials and tools from the Innovation Center, and world-class maker leadership.
What is not as common, are the wonderful designs and ideas that these young folks have come up with to modify their bikes, in what is nothing less than the Vila Nova Esperança version of Pimp Up your bike. Churrasqueiras, a tail-like extension that scratches the ground when doing wheelies, is one of the most acclaimed modifications, and it’s typically made by welding together old bicycle parts and steel parts that have been rescued from the trash. Modifications to make the bike look more like a motorcycle are also common, for example by attaching motorcycle seats, or even motorcycle mirrors.
When you think of invention and innovation, images like robots at the MIT Media Lab, or an eureka moment by a genius often come to mind. After my experience at the Vila Nova Esperança Innovation Center, when I think of innovation, I now picture a group of explosively creative and viciously energetic young people, making cool projects in the periphery of São Paulo, making use of their sharp minds, plentiful life experiences, materials and tools from the Innovation Center, and world-class maker leadership.