MIT D-Lab

Hello, D-Lab friends, family, alumni, collaborators, and fans! At this moment in time, we need more organizations that promote empathy and an optimistic belief that we can do something to create a better world defined by equitable opportunity, not by poverty. We are at risk of losing the programs and practices that advance human creativity, human ingenuity, and human cooperation. D-Lab is one of those programs. Please support D-Lab today with a donation of any size and so we can continue to do this good work alongside you. Thank you. giving.mit.edu/24hc-dlab

"[L]essons from D-Lab proved critical. Rather than treating the value chain as a purely technical diagram, we approached it as a social system. Power dynamics, informal norms, and ecological constraints were just as important as prices and logistics. This reframing helped ensure that any proposed interventions remained grounded in local priorities rather than external assumptions."

Read the full D-Lab: Gender and Development student blog post by Jingyi Jiang about her experiences in working with Amanatari, Diversa, UTEC - Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología, indigenous communities, and D-Lab's Kendra Leith!

Standing forests, living futures: Bio-business, livelihoods, and co-design in the Peruvian Amazon Field trip understanding the Amazonian ecosystem. Photo: Courtesy Amanatari Blog | Feb 25, 2026 | Sunny Jiang MIT D-Lab This winter break, led by MIT D-Lab Associate Director for Research Kendra Leith, we spent 16 days in the Peruvian Amazon—days measured by river crossings, shared meals, and long...

Students from the fall D-Lab: Development class traveled to South Africa to explore needs and challenges with the community and with Mzikhona Mgedle of Langa Bicycle Hub to design and facilitate a participatory, youth-centered co-design program aimed at building agency, practical skills, and creative problem-solving capacity within the community! Read more: bit.ly/4rTlaAR

This project was an extension of several years of D-Lab's work with Langa Bicycle Hub to develop the REACH stretcher, led by Maddie Johnson-Harwitz and Michela Galazzi.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) MIT DUSP

Creative Capacity Building in Langa, South Africa MIT D-Lab South Africa Team. Photo: Maddie Johnson-Harwitz Blog | Feb 09, 2026 | Spencer Co, Laura Dallabrida, Rebecca Hsia, Temuulen Enkhbat, Saachi Mody, Anushka Singh MIT D-Lab This January, as part of the D-Lab: Development class, we ran a Creative Capacity Building workshop in Langa, Cape Town,...

In January, a group of students from the D-Lab: Gender and Development class traveled to Kenya to work with a group of teen mothers to facilitate a Creative Capacity Building for Business (CCB-B) workshop at longstanding D-Lab community partner organization, the Society Empowerment Project. As they left, they wrote, "we felt a deep sense of gratitude. We had been welcomed into a community and had the chance to contribute to something meaningful, viable, and rooted in reality. Just as important, we left with relationships that will last well beyond the workshop. What we built together in Homa Bay was not just a set of businesses. It was confidence, dignity, and belief in what is possible."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Building confidence before businesses: MIT D-Lab students and Kenyan teen mothers empower a community D-Lab: Gender and Development students and workshop participants. Photo: Courtesy MIT D-Lab Blog | Feb 06, 2026 | Cassidy Jennings, Shikha Pandey, Samantha Simmons, Elena Tori, Kai Wong, Sophia Yoon MIT D-Lab When we arrived near Homa Bay, Oyugis, Kenya in January 2026 to facilitate a Creative Capac...

On the MIT homepage today! "MechE student Kiyoko “Kik” Hayano’s path — from Wyoming to MIT to Arkansas via D-Lab — reflects a common trajectory of U.S. innovation: talent emerging from rural places, developing on the nation’s campuses, and returning know-how to its heartland."

MIT Mechanical Engineering MIT School of Engineering

Exploring the promise of regenerative aquaculture at an Arkansas fish farm Through research with MIT D-Lab, MIT engineering student Kiyoko “Kik” Hayano worked with Keo Fish Farms in Arkansas to build a model for regenerative aquaculture water systems.

Our friends at the French Red Cross Foundation and the Kenya Red Cross Society are launching their first Humanitarian Design Challenge, dedicated to circular innovation and dignity in humanitarian contexts! Applications are open until February 28, 2026. bit.ly/497msRG

The challenge: to rethink the structures and walls of pit latrines used in the Kakuma refugee camp (the world’s second largest refugee camp, with around 300,000 people), which are currently often built with corrugated metal sheets that are costly and not very durable.

The objective is to design accessible, sustainable, replicable solutions that improve living conditions and reduce waste.

New publication with five MIT D-Lab-affiliated authors, including Faculty Academics Director Maria Yang, Executive Director Ana Pantelic, and former staff members/instructors Eric Reynolds Brubaker, Bryan Ranger, and Amy Banzaert! Extreme Design: An Editorial on a New Research Framework within Engineering Design: https://bit.ly/47I6StI

"As the scale and urgency of global challenges grow, such as climate change, autonomous systems, and aging populations, so does the need for design approaches that go beyond conventional methods and models ... [Extreme Design] XD "offers a way to approach design problems that are dynamic, interdisciplinary, and fundamentally hard to frame but have humanity at their core... We aim to open a conversation—not to define XD fully, but to signal its necessity and invite the design research community to explore and shape it."

MIT School of Architecture + Planning MIT School of Engineering

Listen to MIT D-Lab alum Kwami Williams '12 discuss the journey of True Moringa on this CNN Inside Africa interview. Since meeting in a D-Lab class and founding their company while still undergraduates, Kwami and Co-Founder Emily Cunningham have worked to raise the incomes of 5,000 farmers in and planted 10 million Moringa trees, producing nutritious Moringa powder and teas, and Moringa oil to nourish the skin and hair!

MIT Alumni Association MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship

True Moringa | CNN Feature | Inside Africa Tour True Moringa's Regenerative Organic moringa farm and learn more about moringa: https://truemoringa.com/pages/ten-million-trees True Moringa makes regene...

MIT D-Lab invites you to a screening of the documentary film Design for Our Lives: Uganda × Tanzania × MIT D-Lab, directed by Lulu Tian '22, at the MIT Welcome Center on October 3. Doors open at 6 pm with the film screening at 7 pm, followed by a panel discussion. Reserve a free ticket: bit.ly/4npRtVd

The 45-minute documentary follows four stories of East African innovators and features Bernard Kiwia - Co-Founder of the Twende Social Innovation Center and fondly known as the "Father of Rural Innovation in Tanzania;" Namwaya Emilly - Senior Creative Capacity Building facilitator at the NGO Kulika Uganda; Harrison Asega - a South Sudanese resident of Rhino Refugee Settlement and founder of Smart Nuti Alarm; and Johnson Jacka and Erick Kuley Kuley of Greenfoot Africa.

These innovators have all participated in MIT D-Lab’s Creative Capacity Building program (with some having gone on to become CCB trainers), and all are affiliated with D-Lab’s current project Design for Second Life Innovations project, a collaboration with Twende Social Innovation Center, Kulika Uganda, and the Youth Social Advocacy Team - South Sudaneam.

In conjunction with the MIT D-Lab program, Design for Second Life Innovations with support from Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and equipment donations from Samsung Electronics.

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Design for Our Lives: Tanzania x Uganda x MIT D-Lab The 45-minute documentary follows the stories of four East African innovators turning challenges into opportunities.

A new 16-page publication - concise and beautifully written - by D-Lab Design for Scale Co-Instructor Mathieu Aguesse. The report is the culmination of a needs assessment undertaken during IAP 2025 in with D-Lab: Development students and is intended not only to present findings, but to “serve as a field manual for researchers, designers, and development professionals interested in applying immersive, human-centered research techniques in low-resource settings.” bit.ly/44LU3Nv

Over the past year, D-Lab has been transitioning to the MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MIT MAD). "MIT D-Lab, a pioneer in the use of participatory design to address global poverty challenges, joins MAD’s growing ecosystem of design programs. The synergy between MAD and D-Lab is so clear that John Ochsendorf, MAD’s founding director, has commented, 'If D-Lab didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.'"

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) MIT School of Architecture + Planning

The MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD) welcomes D-Lab into its growing design ecosystem The synergy between MAD and D-Lab is so clear that John Ochsendorf (right), MAD’s founding director, has commented, “If D-Lab didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.” Amy Smith (left), a senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, founded MIT D-Lab in 2002. Image: Adélaïde Zollinger News | ...