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InfoMe @ teen design days: a multi-disciplinary, design thinking approach to community development

Despite advances in science and technology, improving the lives of people worldwide is a continuous challenge. Our mixed-method, action-oriented research focuses on youth and the powerful roles they play as information and technology mediaries within their communities, particularly among elders. In this paper, we report on findings from Teen Design Days, an experimental multi-disciplinary framework that uses design thinking combined with perspectives from ICTD, computer science, and information behavior in information science. Teen Design Days enable investigators to explore concepts, test ideas and build ICTD solutions with youth while meeting youths' developmental needs in safe settings and in culturally and gender appropriate ways. Our early findings suggest that teens often assist with situations of daily living ranging from employment and healthcare to education, childcare, social cohesion, navigation, and more that circumvent linguistic, technological and other barriers. Moreover, we are finding that youth are competent partners in designing community-based systems. Findings---to date, we have worked primarily with teens from East African countries, Vietnam and Nepal---are relevant to researchers, designers and policy makers working with youth in development settings worldwide.