I believe we can drive change, societal, innovation, organizational driven change here in Nigeria with service design. From ATM machines that don't work normal, to corruption and transparency, to the queuing culture. There are lots of everyday challenges that service design can help tackle. But this requires demonstrating knowledge, proof and evidence that it works especially at the societal level. Nobody can better understand our challenges than ourselves and it is right we start from forming a body of professionals that will push to advance this field in Nigeria. The buzzing tech-scene in Nigeria is an advantage that I see because we speak the same language with most progressive entrepreneurs who know what UX and UI and service design is about. This is a good place to start.

Our approach to design, multimedia production, services marketing, public engagement will change fundamentally with service design. We know this approach exists but there is not a single expert that can be identified here in Lagos. Every practitioner in design or something else practices in isolation and so it is hard to prove or even believe that service design exists. The fact that a New York based company that opened shop in Nigeria only presents the service design project at the SDN global conference in New York (2015) but  was unheard of here in Nigeria, made us to get people to hear about service design.

The fact that our country does little to promote and train young people in design is a motivation for me. Having an alternative platform that can motivate practitioners and students alike into going into this field and expanding the use of design for problem solving and discovery. I think this can become an inspiration towards greater things especially when we collaborate with academic institutions, and who knows, we have greater chances of setting up a design or service design- themed academic program in the nearest future.

Service Design Today in Lagos, Nigeria

We think the atmosphere, economy, both positively and negatively is a motivation to act. First the buzzing tech scene in Nigeria, Banking, telecoms and the social sector are all industries that can benefit from the coordinated efforts of this group. Service Design and social design and experience design firms are already setting up shop here in Nigeria. Lagos city is the commercial hub of Nigeria with a population of about 20 million people and a key location for most international organizations. Secondly, the government and the social sector is undergoing reforms to minimize corruption, improve transparency, manage resources as well as offer valuable services and governance to the people. We think beyond the sermon of 'good governance' and 'rule of law' and 'justice', that service design can be an action tool that will activate ideas to solve these issues. A Service Design Lagos will be better positioned to share cases, educate, consult and help grow service design both in practice as well as in the academia

Chapter Vision

• Gather professionals to pledge contribution to knowledge materials and cases
• Partner with organizations such as SocialMediaWeek Lagos and Advertisers council to share the values of service design
• Partner with the government at the state and local level to commission volunteer projects, train or talk in workshops
• Future partnership at the Global level to invite renowned service design consultants and academics to speak in Nigeria
• Become a proven voice for Service Design in Nigeria by 2020.

The first Chapter event by SDN Lagos 

• Event: SDN Lagos Launch
• Venue: Cre8 Space by Café Neo, 6 Agoro Odiyan, Victoria Island, Lagos
• Date: Thursday, 24th March, 2016
• Time: 10am
• Target Group: Mostly business owners from our networks, but we’re open to sharing with anyone who wants to learn more about service design!
• Event Scale: 40 people
• Theme: Introducing Service Design. We will have one talk by Charles introducing service design, a case study by me, and then another case study by a guest doing fantastic work in Abuja (tentative).