Aika Matemu resides in Nairobi, an African city known for being the hub of technological innovation and design. In an interview she conducted with Acumen as a fellow, an organization dedicated to the way the world tackles poverty, she explained her passion for using technology to facilitate social change, movement, and revolution.
She is currently a director with Dalberg Design, a firm that uses a human-centered approach in solving societal, organization, and government problems. With regards to her education, she holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Health Information and a Bachelor of Science in Computational Biochemistry from Carleton University.
Furthermore, Aika has over 15 years of expertise in user experience design, digital technologies, global public health and social entrepreneurism. With her outstanding capabilities, Aika dedicated her career to designing and building innovation that impacts social change. It is for this reason that she has gained an extensive background in social impact and innovation.
Her design career has been cemented in human-centered design methods. She combines her background in health care and user experience design to develop digital technologies that create channels for underserved populations to access quality health care across Africa. In her notable work as the Africa Regional Design Manager with Medic Mobile, she expanded a one-person design team to a multi-disciplinary team of 11 designers across the African region.
Similarly, Aika has used her user experience design expertise to improve the public health of many African countries including, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Mali, Togo, and Madagascar. Some of her designs include a mobile savings product for women to save for their pregnancy delivery, a maternity mobile health SMS service that guides women through the course of their pregnancy, and digital services for men to participate in reproductive health conversations.
From her story and achievements, Aika is one of the leading user experience design in solving societal problems.
Reference and Bibliography:
World Health Organization. “Improving data for decision-making: a toolkit for cervical cancer prevention and control programmes.” (2018).
World Pulse. “Using mobile tech to influence behavior and improve maternal health” Accessed Nov. 10, 2020. https://www.worldpulse.com/community/users/anaisabelbbp/posts/72350
Vimeo. “Who are we missing? Robert Fabricant, Aika Matemu & Priti Rao – Interaction20” Accessed Nov.10, 2020. https://vimeo.com/404483648
Dalberg. “Director: Aika Matemu” Accessed Nov. 10, 2020. https://dalberg.com/who-we-are/our-leadership/aika-matemu/
Thank you for sharing stories of this great designer. She should never be forgotten.