The DCHI Challenge

Despite the universal human right to be treated with dignity, people affected by humanitarian crisis tend to often be treated as passive receivers of aid regardless of their educational and professional backgrounds, knowledge, and expertise.

Humanitarian responses are increasingly designed in collaboration together with its end users, being those affected, and with the end users’ needs in mind. Thereby honoring their fundamental need for empowerment and self-reliance.

People in need of aid are increasingly digitalized. They often have access to mobile phones, the internet, and social media. Therefore, DCHI considers digitalization to be a means to further encourage empowerment by way of user-centered humanitarian design.

Promising trends in humanitarian innovation make use of the commons, including ownership, and focus on bottom-up approaches and the democratization of tools and technology. Inspiring examples exist in crowd-funded projects, crowdsourced knowledge, and open source blueprints for machines, materials and products.

How might we empower those affected by humanitarian crisis in the design of innovative humanitarian solutions, thereby tapping into the great human potential available and increasing the overall impact and effectiveness of humanitarian aid?

DCHI likes to explicitly draw from those innovations that have proven successful in other contexts to be used as a prototype for use within the humanitarian community. The humanitarian principles must be leading in the development of the prototype at all times.