Giant, a Social Design Project: Enhancing the Buying Experience in High Frequency Stores (HFS) in Bogotá

The Product Design Engineering Department (PDED) at Universidad EAFIT in Medellin Colombia, has been working around the concept of The Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) in the region not only for communities with low income, but also for communities with problematical social situations. In order to use design as a discipline to solve social situations, the PDED has been developing different projects with the purpose of working with students and academics from different universities around the world, having as its main objective social innovation practices. These projects are structured to contribute to the “revolution in design” teaching as proposed by Polak (2008, p74) and transform the way design is taught with the aim of educating socially conscious students. This year (2014), twenty-five participants consisting of students and academics from Universidad EAFIT and Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia), TUDelft and The University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and professionals from the company Solutions Group S.A (Colombia), participated in the workshop GiANT 2014. The main goal of the project was “to enhance the buying experience in high frequency stores (HFS) in Bogotá – Colombia between the owner, the buyer, the distributor and brands, aiming for a sustainability boost of the HFS sector”. This paper outlines the project methodology and the results obtained in the two- week workshop.