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DEFSA Conference 2007KEY SPEAKERS (Alphabetical order) DEAN JOHANNES CRONJE
At the age of eight months he persuaded his parents to return to South Africa where he attended an Afrikaans primary school and then Pretoria Boys High School where he matriculated in 1976. Following this he enrolled at the University of Pretoria where he obtainend the BA majoring in Afrikaans, English and Anthropology, the BA honours as well as a Teachers' diploma before reporting for military service at the Infantry School, Oudtshoorn. During his second year of national service he completed an MA in Afrikaans literature while serving on the Angolan border. He then taught English and Afrikaans at Pretoria Boys High until 1986 when he was appointed lecturer in Language Communication at Technikon Pretoria. He taught a student population ranging from secretaries, dental assistants and managers through to engineers and journalists. During this time he was involved in several programmes involving intercultural communication, in both the formal educational sector and in the service industry. He obtained a Doctorate in Afrikaans Literature in 1990 and then a Masters Degree in Computer-Assisted Education from the University of Pretoria. From 1994 to 2007 he was a professor of computers in education with the University of Pretoria. Currently he is the Dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He has also been visiting professor at Sudan University of Science and Technology, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia; the University of Joensuu, Finland, and the University of Bergen, Norway. He has supervised 65 Masters and 30 Doctoral students and published more than 30 research papers. His hobbies include public speaking, road running, and playing the CD Player. He is married to Franci and they have 3 children, and two dogs. PROFESSOR LINDA DREW
Linda was Co-Director of the Art, Design and Communication subject centre based at the University of Brighton (2000-2003). Many subject specialist pedagogic researchers have emerged with the support of the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) now known as the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Linda was at the vanguard of such work in art and design, firstly by research study which led to a PhD in Educational Research at Lancaster University – The Experience of Teaching in Art, Design and Communication. This led to work supporting others to research in this area, both at the LTSN and through other funded pedagogic research projects. In September 2006 Linda was honoured by the Design Research Society in becoming one of its fourteen founding Fellows (FDRS). Conferment of the title of Fellow of the Design Research Society acknowledges an established record of achievement in design research, and attainment of peer recognition as a researcher of professional standing and competence. Linda is currently elected to DRS Council and has been Vice Chair since September 2006. She is founding editor of the peer-reviewed journal Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education published by Intellect. With reference to art and design pedagogic research, Prof Drew’s interests are concerned with understanding the experience of learning and teaching, particularly in creative practice domains, which have been historically under researched. Prof Drew has attained an international profile in this area, through publishing papers and presenting at international research conferences in learning and teaching, particularly in art and design. Her research interests focus on conceptions of, and approaches to, learning and teaching situated within the context of practice-based disciplines. In this regard she is one of a growing clutch of active design researchers working with both phenomenographic and social constructivist approaches to research. The work that Linda is also most cited for is in the area of relations to the community of practice paradigm, this is also the cornerstone of the successful funding application for the Creative Learning in Practice – Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the University of the Arts London representing total funding of £4.85m over 5 years from spring 2005 from HEFCE (the HE Funding Council for England). Linda believes there is a clear connection from the capacity building of pedagogic research to supervising research students. PhD supervision as part of the CLIP-CETL funding means that doctoral students in art and design pedagogy will become the teacher/researcher/practitioners of the future academy. She is currently supervising two PhD students funded through CLIP-CETL bursaries
PROFESSOR KEN FRIEDMAN
“To design effective processes and artifacts, designers must know how things work and why,” Friedman writes. “This requires constructing and testing theories. Theories are models that demonstrate how things work by describing their properties or elements in dynamic relationship. They help us to understand what happens when elements interact. Theory construction is the art of developing the theories we require for robust design practice.” Ken Friedman has done research in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of design, and doctoral education in design. He also works with national design policy projects in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Wales. Friedman plays an active role in developing international research networks and conferences for the design research community as editor of the journal Artifact, as book reviews editor of Design Research News, and Communications Secretary of the Design Research Society. He co-chaired the La Clusaz Conference on Doctoral Education in Design in 2000, the 2006 conference of the European Academy of Management in Oslo, and the 2006 conference of the Design Research Society in Lisbon. Ken Friedman is also a practicing artist and designer active in the international laboratory known as Fluxus. In 2007, Loughborough University honored Friedman with the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, for outstanding contributions to design research. PROFESSOR PIET KOMMERS Current Positions
Awards
Studies
SAKI MAFUNDIKWA In 1979, I went to Indiana University to study Fine Arts and Telecommunications. Upon graduation with a Bachelor’s degree, I went to Yale University and graduated with an MFA in Graphic Design in 1985. It was there that I discovered the existence of sub-Saharan scripts and alphabets designed by Afrikans themselves – without the influence of the Roman or Arabic alphabets. This became my Master’s thesis, developed into a life-long passion and, after more research, almost twenty years later has turned into Afrikan Alphabets: The Story of Writing in Afrika a book that was published by Mark Batty Publisher (USA) in June, 2004. The book has been nominated for a Non-fiction Literary award by the NAACP. I worked as a designer and Art Director in New York from 1985 through 1997 when I decided to return home to found my country’s first Graphic Design and New Media college, ZIVA. Through my research and travels in the Afrikan diaspora, I became increasingly aware that despite slavery AfriCcan intellectual knowledge was passed on, not only orally, as is well-known, but also through little-known Afrikan writing. My twin loves of design and photography which I had mastered in college, grew as I continued my research on Afrikan writing through the 1990s. I pursued this art relentlessly, always photographing, videotaping and interviewing the people I encountered with knowledge of the Afrikan writing systems. It became imperative for me, not only to produce the book I had been working on for so long without a publisher, but also to incorporate my footage on the continent and the diaspora into a documentary film for a global audience who would see the origins of the scripts and how they thrive today in the diaspora – in Cuba, Brazil and Haiti in particular. It had always been my dream to open a design school in Zimbabwe for students of all races and economic backgrounds that would focus on design using inspiration from their own environment and include Afrikan and other non-western perspectives. I considered the school to be not only a place for helping students with the learning process, but more importantly a school of thought, if you may, or even more daring: an Afrikan Bauhaus! After all, Afrika had fired-up turn-of-the-century European artists like Picasso, Matisse, Paul Klee, etc. leading to the birth of Modernism, why couldn’t she do it again? I started the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts in 1999 with no funding but a committed team of instructors and boundless energy. The school is in its 9th year of operation, still not funded but a success against unimaginable odds. I have participated in exhibitions in Europe and USA and have written numerous essays and articles on design for publications around the world. I have also travelled widely in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Afrika lecturing about my ideas for the globalization of design and design education. PROFESSOR EZIO MANZINI
He has been Director of the Domus Academy in Milano, Chair Professor of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and visiting lecturer at the Tohoku University in Japan and at the Wuxi Universtiy, In China. In the 2006 he has been nominated Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at The New School of New York. His works are based on strategic design and design for sustainability, with a focus on the scenario building and solution development. His last international research is: CCSL, Creative Communities for Sustainable Lifestyles , a project promoted by the Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles, within the United Nations 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (usually called Marrakech Process) that investigates the topic of grass roots innovaton for sustainability in China, India and Brazil. Some relevant results of his recent research activities have been edited in the books:: Manzini, E., Jegou, F., Sustainable everyday , Edizioni Ambiente, Milano, 2003, Leong B.D., Manzini, E (2006) Design Vision : a Sustainable Way of Living in China , Ningnan Publishing House Ltd., China and in several papers (some of them can be found in: http://www.sustainable-everyday.net/manzini/
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Johannes Cronjé was born in Davenport Iowa more than 40 years ago when his parents were there doing more than just studying. 
Linda Drew, Ph.D., is the Dean of Academic Development for Camberwell College of Arts, Chelsea College of Art and Design and Wimbledon College of Art at the University of the Arts London. Prof Drew was previously Head of College (acting 2006-2007) and Dean (2003-2006) at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Ken Friedman works at the intersection of three fields: design, management, and art. At Denmark’s Design School, he works with theory construction and comparative research methodology for design. As Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design at the Norwegian School of Management, he focuses on knowledge economy issues.
University of Twente,
The Netherlands
I was born and raised in Zimbabwe during the colonial era and did all my early schooling in Zimbabwe. 
Professor of Design at the Politecnico di Milano where he is Director of Unit of Research Design and Innovation for Sustainability and coordinator of the Doctorate in Industrial Design.