Three Zimbabwean, two Jordanian and one Nigerian (joined via Zoom) PhD students came to South Africa to join the TIPS Module of the Da Vinci Institute, the official accreditor of our Trans4m Da Vinci PhD Program. Following the model with Da Vinci, additional three days with TRANS4M’s co-founders Alexander Schieffer and Ronnie Lessem took place, supporting students to integrate the TIPS content and format into the integral PhD journey.
Participants from Jordan were Mayyada Abu Jaber, Founder and CEO, World of Letters, focussing on a Feminist Economy in Jordan; and Zeina Sahyoun,Chief Marketing Officer, MedLabs Consultancy Group, who is in the process of creating, through her PhD, an Integral Academy within the MedLabs Group. Both Zeina and Mayyada are currently exploring a higher degree of co-creation in Jordan. Both do see “women empowerment” as a strong dimension and a “healthy society” as a vital objective of their respective research-to-innovations, while Zeina’s primary emphasis is the micro (enterprise) level, and Mayyada’s main focus is on the macro (community and economy) level.
All participants from Zimbabwe are already part of a society wide integral innovation impulse focussing on co-creating a Communiversity for Zimbabwe, in close cooperation with TCA (Trans4m Communiversity Associates). Within this larger societal framework Patience Magodoresearches into an Integral Ecosystem to establish socio-economic development of smallholders farmers in Zimbabwe; while the other two Zimbabwean participants, Isheunesu Chaka and Fadzai Chakauya, both Deans of Student Affairs in affiliated universities in Zimbabwe, work together to evolve their universities into distinct Communiversities, and developing integral curricula for both institutions.
One Nigerian participant, Lanre Kazeem Abimbola, joined by Zoom and presented her work focussing onIntegral Transformative Value Communication for Enhancing Economic Viability of Aspiring Communipreneurs – thereby building on the research work of Trans4m Senior Fellow Dr. Jubril Adeojo.
The entire three integration days were designed as a mutual support space, within which each participant constructively supported the progress of each fellow student.
The module included a visit of the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Center in Sophiatown, where participants got a profound and inspiring introduction into the history of Sophiatown, and the intriguing story of Father Trevor Huddleston, led by Tshepo Letsoalo. The Center also hosts a Community Enterprise Incubator, led by Violet Mohotloane, who has done her Masters on Social and Economic Transformation with TRANS4M and Buckingham University.
