STARTING tomorrow, International sustainability firm Metabolic Foundation will be hosting a seminar at four locations in Kingston. The seminar, which runs for a month, is geared towards solving urban water problems.

The workshop, dubbed, ‘Design Thinking and Innovation for Urban Water’, is designed to facilitate creative problem solving by overcoming the fear of failure in design and rapid prototyping. It will feature four sections addressing six critical issues for problem solving: defining a clear issue, research, design, prototyping, testing, and iterating.

The seminar is being organised with support from Start-Up Jamaica and Di Institute for Social Leadership. It will be run three days per week (Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and Saturday 10am – 6pm) until July 31, at a cost of $20,000, including lunch and materials.

“Jamaica and the entire world is experiencing pressure to change water management,” Metabolic Foundation said in a statement to the press. “This includes issues like droughts, fresh and saltwater pollution, and household water use and treatment, etc. Thinking about these problems and solutions on a variety of scales and moving beyond thinking to designing and prototyping is a valuable exercise to cultivate innovative capacity.”

Metabolic Foundation is a start-up focused on community development through education. The seminar will host individuals from a variety of backgrounds, including students from UWI and Princeton University, and will also be open to a small group of interested individuals.

Interested persons may contact christie.mettes @gmail.com