Charles Busmanis

I am a Swiss-French citizen who graduated from high school in Japan and did my master in the Netherlands.

Since 2013 I am based in Latvia, and have worked extensively with startups, universities and public sector in creating new innovation environment and inclusive policy design.

Below are 3 relevant projects we have been working on since 2013:
2014-2016: Co-creating of an innovation center in Riga technical university named "RTU Design Factory", and reboot of the student business incubator as "IdeaLAB" and open it to all university staff from professors to security and cleaning staff (the "small hands" also participated and came with their business ideas).
2018: From providing design methodology trainings to startups and policy makers, we have developed the first material in Latvian called "design thinking toolkit", the material was tested in trainings with 300+ pax. before being published. We have now found partners to edit and publish it in English. It is currently in use by 4 different universities in Latvia as well as numerous public institution for policy design and service design together with citizens.
2018-1019: With the State school of public administration, we are training ~300 middle managment and higher managment staff in the use of user centered design methodology to improve their services and processes. Each group of 20-25 pax undergoes an 8 week training where they work hands on on issues they are facing, and involve citizens in the process.

2019: Starting in February, we will open a "consulting" centre in Cesis municipality in Latvia, with the aim of supporting the Region through a user centred design approach. This project has an open brief "do good for the region", and allows for the first months of operation to test different approaches and ideas in the field, and evolve to its final form. As of now the first assumptions are "support to SME with design tools, and adapt policy with them" as well as "support citizen initiatives".