Science Cafe is a knowledge exchange and networking platform that connects scientists, innovators, and the general public. This meet-up aims to promote community dialogue and scientific inquiry in informal venues such as coffee houses, bookstores, restaurants and bars. Science Cafe has featured talks from top scientists and professionals solving problems in health, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), policy, urban planning, education, and biotechnology. These conversations have been useful in re-emphasising the importance of science, technology, and innovation to national development, and its relevance to our everyday lives.

For our first Science Cafe of 2020, PhD researcher Nana Kesewaa Dankwa will explore the connections between diversity and the design and development of Information Technology in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). She will present examples from her work, with elderly women, to emphasise the need to consider diversity in design of Information Technology. Through hands-on exercises, we will consider what opportunities diversity presents in Ghanaian communities in IT design and development.

Nana Kesewaa Dankwa is a Ghanaian living in Germany since 2014. She currently works as a scientific researcher in the research group for Gender Diversity in Informatic Systems at the University of Kassel. She is interested in the use of Participatory Design in making less heard voices more relevant in the innovation of Smart Home Technologies.