Mugendi K M’Rithaa is an industrial designer, educator and researcher at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He holds postgraduate qualifications in industrial design and higher education, as well as a doctorate in universal design.
Kenyan by birth, M’Rithaa has played an influential role in promoting design and design education on the African continent. After completing his masters degree in industrial design at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, he returned to Kenya, where he taught at and started both the industrial design and interior design programmes at the University of Nairobi. He then went on to teach at the University of Botswana, where again he helped launch the industrial design programme.
M’Rithaa is passionate about various expressions of socially responsive and responsible design, including design for sustainability, participatory design, and universal design. He has a special interest in the pivotal role of design in advancing the developmental agenda on the African continent. He is associated with a number of international networks focusing on design within industrially developing/majority world contexts, and is currently serving a second term on the executive board of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid).
