Staying true to our core, it did not take more than 30 minutes into the bus drive before some of our tech-team members pulled out their laptops and started coding away…always seeking to improve our platform to reconnect separated refugee families.

Initially, we thought the trip would take two hours but 4 hours later, we were still on the road (Google maps we can improve your platform too!).

At around 2pm, we finally arrived to a breath-taking scenery of a quiet and historical town, one of the reasons why we chose Nanyuki as our off-site location. Here was a haven where we could work without interruptions of our daily routines.

On day 2, after returning from an early morning safari, it was time for some REFUNITE-style prototyping challenges! The session was a great success, with much creativity unleashed.  

Teams were given four hours to ideate, prototype, and present their innovative solutions to a given challenge. Using our current platform as a basis, many creative ideas on how to use mobile technology to add features to our product were generated.

The 3 days offered great insight into what can happen, when you bring together a young, dynamic team of developers, graphic designers, analysts, communicators, and project managers.

We are currently working on how to implement these ideas for our future product streams. We believe that we’ll see many more great ideas coming from our creative teams as we move ahead!

By Claudia Simler, Project Director at REFUNITE (cls@refunite.org)