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Malaria
the progression of the work but mainly concen-
trate on how the VIP project was facilitated and
structured around Omnium's five-stage creative
process for online creative creativity. We should
also explain that the VIP project was separated into
two overlapping seven-week phases (pharmacy
and design) which both applied the five-stage
process equally efficiently, although again for the
purposes of this paper, we will concentrate on the
latter design phase.
Tuberculosis
Adherence (regarding the correct usage of
medicines)
Sexually Transmitted Infections (notably
HIV/Aids)
Chronic Disease
Immunisation
As a result of a short promotional campaign,
using a simple information website about the
project built by the Omnium team, as well as
announcements through both the Icograda and
Icograda Education Network newsletters, hun-
dreds of people had applied to take part in the
Creative Waves '07 project from over 35 countries
worldwide. The combined project participants
were split into four user-types: students; teachers
acting as free-roaming mentors; invited special
guests; and the six pharmacy and four design co-
ordinators with the overall project was convened
by the Omnium Research Group. In addition, the
entire project was formally endorsed by, and of-
fered as a collaboration between the worldwide
professional governing bodies of Icograda (rep-
resenting the graphic design side of the project)
and the Federation Internationale Pharmaceutical
- FIP (representing the pharmacy/health sciences
side of the project).
When facilitating online projects on such a
global scale, with clearly structured e-learning
intentions, Omnium has for many years estab-
lished and strongly recommended the need for
two very inter-dependent foundations: a clear and
well documented working process; and a highly
user-friendly and technically proficient software
platform. In regard to the technical platform (soft-
ware), despite it being a crucial aspect to offering
such projects and an aspect that has demanded
huge amounts of time, expense and consideration
over the last ten years, it is not the main focus of
Omnium's projects or research, albeit a necessity.
For the purposes of this paper, we will describe
some of the software's features used as we detail
Creative Waves '07: design Phase
Following an initial seven week start to the VIP
project that saw over one hundred students,
teachers and special guests from various areas
of the health sciences and pharmacy collaborate
together to ultimately form six detailed research
reports on each of the recognised health issues
(identified above) that affect the specific rural
community of Winam in Kenya, an equal num-
ber of design participants took over the project
for a further seven weeks - interacting with the
pharmacy participants who in many ways acted
as the clients and advisors.
Of critical importance to the designers, who
resided in numerous countries worldwide, was to
have a base of advisors located in Kenya itself, who
could relay information about the culture, tradi-
tions, behaviours, living conditions and even folk-
lore of the people whom the project was intended
to assist and help. Such an important resource to a
project of this nature included students, teachers,
health workers, renowned professionals in the field
and non-profit organizations who were familiar
with or directly located in the targeted area. Two
of the most influential contributors to the project
were George Onyango and Salim Opere from the
Help Heal Organisation, located in the village of
Winam, Kenya and directly assisting the villag-
ers facing the daily difficulties caused by the six
identified health concerns. A highly evocative,
frank and influential lecture written by George
Onyango, could be argued as the catalyst to the
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