In recent years, digital fabrication has become an increasingly popular tool in the design field. By integrating digital manufacturing techniques into the design process, designers can produce more innovative and sustainable products while minimising material waste. In this paper, we present a model of approach that incorporates digital fabrication into the prototyping of interior design products using Origami-based techniques. Origami, the antique art of paper folding, has long been admired for its beauty and precision. One of the main benefits of Origami-based techniques is that they provide a way to create complex forms using only simple folds, transforming a bi-dimensional surface into a 3D object.

The MakersLab is a new creative space within a leading South African design education institution. The space encourages creative intersections to bridge the 4IR knowledge gap with sustainable development goals, 4IR and explorative making. Over the past year, the development and integration of the MakersLab have been integral in establishing educator/student relationships. The development of the MakersLab is seen as an ‘incubator’ for change whilst navigating current socio-economic and gender development gaps. Here, the space aims to foster user needs, develop new ways of thinking, and engage with the community. The fast development of technology means that educators learn from students as much as students learn from educators.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is rapidly blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds through advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and other technologies. While Industry 4.0 is transforming our future realities, it is essential not to lose sight of human needs and basic human rights. Development must balance social, economic, and environmental sustainability, which is why designers need to engage with ethical considerations and social realities. One example of a technology that has both potential benefits and ethical threats is nanotechnology. Nanobots, machine versions of bacteria or viruses, can perform pre-programmed tasks autonomously at the atomic level.

This paper aims to evaluate how teaching and learning can better equip future designers by integrating advanced digital technologies into the design process. During the continuous unfolding of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) in South Africa, it is important to consider how to advance design curricula in order to prepare design students for an ever-changing working world. Both the South African Department of Trade Industry and Competition and the South African Furniture Initiative have shown increasing interest in cultivating our local furniture industry. This shows potential for re-imagining the pedagogical approach to furniture design, a traditional avenue within Industrial Design, for a local and advancing industry.

Aquaculture has become the fastest-growing animal production sector globally, with production in Africa especially, steadily increasing. The move from subsistence to commercial fish farming requires emerging farmers to access technical information and support services. In order to address this need, the Rural Fisheries Programme, a developmental unit with the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science at Rhodes University, South Africa, developed Buna Africa.

Design thinking (DT) has recently re-emerged as an essential mindset and skillshift for modern organisations seeking to improve innovation performance in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). However, despite recent popularity and success especially in the tech industry, DT has lacked critical academic engagement and scholarly enquiry especially in Africa. Hence, this paper sets out to provide empirical evidence on how DT can help create opportunities and innovation in an AI/Algorithm-driven 4IR era, and why the design curriculum in higher education should be updated to include DT competencies.

With the COVID-19 outbreak, universities worldwide have moved towards online learning or distance education. Despite pioneering work by distance learning institutions globally, the digital platform remains unexplored, particularly for online music teaching and learning. Face-to-face teaching for practical based subjects is challenging due to COVID-19 protocols.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the deep cracks of inequality within the South African educational system (Gustafsson & Deliwe, 2020). The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has presented a range of new technology applications (Lacy, Long, & Spindler, 2020). These technologies can be leveraged to provide more equal access to the technology needed for remote learning (Du Preez & Sinha, 2020). This paper uses a systemic design approach to reflect on the challenges faced in design education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Student feedback on the online learning experience during the COVID-19 lockdown was reflected on. Observations were organised in themes and then explored using the first step of Namahn and shiftN’s Systemic Design Toolkit (Van Ael & Vandenbroeck, 2016).

For decades, studio-based pedagogy, grounded in socially-engaged, constructivist learning spaces dominated design education (Crowther 2013; Shreeve, 2015). However, the global pandemic forced design education to align with the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and move towards interactive digital technologies and online teaching and learning methodologies. Positioned in the space of 4IR, the move to digital technologies is required to digitally streamline and integrate human-centred opportunities for inclusivity guided by technological advancements (Chuo 2019, pp. 107).

As a socio-technical field, design has always been intertwined with the industrial revolutions. During the continuous growth of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) in South Africa, it is prevalent for design education to reevaluate what is taught to young designers.

From inception, the Camera Picture, being a technological medium, has been inherently in a volatile relationship with innovation that required a constant re-structuring of the academic curriculum in the formal education of the practitioner to embrace the possibilities offered through new imaging technologies, a process which occurred over a period of decades, sufficient time to adapt and engage in a meaningful manner with the discourse of both making and teaching.

As we enter the era of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) faced with potential ethical and security risks, ensuring sustainable and inclusive innovation within the design industries will be essential. However, this proves unlikely when the design industry itself has inherent biases and inequalities.

The industrial revolution, a steady process of change that started in the eighteenth century, has been characterised as presenting different phases. The fourth phase (4IR), which signals an unprecedented convergence of physical, digital and biological spheres into technological forces, is transforming jobs faster than employees can adapt, and setting the base for a different kind of skill. Hence, everyone, including arts and design educators, are asking similar questions about its potential challenges and opportunities in their fields, particularly in the African universities of technology that place emphasis on career-directed courses.

In this paper, four educators teaching undergraduate jewellery design and manufacture recount our adaptations to online learning during the COVID19 lockdown, and how this impacted our ideas about lecture content and delivery. We look at the possibilities for online study in jewellery design in relation to the developments of the fourth industrial revolution, such as blended learning, simulations and computer-aided design and manufacture. We share adaptations that may serve educators in distance or blended learning scenarios. However, the lockdown created difficult learning circumstances in South Africa in which we often ‘lost connection’ due to high data costs and inequalities in students’ living conditions.

Scholarship has many dimensions, such as the scholarship of research/discovery; the scholarship of integration, application, and teaching; and the scholarship of public and democratic engagement where knowledge is co-constructed. These broader notions of scholarship challenge the traditional understanding of a university and position scholars and researchers in a broader socio-economic, historical, and cultural context. Design as a field developed and widened as a result of new challenges and opportunities – for example the fourth industrial revolution – and changes in the discipline.