Jay Cousins talk at Impact Oasis
The Product Ikigai, takes this concept and applies it to products. Ideally this should be done at a products inception - to ask clearly WHETHER A PRODUCT SHOULD EXIST AT ALL. Does it meet a need (or only desire), does it inhibit a need being met? But can also be used later to drive a products evolution within the marketplace.
Hyphal
Jay Cousins primary focus at the moment is Hyphall, an initiative working to shift us from a culture that produces desert by default to one that produces food forests as a byproduct.
Jay is an unconventional inventor and entrepreneur, who took his Orikaso products to global markets after a successful appearance on Dragon's Den, selling over 3 million units worldwide.
Jay is an inventor entrepreneur working with multiple creative teams to bring his concepts to market.
Co-developing and crowdfunding Betabook with Gabriel Shalom and Patrizia Kommerell, raising 91K $ on kickstarter. He discovered the properties of Beenius Infinity Wax - an educational toy that facilitates making, recycling and building up material literacy, and seeded the idea of Infinity Stonepaper as a means of reusable paper to reduce deforestation with Solarpunk Now who are bringing these products to market. Beenius and Infinity Stonepaper are entry level artifacts of a larger game called context craft, where players are empowered to shape and change their own reality.
Jay identifies as a Community Catalyst, he has a natural talent for working with diverse groups of people to find common ground and develop collaborative initiatives. As a co-founder of Open Design City, Jay built a vibrant community from the ground up with no initial budget; today, it's an academy and multiple spaces launched by alumni including trial and error, werkstadt lastenrad, and D.Collective Space. His work extends to advising innovation hubs like icecairo and icealex, and Fablab Egypt in Egypt, and Yarl IT hub in Sri Lanka. Jay has also been instrumental in organizing and facilitating various festivals and workshops, such as Makerlabs, Makerplatz, and Felucca Festivals, along with numerous student-led projects, all aimed at fostering creativity and collaboration in maker communities through self organized or lightweight collaborative processes.
For the latest ideas Jay is working on, check out his podcasts on exploring how to Make Kindness Easier.