Co-founder, Fycely
Batsirai Madzonga
Talk
D.O.R.A.: What Can an Ancient Tradition Teach Us About Designing with AI?
As AI accelerates how quickly we create interfaces and digital products, a question emerges: are we designing faster, or designing better? Inspired by Ubuntu, the African philosophy of collective intelligence and shared understanding, D.O.R.A. — Design Oriented Reasoning Architecture — is an AI-powered framework that brings structured reasoning and collaborative intelligence into the design process. Rather than simply generating outputs, it explores how specialised AI agents can collaborate, challenge assumptions and reason through design problems using context. Batsirai introduces the thinking behind D.O.R.A. and asks whether the future of design intelligence lies in an ancient way of thinking.
Profile
Batsirai Madzonga is a design leader with 17+ years building digital products across Africa and the Middle East. With a background in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town, he began by launching a design agency, then led design in Middle East banking — scaling teams, embedding design into business strategy and building user-centred financial products at enterprise level. He is now co-founder of Fycely, an AI-powered emotion-analytics platform, and the author of “Devign Intervention” and “The Ubuntu Design Framework,” which explore design leadership and the role of African values in ethical, inclusive innovation.