Batsirai Madzonga

As AI accelerates how quickly we create interfaces and digital products, an important question emerges: Are we designing faster, or are we designing better?

Inspired by Ubuntu, the African philosophy of collective intelligence and shared understanding, D.O.R.A. stands for Design Oriented Reasoning Architecture, an AI-powered framework that brings structured reasoning and collaborative intelligence into the design process.

Rather than simply generating outputs, D.O.R.A. explores how specialised AI agents can collaborate, challenge assumptions and reason through design problems using context and collective intelligence.

In this talk, I’ll introduce the thinking behind D.O.R.A. and explore how ancient wisdom can help shape more intelligent, thoughtful and human-centred AI design systems.

What if the future of design intelligence lies in an ancient way of thinking?

Batsirai Madzonga is a design leader with 17+ years of experience building digital products across Africa and the Middle East. With a background in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town, he started his career by launching a design agency, developing deep expertise in software, strategy, and product design.

He has led design leadership in the Middle East banking industry, scaling teams, embedding design into business strategy, and building user-centered financial products at enterprise level. His focus is simple: make complex systems feel clear, useful, and human.

Batsirai is now Co-Founder of Fycely, an AI-powered emotion analytics platform helping teams understand what users actually feel, not just what they say. He believes the future belongs to designers who can think strategically, build with AI, and ship meaningful products.

He is the author of Devign Intervention and The Ubuntu Design Framework, where he explores design leadership and the role of African values in shaping ethical, inclusive innovation.