It started with an app for Indigenous leaders
A project that made us believe even more that design is about making a difference.
By Thiago Hassu | March 17, 2025
Haru talking to family members from the city.
When I started Meiuca almost eight years ago, my goal was to blend design with social impact. Back then, my vision was pretty simple: set aside part of our time for pro bono projects, creating the space to experiment with new methods, learn and share our findings, all while generating some kind of positive impact.
In my mind, it made sense to enter the market with a project that could showcase both our pursuit for purpose-driven design and our ability to deliver results.
Thiago Hassu
Along the way, we fell in love with SOMAI — an initiative by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), funded by Google, to empower Indigenous leaders with a simple app that enables real-time reporting of climate change impacts.
A few meetings later, I found myself in a village at Xingu, where I spent five incredible days living alongside the remarkable Kalapalu people. It was a powerful learning experience where I discovered so much about Brazil, making me realize just how little I knew about the depth and richness of our Indigenous cultures. It also made me reflect on how important it is for us as designers, to step outside our bubble: something we may be doing less and less these days.
Tehuhungu Village — Xingu Indigenous Park
I left home with questions about how Indigenous communities perceive time, units of measurement, language, and symbolism, including some preconceived notions, like "Does it even make sense for them to have a cellphone?"
I was amazed to learn they had a small generator connected to a satellite internet antenna, which powered the village chief’s cellphone: the only one in the community. They used it to stay in touch with Indigenous people living in the city, mainly through WhatsApp, exchanging voice messages in their native language. In particular, they used it to sell their handcrafted goods, a practice I found absolutely brilliant!
Tehuhungu Village — Xingu Indigenous Park
This was one of the richest and most transformative experiences of my life. I had the privilege of turning it into a talk—first at Interaction Latin America (ILA) and later at UX Conf, an event that holds a special place in my heart.
The UX Conf talk is available online if you’d like to learn more!
Lecture at UxConfBR, 2018
Unfortunately, the project didn’t move forward, but I believe it was the spark that kept our search for meaningful design alive all these years, paving the way for many other projects and drawing like-minded people together.
Now, we’re taking it a step further with the launch of Meiuca ESG—combining that mindset with the power of scalable digital products to support ESG teams in large companies.
Reach out to learn more about the way we do business :)
