About
Gorata Kgafela
Gorata is a design-led innovation strategist from Gaborone, Botswana, whose work bridges architecture, policy, and urban economics to address complex challenges with creativity and purpose. She brings a systems-thinking approach to design, using it as a strategic tool to foster equity, collaboration, and transformative change across disciplines.
Her doctoral research at the Harvard Graduate School of Design explored how game design can transform public policy and civic engagement. This resaerch led to the creation of MOOT City Game, a Harvard patent-pending urban simulation platform designed to make collective decision-making more inclusive, engaging, and impactful. With support from Harvard Office of Technology Development, she founded Civic Syntax to bring this work into practice.
Gorata holds a BA in Architecture (magna cum laude) from Washington University in St. Louis, a Master of Architecture (Valedictorian, AIA Henry Adams Medal) from the University of Miami, an MBA from the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, and a Doctor of Design from Harvard University where she was elected Class Marshal.
Her doctoral research at the Harvard Graduate School of Design explored how game design can transform public policy and civic engagement. This resaerch led to the creation of MOOT City Game, a Harvard patent-pending urban simulation platform designed to make collective decision-making more inclusive, engaging, and impactful. With support from Harvard Office of Technology Development, she founded Civic Syntax to bring this work into practice.
Gorata holds a BA in Architecture (magna cum laude) from Washington University in St. Louis, a Master of Architecture (Valedictorian, AIA Henry Adams Medal) from the University of Miami, an MBA from the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, and a Doctor of Design from Harvard University where she was elected Class Marshal.
