Design First India Forum

The ‘Design First Forum’ of 2020 conceived and hosted by Lopez Design, brought 50+ design leaders from different verticals to discuss, opine and propose a ‘Design First Policy’ for the nation.

In this context, the programme embraced the theme of ‘What Design Can Do’ showcasing the best practices of design interventions in various industry verticals and the value good design adds in industry, business and nation-building. Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog gave the keynote address for this pivotal event that would initiate dialogues and directions forward towards shaping a national ‘Design First Policy’ and ‘What Design Can Do’.

Panel Discussion

The opening session brought together four panellists who represented different sectors - Social, Technology, Policy and Education - Archana Shah of Bandhej, Jatin Bhatt of Ambedkar University, Sunil Malhotra of Ideafarms and Abhimanyu Nohwar of BCG to discuss DesignFirst.

In this session, we were exposed to diverse voices, intriguing perspectives and valuable Ideas about design. The exchanges covered major themes such as the meaning of design, making design democratic, how design works and whether we need a Design First policy. Importantly, the dialogues revolved around changing the perception of design in affiliated industries.

The Initiative

Anthony Lopez, founder of Lopez Design presented the two Forum initiatives - What Design Can Do and Design First Policy. The focus of the presentation was to dispel conventional myths about design and to show how it can be a valuable tool in developing efficient systems and services as well as functional products.

Anthony’s arguments gave emphasis to the design process, and how it goes beyond the product. He further stressed the need for integration of design at all levels of organizations and government agencies, and to follow cross-functional approaches in order to make a disruptive impact.

View full presentation >

How design can be a differentiator?

Amitabh Kant, the keynote speaker, shared his own experiences of being involved in Kerala's tourism initiative, "God's own country". Throughout his talk, he stressed the importance of a 'key differentiator' for transforming a low-value product into a high-value product. He also revealed how this campaign led to the creation of new and expansive infrastructure, which helped boost the state's occupancy rate from 18% to 100%.

He concluded the session on a positive note, saying that NITI Aayog would be very happy to partner with NID, designers and professionals of the community to drive the Design First policy.

Q&A session with Amitabh Kant

The interactive session, post Mr Kant’s talk, primarily focused on salient points that he wanted to address, especially as the CEO of Niti Aayog. He spoke about the role of Atal Tinkering Labs, design as a differentiator in branding our nation, the pressing need to innovatively address the process of urbanization, Most importantly, he spoke about the plus of our $5 trillion economy with an average demographic of 29 – the youth factor.

Video Bytes

During an interactive session, a number of questions related to design were posed to our experts, and we received some thought-provoking responses. Check out the videos below.

Attendees

A Balasubramaniam | JKL Unversity

Dr Jitin Chadha | JKL Unversity

Ratan J Batliboi | Architect

Aakash Kumar | Make My Trip

Jonak Das | NID

Ravi Badve | Mastercard

Abhimanyu Nohwar | BCG

Kiranbir Sethi | Design for change

Samera Khan | 2point5

Aditya Dev Sood | Vihara Innovation

Lloyd Mathias | Angel Investor

Sangeetha Kulkarni | Brickwork

Akhil Ramola | By Sage

Lourd Nathan | Frog Design

Sarika Panchhi | Word of Mouth

Amit Krishnan Gulati | Incubis

Madhav Raman | Anagram Architects

Satish Gokle | Design Directions

Amitabh Kant | NITI Aayog

Manish Vashist | IBM

Satish Nair | Brickwork

Anthony Lopez | Lopez Design

Prof. M. S. Farooqi | Ambedkar University

Sharmila Katare | Pearl Academy

Archana Shah | Bandhej

Nishita Gill | Treemouse

Sudhir Sharma | Value Labs

Arundhati Mitter | The Flow

Peyush Agarwal | Designit

Sunil Malhotra | Ideafarms

Ashwini Despande | Elephant Design

Pooja Tondon | Pidilite

Sushil Romola | B-ABLE

Bharti Ramola | Business Consultant

Preeti Vyas | Vyas Giannetti Creative

Vivek Kulkarni | Brickwork

Debeshi Gooptu | Digiqom

Prof. Jatin Bhatt | Ambedkar University

Devika Krishnan | Vayati Weaves

Rajesh Kejriwal | Kyoorius