Speakers

Media Activist
Ms. Sonali Khan has an M.phil in Political Philosophy from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. She is the Country Director for Breakthrough – India. She has conceived and led Breakthrough India’s campaigns including the multi-award winning Bell Bajao! Campaign against domestic violence. Breakthrough is a global human rights organization that uses the power of media and pop culture to mobilize individuals, communities and governments to take bold action for dignity, equality and justice.

Through initiatives in India and the United States, Breakthrough addresses critical global issues including violence against women, sexuality and HIV/AIDS, racial justice, and immigrant rights.

Ms. Khan was previously heading the media and communication department of Breakthrough-India. Prior to that, she has been a business journalist for over 10 years with Television 18 and went on to create programmes for channels like the BBC World and Star Plus, Delhi Doordarshan and CNBC. She has also made documentaries on Indian art and craft.

Founder, The Design Project, India
The Design Project, India, is a not-for- profit organization engaged with the awareness, understanding, showcase and development of design in India. By creating platforms for design discussion, it will attempt to generate perspectives on Indian design history, contemporary design practice and expression, and position the mandate of design-thinking in wide applications. The Design Project, India will benefit from the guidance of a Board of Advisors, drawn from relevant fields, and representing different cities of India. The Design Project, India is conceived by Mayank Mansingh Kaul. A graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Kaul has worked in the past on Cultural and Creative Industries’ Policy. Based in New Delhi, he runs an organic fashion and home textiles label, which works with contemporary Indian hand-crafts.

Social Entrepreneur
Adarsh Kumar is a post-graduate from Harvard University and has worked at the World Bank, the Ford Foundation and Urmul Marusthali Bunkar Vikas Samiti (UMBVS), a handloom weaver’s society located in Phalodi, Rajasthan. Adarsh works on a range of initiatives promoting livelihood options for the poor, ranging from organizing producers at the village level to exploring research-led policy solutions at the national level.

He is also the founder of The All India Artisans and Craftworkers Welfare Association (AIACA) and served as the Executive Director for 6 years. AIACA is a membership-based apex body for the handloom and handicraft sectors.

Programme Director/ Education, Young India Fellowship Programme
The Young India Fellowship Programme is an initiative of the International Foundation for Research & Education (IFRE) in collaboration with University of Pennsylvania.
Prior to his current engagements he has worked with the corporate strategy team at Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP) in Kolkata led their initiatives in the education sector as Business Head between 2006-2008. From 2003 to 2005, he led the business development efforts for IYCWorld – a start-up and IT services firm catering to the education sector.

C.E.O, Royal Enfield Motorcycles
Dr. Venki Padmanabhan is the C.E.O. of Royal Enfield, the legendary motorcycle manufacturing company from England, now based entirely out of Chennai, India. Dr. Padmanabhan has worked for the majority of his career resurrecting fabled brands that had lost their way. His first major success came when he worked to integrate lean manufacturing into the processes of GM’s Buick City assembly plant assembling Buick Park Avenues and Pontiac Bonnevilles. He was part of the team that brought the Cadillac brand back to it’s former glory with the release of the Cadillas CTS, SRX & STS over 2000-2004. He has also worked with Daimler-Chrysler in U.S.A and Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart, Germany to integrate Lean Manufacturing into their processes.

Furniture Designers and Makers,
Hendzel + Hunt
Hendzel + Hunt are a vibrant, young design studio based in South London. They manufacture and design bespoke cabinets and furniture as well as producing their own line of products - the MADE IN PECKHAM range. The range is designed and built using reclaimed materials all from the local area maintaining Hendzel + Hunt’s ethos to create beautiful objects whilst keeping sustainability in mind.

Jan Hendzel is a trained engineer pattern maker who has a zeal for materials, design and manufacturing techniques.

Oscar Hunt is a trained joiner and a passionate designer. He is interested in both traditional and interactive furniture design.

Design Educator
Aditi Ranjan is a weaver, textile designer, and design teacher. She has introduced the use of culture as a design resource in education, conducted research on the textile traditions of India, and designed collections for its handloom sector. Aditi is the co-editor of’ Handmade in India’—a compendium of Indian crafts. ‘Handmade in India’ maps the crafts of India, and captures the traditions that have enriched the day-to-day lives of Indian people while being a source of livelihood for generations of craftspeople. It probes various aspects of handicrafts in India—historical, social, and cultural influences on crafts, and design and craft processes. She has also been involved with textile design education at the National Institute of Design since 1972.

Program Manager- Strategy and Operations, Digital Green
Abhishek is a graduate from the London School of Economics, UK with specialization in use of technology for socioeconomic development. He is an avid inventor with multiple patents filed with US Patent Office. He is also a Fellow for Sustainable Business at the Piramal Foundation. At, Digital Green he works to improve the sustainability of small and marginal farmers in rural India through the use of innovative financial models and communication technologies.

Co-founder, Unity
Unity is a London based creative agency with a humanist agenda. The agency has an interdisciplinary approach weaving social psychology, experiential marketing, design, PR, social media and brand content into integrated campaigns for clients like Absolut, Adidas, The British Council, Glaxo Smith Kline, Save the Children etc.

Co-founder & Design director,
'dplay'
Somnath is a graduate from MIT / Media Lab and Columbia University. At ‘dplay’ Ray guides and orchestrates the design explorations between the several collaborators / players.

His areas of interest and inquiry involve the production of cultural artifacts from an inventive condition, which he deeply believes is to be inevitably located outside of the entire human epistemological experience and instead in an emerging wave of artificial and alternative intelligences. Ray’s creative work and research into emergent and autonomous systems entails a paradigmatic meld between philosophy, art and technology.

dplay, the collaborative design enterprise is an intellectual toolbox that favors a computational and technological engagement with the design object ; enabling the invention and production of cultural and high performance techno-rational artifacts across domains of architecture, urban design and industrial design.

Founder, Marije Vogelzang Studio
"Eating design is to design from the verb 'to eat'.”

Designers who work with the subject of food are often called 'food designers'. According to Marije Vogelzang, food is already perfectly designed by nature. Instead, her designs focus around the verb 'to eat'. Vogelzang is inspired by the origin of food and the preparation, etiquette, history and culture around it. For this reason, she doesn't consider herself a 'food designer', but as the first 'eating designer' in The Netherlands.

Founder, India Art Fair
Neha Kirpal is the Founder and Fair Director of India Art Fair which she started in 2008. Over the last three editions, she has grown the art fair to new heights, expanding it both in scale and scope. Under her direction, the last edition of the fair drew in over 128,000 visitors from around the world, making it one of the most attended public art fairs in the world. Neha has over 10 years of experience in the creative industries, marketing and event management both in India and the UK. This has helped her gain an intrinsic understanding of different markets and develop a truly global perspective for her current and future businesses.

Co-Director, 00:/ and Hub Westminster
Indy Johar is a qualified Architect, co-founder of 00:/ [zero zero] , Hub Westminster and Hub Venture Laboratory, and is a Director of the Global Hub Association. He has taught at TU Berlin, University of Bath, Architectural Association, LSE and University College London.

Indy is a commissioner on the NLGN Commission for Local Government and the co-author of a new Book on the Civic Economy launched on May 12, 2011. He has written for many national and international journals on the future of design and social practice. He is also a Demos Associate, Fellow of Republica

Editor, Sarita
Satyanand Nirupam is currently working with Delhi Press as Associate Editor (Sarita). Previously he has worked with Penguin Hindi as Editor and steadily built a list of important titles focusing exclusively on original works. He plays an active role in promoting a book-reading culture in Hindi through all possible media channels. He, with Giriraj Kiradoo, conceptualizes designs and coordinates Samanvay: IHC Indian Languages’ Festival, New Delhi.

Co-founders, DUS Architects
DUS architects was founded by Msc Arch. Hans Vermeulen (1977), Msc Arch. Martine de Wit (1977) and Msc Arch. Hedwig Heinsman (1980) in 2004. The office builds 'Public Architecture': Design that consciously influences our daily life. This social significance shows at all levels of DUS' work, ranging from large urban strategies to outdoor breakfast designs. DUS sees architecture as a craftsmanship and combines research and design with a 'hands on' approach and unique use of materials.

Head of Consulting, Futurebrands
Anirban Mukherjee has close to two decades of professional experience as a strategist – first in advertising and now as the head of Futurebrand’s consulting practice. Over the years of developing a diverse portfolio of brands and corporations, he has learnt one thing and its best expressed in this quote, “culture has strategy for breakfast.”

His interest in studying culture and love for travel have come together in his work which involves immersion in people’s lives, in understanding the subtleties of cultural narratives and how that can shape organizations & brands.

Rietveld Landscape
Dr. Erik Rietveld is a Partner at design & research office Rietveld Landscape and a Senior Researcher at the University of Amsterdam (AMC/Department of Philosophy). His research on ‘Unreflective Action in Everyday Life’ was awarded by the European Science Foundation (2009) and twice by NWO, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (Rubicon 2008, VENI 2009). Erik Rietveld publishes regularly in international philosophy journals such as Inquiry, Phenomenology & The Cognitive Sciences, Theory & Psychology, and Mind.
Flora Lysen is a researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Mediastudies department and teacher at the Master of Artistic Research at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague. She is currently collaborating on a research project at Rietveld Landscape. . Her research interest is in interaction between the fields of visual culture studies, art and cognitive science.

Journalist & Novelist
Indrajit Hazra is a novelist and journalist. He writes 'Red Herring', a weekly column on politics and culture for the Hindustan Times. He is the author of three novels, The Burnt Forehead of Max Saul (2000), The Garden of Earthly Delights (2003), and The Bioscope Man (2008). He lives in New Delhi.

Co-founder, De Design Politie
The Dutch graphic design studio Designpolitie is celebrated for its fresh, deceptively simple and direct approach to graphic design, which often implements bright color and sans-serif typeface in a lively and fun style.
Richard and Pepijn are also the initiators, curators and designers of a new major international designconference about the impact of design, called What Design Can Do. What Design Can Do celebrates the power of design and its problem-solving abilities. This two-day event in Amsterdam exposes design as a catalyst of change and renewal and a way of addressing the societal questions of our time.

Graphic Designers, 75B
75B is an artists/designers collective from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. They consider autonomous artistic research to be an inbuilt component of their commissioned practice. For them the field of the arts is the place to engage with the basics. The fundamentals of graphic design and those of the fine arts are so far apart that 75B has amassed an ambivalent body of work. This duality reveals itself in communicative work done for clients alongside experimental work done for themselves. The dichotomy of this practice gives it a contradictory and almost absurd demeanour and although their work is simple, immediate and lucid it is often at the same time ambiguous and two-pronged.

Founder, Beetle & Flor
Christine founded the design studio Beetle & Flor in 2007 with the aim to use design as a tool to enhance economic opportunities for artisans in disadvantaged communities.
Her strategy is brand building, with the long-term goal of incorporating craft techniques and partnering with NGOs to create unique goods that combine the rich culture of crafts with good design.

Since it's founding, Beetle & Flor has also provided low-cost design services to artisan coalitions which have been made possible by funding from B&F's own collection of ceramic-wares, handmade by herself and her fabulous team in their Brooklyn-based studio.

Co-Founder, The Root
After graduating from Sir. J.J. School of Art & completing the program in textile design from NID, Nitesh Mohanty founded Idesign in 2002, a design studio that catered to a range of clients such as Shoppers’ Stop, Mocha Coffees & Conversation, Smoke House Grill, Mineral, EMI Music, Children Film Society of India, Enlighten, Penguin Books, and Rolling Stones Magazine. He also has been supporting the alternative film platform, Vikalp through various graphic & print design initiatives. Early 2011, Nitesh & Diya initiated The Root, a platform to propagate various social & environmental concerns through a range of creative mediums & merchandise.

Executive Creative Director, Wieden + Kennedy Delhi
During his career, Sunil has held key positions in India's foremost advertising agencies including Contract and McCann Erickson. In 2004, Sunil founded 'A', which went on to become India's most successful independent agency, before merging operations with Wieden+Kennedy in 2007. Apart from creating iconic campaigns such as the global 'Incredible India' initiative, Sunil has also developed some of India's most exciting new brands, including IndiGo, India's largest low-fare carrier. Sunil is also the creative director of editorial projects - theindiatube.com, Motherland magazine and W+K Exp, the art gallery of Wieden+Kennedy.

Co-Founder, Azri Solutions
Founded with a passion for open source principles, Azri enables enterprises, academic institutions, governments, publishing firms and social ventures carry out information and communication technology (ICT) enabled business transformation. At Azri, Venky's efforts are focused in the areas of social business software, knowledge architecture, creation of multi channel campaigns and facilitation of scenario planning exercises. As part of his academics, Venky pursued his graduate studies in 'Media Technology' and 'ICT in Business' at the Leiden University, The Netherlands. The proposed initiative Caravan Labs, seeks to leverage ICT to address social issues faced by citizens at a grass root level. The idea is to engage hackers; designers; researchers, interest groups; technocrats across India and foster greater interaction between them and provide them a platform to come together to find and develop technology based solutions.

Director & Chief Designer, Design Habit
Amardeep Behl specialized in Exhibition Design from the National Institute of Design. He founded Oriole Design and later his present cross-disciplinary design studio, AB Design Habit & Co. Pvt. Ltd. His passionate quest is for deeper meanings in working with space. To this end, he strives to combine various disciplines like architecture, graphic design, industrial design, film, photography and audio-visual, into a common language resolving the communication through spatial expression in unique and unexpected ways.

Design Thinker, Author of designforindia.com

Prof M P Ranjan is a design thinker with 40 years of experience in design education and practice. He helped visualize and set up two new design schools in India, one for the crafts sector and the other for the bamboo sector. His teaching at NID extended from design theory to inclusive design action and from rural employment to usability of information technology applications and services.
He writes a blog called “Design for India” on ideas for the spread of design in all sectors of the economy. With 215,000 visitors it has become a major platform for Indian design discourse. He is on the Governing Council of the IICD, Jaipur and lives and works from Ahmedabad in India. He has been acknowledged by peers as one of the international thought leaders in Design Thinking today.

Godrej-India Culture Lab
Parmesh bridges the business, academic and creative worlds. He presently runs the Godrej-India Culture Lab, an experimental thought-space dedicated to probing the textured nature of modernity in contemporary India. He is also the Editor-at-Large for Verve, India's leading lifestyle and luxury magazine. Parmesh’s first book ‘Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India‘ was published worldwide by Sage Publications in 2008. He is a TED Fellow and a MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow and often speaks about the rapid changes taking place in contemporary India at conferences all over the world.

Founder, WASH United
A human rights lawyer by training, Thorsten has held several positions in human rights organizations working to promote the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, including Geneva-based CSO COHRE, German Institute for Human Rights and Brot für die Welt. In 2009, Thorsten started WASH United, an innovative initiative that harnesses the positive power of sport and the role model status of sport super stars to promote safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for all people, everywhere. Following highly successful campaigns in 8 countries in Africa in 2010 and 2011, WASH United, Quicksand and other partners are currently in the process of developing  WASH United Cricket to raise the attractiveness of sanitation and hygiene in India and potentially other cricket-loving South Asian countries. An initial mega campaign in India is planned around the Twenty20 World Cup in late 2012.

Co-founder & Director, Jaaga.in
Archana Prasad, is a visual artist from Bangalore, India. Her work is a particular confluence of visual art, technology and urban community-based work, steeped in design and research methodologies. Archana has a unique artist-activist role at Jaaga. She works towards building a stronger arts community and positively impacting public perception of art, artists and art-practices. She seeks to harness the power of the internet in this negotiation. She has a keen interest in documentation and creating public awareness on Bangalore's socio-cultural heritage.

Documentary Filmmaker
Stalin K. is a media trainer, documentary filmmaker and human rights activist from Gujarat, India. Stalin has directed 15 documentaries and has won several international awards for his films. As an activist, he has been deeply involved in the relief efforts of the 2002 Gujarat riots, and of the Kutch earthquake of 2001, during which time he helped to create a community radio program that was instrumental in delivering information to the victims. Following this, he was also the Convener of the Community Radio Forum-India until 2009 and was part of the core group that drafted the legislation that made community radio legal in India.

His film work on the issue of untouchability has helped bring international attention to Dalit issues, most notably his 1996 film ‘Lesser Humans’ on manual scavenging. His feature-length 2007 film ‘India Untouched’ is a winner at the Mumbai International Film Festival.

Founders, catalogtree
In swarm systems, the behavior of one unit does not predict the behavior of the swarm as a whole. Catalogtree aims at designs that have some swarming capacity, where they know what the smallest information unit should do but not what the final design might look like. For them, a good design is more that the sum of its parts.