Why design? What value does it have? What purpose does it serve? 

A workshop based on Design Thinking, to get an idea of how designers think, how design is present amongst & around us and how diverse the design disciplines are. Come let’s explore and learn the world through the sensory experience of design.

Thought leaders in the discipline of design have been developing important concepts over the last half century that are having a great impact on product development, service design, business management, and government programs and social movements. Human civilisation since the onset of the internet, smartphones, big data analytics, internet of things, virtual reality, block chain, artificial intelligence and countless other innovations are set to redesign the future.

Arguably the most important new line of thinking is around the concept of user-centeredness, which is at the heart of the design thinking movement. 

What is Design?
- It’s not purely aesthetic, nor wholly analytical and functional. 
- To think about how everything fits together in harmony 
- Design can have a huge impact on people’s lives - and to make sure it’s a positive one. 

How does Design work?
The word design is used in so many ways that you begin to wonder if it has any useful meaning at all. All of these may be regarded as acts of design:
- Laying out a magazine ad
- Making an engineering plan for a suspension bridge
- Using A/B testing to improve user response to a website
- Plotting an elaborate trap
- Wire-framing user interactions for a mobile app
- Creating the graphical look and feel of a digital product
- Planning the features of a product that solves user’s pain points
- Collecting user feedback on a product or service
- Preparing architectural plans for all types of building

These ideas are beginning to bring some unity to the idea of design as a discipline, even though this emerging unity has not been formally recognised. Since people refer to any and all kinds of these examples (and many more) as “design,” the term design could be regarded as just a great big basket that holds many things that have no clear direct relationship to one another, except for the fact that someone, somewhere calls them design. 

HOST & FACILITATOR 
Ratnish Malhotra is a seasoned UX professional with 8 years of experience in the design domain covering both digital and non-digital segments. Having a professional work experience with Fortune 500 companies and diverse startups specially in India’s EduTech, FinTech, MedTech, FoodTech & SportsTech space. 

His passion for design has been fuelled by the growing Enterprise Centric and Consumer Centric Platforms & Consulting startups in India which are working towards establishing a legacy and aligning their business to their vision. He has also spent considerable time designing ‘concept classroom’ models for underprivileged kids and training school children to pursue design as a career. Ratnish has also been recognised by UNEP and WWF since his student days.