Design by Urban Matter, Inc.
All content © 2012 by Designwala
Public toilets in India is a design problem which is yet to reach full resolution. Only close to 45 % of Indians have access to any kind of toilet. I remember traveling with my parents as a child while growing up in India. We never stopped at any public restrooms since there weren’t any. If [...]
Medical innovation became a house hold term after GE launched its $1,000 electrocardiogram device and the $15,000 portable ultrasound machine in India and China. A term called reverse innovation is being used to describe products that not only bring lifesaving technologies to the developing world at an affordable cost but also promise to lower the [...]
I have always found 3 wheeler rickshaws that ply the roads of India extremely convenient. They are everywhere, affordable and go places where a taxi cab cannot. Its common knowledge that these two stroke engine vehicles are huge pollutants. Auto rickshaws seem like such a South Asian phenomenon that its tough to believe that rickshaws [...]
The company that brought us the world cheapest car is now creating the worlds cheapest house. TATA, one of India’s largest corporate houses is trying to create the world’s cheapest house. This comes right after the $300 house by Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar. The house being proposed is a $720 or Rs 32,000 flat [...]
This is probably one of the first articles in Designwala that encompasses design thinking outside of India. It is tough to talk about design thinking in India without looking at what services and products Africa and China are creating. Design for the developing world cannot happen in isolation and as reverse innovation takes a hold [...]
This post is long overdue. Ive been caught up with the madness that trails behind deadlines, mundane activities like getting my driving license, visas etc. In the midst of all this thankfully, I managed to have a chat with Aditya Dev Sood, Founder and CEO of the Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS). CKS is an [...]
I watched a movie called ‘Dharavi – a slum for sale‘ during the Jugaad Urbanism event in New York. The movie was directed by a Swiss director who had been making trips to India for a few years and decided to make a film on Dharavi. It was well directed, the characters were well developed [...]
India’s poverty line is sometimes called the ‘starvation line’ since this income based poverty line considers the bare minimum income to provide food and does not account for education and healthcare. An income of less than a dollar per person per day is defined as extreme poverty internationally. By that estimate, 40% of the Indians [...]
My parents live in a farm house in a town called Ambala in Haryana, India. When I visit them, I go on early morning walks with them, walking through the surrounding farms, villages, temples and gurudwaras. Along the way we run across farmers starting off their day, walking to their farms in dejection. During my [...]
I grew up in India during the 80′s and the 90′s when cinema goers had switched to the comforts of their houses and VCR’s to watch movies. The coming of new technology wasn’t the only reason people stopped going to theaters. Quality of movies, acting, music and funding from the Mumbai underworld were all equally [...]
An innovative infographic on Indian classical music has earned Bengaluru student Pratyush Gupta a design excellence award at the Pune Design Fest 2012. see here
Lina Srivastava is the Principal of Lina Srivastava Consulting, LLC, which focuses on employing strategy, innovation, engagement and the use of cultural assets to create and demonstrate social change. For our new feature ‘The Indovators’, Lina talks about opportunities for indian designers in the fields of service design, information design, systems design, climate change and [...]
