CKS – 34 ways to save a life
by Ria Rajan
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 [...]
Designing a criteria to count the poor in India for BPL cards
by Shagun Singh
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 [...]
Design!publiC conclave – design thinking and governance innovation
by Shagun Singh
As design minds in the US try to figure out whether effective problem solving can still be called design-thinking or needs to be replaced by another buzz word called creative intelligence (refer to Bruce Nussbaums recent article on the subject, and Robert Fabricant’s take on creative intelligence) a conclave in India tries to figure out [...]
Government, open data & design
by Shagun Singh
The Union Cabinet in India approved a “National Design Policy‘ on 8th Feb 2007. The step was taken realizing the strategic importance of design for national and industrial competitiveness. The vision behind initiating the ‘National Design Policy’ is to have a design enabled Indian industry. The government initiated a consulting process with designers and industry [...]
Gaon Ki Awaaz – bringing hyperlocal news to rural India
by Shagun Singh
A big percentage of indian village population is illiterate. Traditional mode of transmitting news like newspapers are not effective for that demographic. Television as a medium to disseminate news are not effective in villages either because of unreliable electricity as well as the cost behind purchasing a TV unit. Transistor radios have been a cheap [...]
Rethinking low incoming housing in India
by Shagun Singh
A lot of affordable housing work in developing nations like India is handled by the government. Government of India is not exactly known for its taste in architecture and design. An interesting story that I read in the Knowledge Wharton blog goes like this – the Tamil Nadu government built low income housing for milkmen [...]
Gov 2.0 and India
by Shagun Singh
I heard Kiran Bedi talk recently at a fundraiser event for SEVA, a non profit organization, based in Richmond Hill, Queens, that facilitates immigration of South Asians to the US. Kiran Bedi is an Indian social activist and a retired Indian Police Service officer. During her riveting talk that included her work in Tihar jail [...]
The Indovators – Part 1 | Lina Srivastava
by Shagun Singh
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 [...]
