Social Capital is an important outcome of any design process. Designers should seek more from it. In the age of smart devices and systems, we seem to forget about the social capital, for our notion of being 'social' itself has changed. In the context of Social Enterprise, we have to rely on it a lot more, for working in the development sector comes with its own set of challenges. These are the slides from my today's talk at Adobe India (Noida) office. 17th August 2016.

1. DESIGN & SOCIAL CAPITAL
@kshitiz , Adobe, Noida, 17th August, 2016

2. CURRENTLY
Managing Trustee @ Happy Horizons Trust
Dean / Director @ L’école de design Nantes Atlantique (India Studio)
Principal Designer @ Happy Horizons Consulting
PREVIOUSLY
Director, The Design Village
Design Manager & Strategist, Kuliza Technologies
UI Designer at Motorola, Infosys
STUDIED AT
BDes, Communication Design, IIT Guwahati, 2005
MS, Interaction Design, Indiana University, 2009

3. ‘Social Capital’ is the network of relationships among people who
live and work in a particular society, enabling the society to function
properly.
Transactions are marked by reciprocity, trust and cooperation.

4. My tryst with design
July 2001

5. What is design?
Evolving understanding everyday

6. What kind of design do you do ?

7. Design is all around us
How can it help in improving the quality of life

8. From education to women empowerment to poverty reduction
The pressing problems of today

9. Unemployable graduates
Lack of skills
Malnutrition
Bad traffic in cities
Urban chaos
Lack of healthcare facilities
Pollution
…
the list could go on!

10. More challenges for designer
How may we create large scale impact through our solutions

11. We face a shortage of designers in
India
Just about 4000 design graduates per year

12. Photoshop produces the most
number of designers in India
than any other school!

13. We face a severe crisis of good
designers in India
How do you define someone as a good designer?

14. Trust, reciprocity and cooperation
How do we build design solutions that are based on the above

15. As we move to a more connected world, full of
gadgets and systems that are smarter than us, we
designers question the very foundation of these new
systems and solutions we are building, for its ability
to solve a problem and a potential to create long
lasting impact.

16. Experience driven world
Experience leads to satisfaction leads to happy customers

17. Social Capital is critical for Social
Innovations.

18. India needs a lot of Social
Innovations.

19. Design in India.
Design for India.
Design by India.

20. How may we designers work
towards creating better social capital
Designers are good at it.

21. The tablets and devices
Questioning the access to technology

22. Knowing the target audience
Who are you designing for ?

23. Understanding Social
The biggest irony of the smartphone is that it has made us anti-social

24. Being human centric
Adopt as a way of life

25. Keeping all stakeholders happy
The challenge in all design solutions

26. Encouraging to speak up
Resulting in instilling ample self confidence

27. Emphasise on peer learning
Cross pollinate teams from time to time

28. Better decision making
Adopting processes that encourage it across every team member

29. Work at Happy Horizons Trust
Using the Social Capital to work on Education for development.

30. The problem space
How may we improve the quality of education in India

31. Creating local leaders
To help in building the social capital within the community

32. Design and Design thinking as a way of life
Introducing design early

33. Enhancing skills
Introducing the children to new ways of learning

34. Book Designing workshop
An exercise in exploring alternative career options

35. Craft activities
To help in building the child motor skills

36. System design thinking
To help in driving systemic change

37. Storytelling to ignite discussions
Nothing excites a child more than stories

38. The society cannot progress without this
Women empowerment

39. Learnings along the way
Things I teach now at the academic programs I manage

40. no design! know design?
2001
in a design school
why design matters
2016
heading a design school
design matters

41. Get into countless arguments for this one. Design is a process too.
Design is not cosmetic work

42. Building social capital is tough
Social Innovations require more energy and passion

43. High glamour solutions fail fast
Building trust takes time

44. Have a global perspective, local approach
Understand local lifeworlds

45. Social Capital is a long term investment
Sustainability is important

46. Collaboration is key
Teamwork is crucial to the success

47. Build inclusive solutions
Engage with different stakeholders over time

48. Be a reflective practitioner
Think about the impact of your solutions from time to time

49. Think short term & long term
Social capital builds over time

50. Spread happiness
Nothing is more satisfying!

51. We need to value Social Capital
created for or by our designs!
It should come naturally to us!

52. Outreach of Happy Horizons Trust
Working with 40 schools across the country
6 districts in Bihar, 1 in Karnataka, 1 in Bengal
Programs outreaching over 27000 students
Digital literacy program to over 250 students
Over 1500 students benefited from Career Awareness Seminars

53. Thank you
Email: kshitiz@thehappyhorizons.in
Twitter: @kshitiz