Dr. Anil Sinha spent 33 years at the National Institute of Design (NID), where he chaired the Integrated Design Services, Knowledge Management Centre, Outreach and Industry Programmes and Projects for many years, and was a member of NID’s Governing Council and the Policy and Planning Committee. In March 2016, Dr. Sinha took over as the Director of GLS Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, where his focus is to contribute to the ‘Making of India through Design Teaching, Design Practice, and Design Thinking’.

An experienced educator and innovation facilitator, Hrridaysh Deshpande has been in the field of education for over 27 years. Presently, he serves as Director at Ajeenkya DY Patil Group, member of Governing Body and Director at Ajeenkya DY Patil University, and Director of Grand Port Hospital. Over the years, Hrridaysh has acquired proficiency in business innovation strategy and design-driven innovation.

Graphic designer and educator, Rikke Hansen has a passion for graphic design and typography. As Head of Department at Design School Kolding (Denmark), she played a significant role in developing new educational programs for the future. She has also been Head of Designhoejskolen Hoejer, an independent design high school. Currently, she is an external Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark and also teaches a variety of design courses at different design schools.

Prof. G. V. Sreekumar of IIT Bombay created a new field called H-H-I (Human Human Interaction), which focuses on the human-centric aspects of design and everyday life. He has earlier worked as an art director, cartoonist, calligrapher, illustrator, and infographics designer. Currently, he is a design consultant for many publications, and a visiting faculty member at several institutes in India. He is also a member of the Text Book Committee, NCERT, Government of India.

Lulu Raghavan is the Managing Director of Landor & Fitch India and leads a large team of creatives and strategists focused on brand transformation for clients. She has over two decades of experience in brand strategy, brand expression, brand experience design, cultural transformation, brand management, and brand performance. She is part of Landor & Fitch’s Global Management Board and the APAC Leadership Team.

Prior to the integration of Landor and Fitch, Lulu set up and successfully ran Landor in India for 12 years.

She is a renowned industry commentator and thought leader. She anchored Bloomberg UTV’s Beyond Logo show and is a speaker and moderator at brand and design conferences. Lulu was on the Cannes Lions Design Jury and the Young Lions Design Jury at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in 2018. Lulu was named one of India’s 50 most influential women in media, marketing, and advertising in 2019 by IMPACT Magazine. She evangelises the power of design and brands to create commercial value and social impact.

Lulu is also very passionate about several initiatives including the Landor & Fitch Good Squad, WPP Green Team, CII Design Council, CII IWN Steering Council, Stella Mentor Council, SPJIMR PGMPW program advisory board, and Sanjeevini Life After Cancer advisory board. In her free time, she actively mentors younger people on personal branding, personal growth, and development.

Mervyn Kurlansky is the principal of Mervyn Kurlansky School. He studied in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now known as Central St. Martins). He then spent three years in freelance practice followed by five years as graphics director of Planning Unit, the design consultancy service of Knoll International. In 1972 he co-founded Pentagram from which he resigned in 1993 to live and work in Denmark.

Clients: commercial, cultural, educational. Work in permanent collection MOMA NY, Design museum Copenhagen, and publications, exhibitions worldwide. Conceived and designed books, Watching My Name Go By, the first documentation of NY graffiti, Masters of the 20th Century, work of 107 speakers, Icograda Seminars, co-author four books on Pentagram.

Active in design education, lectures and serves on design juries. Former President Icograda, Fellow CSD, ISTD, RSA, member AGI, and DD. Inducted into Design Hall of Fame South Africa, awarded Icograda President’s Award, and Honorary Doctorate, National Academy of Art, Sophia.

Mikko Koria is the Professor and Director of the Institute for Design Innovation at Loughborough University London, UK, and a Visiting Professor at Aalto University, Finland. As a researcher and practitioner passionate about design-driven social and enterprise innovation, the last thirty years has seen extensive work with large and small organisations, start-ups, NGOs and the public sector in European, Asian, African and South American countries. As a global design thinker and doer, he engages widely with service design, design for policy, design for business models, ecosystems and entrepreneurship with enterprises, health and education, university-industry collaboration and humanitarian work.

Founder of IndiDesign, Sudhir Sharma is also Founder and President of ‘Design India’, India’s largest social community of professional designers; and Chief Editor of Designindia magazine (formerly known as POOL). An alumnus of the World Economic Forum’s World Design Council, Sudhir was on the inaugural design jury at the 2008 Cannes Lions Festival and has served as a jury member at Adfest 2009, Dutch Design Awards 2011, and 2012, and Design Turkey.

A pioneering Indian automotive journalist, Adil Jal Darukhanawala has over 40 years of experience spanning magazines, events, and books. He presently heads Fast Bikes India magazine and is the first Indian ever to be honored at the Guild of Motoring Awards in the UK for his work on the Indian motoring history.

Director of National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad, with its extension campuses in Gandhinagar and Bengaluru, Praveen Nahar has also been a faculty member in Industrial Design and Discipline Lead of Product Design at NID since 2002. He has served on NID’s Senate and Policy Planning Committee for several years, and in various positions at NID as Activity Chairperson and Head of various departments. Praveen has also served as jury member, and been part of scientific committees and academic advisory boards.

An experienced leader with a proven track record of over 25 years, Nisha Narayanan has been instrumental in scaling the brand RED FM to where it is right now. She has helped build sub-brands out of RJs from RED FM’s stable, along with various IPs across the country. Nisha is also a member of the core committee at the FICCI Radio Forum since 2008, and Senior VP with AROI (Association of Radio Operators for India).

Sathiyaseelan Gangasalam is an eminent design practitioner in the field of transportation. He is an Alumni of IIT-Delhi with career spreading over 20+ years in various domestic and global automotive companies. He is the Vice President, Design -Styling at Ashok Leyland since 15 years. He has been a part of 25 plus prestigious transportation design projects for automotive giants like TATA Motors, GENERAL MOTORS, TVS Motors, and Ashok Leyland. He is also credited with establishing full-fledged design studio and design practices in Ashok Leyland. His works christened with prestigious awards from various government and non-government organizations like SIAM, CII.

CEO of LUMIUM, a creative product design company based in Palo Alto, California, Srini Srinivasan has technology and business background in instrumentation, consumer electronics, telecom, and wireless equipment. Srinivasan served as Treasurer on the Board of Directors for the World Design Organization from 2015 to 2017 and was named President-elect for the 2017 to 2019 term. He has been on the panel of innovation judges for CES 2012 and other industry events.

Minti, a graduate of NID, Ahmedabad, has more than half a decade of rich experience in the Indian Television industry as a Head, Visual Communication Design of the news channels – Star News, Star Ananda & Star Majha. She has also managed the TV brands 9X, 9XM & NewsX as a design consultant.

Having been awarded the BW Business World Future of Design award, she believes in a multidisciplinary approach as a designer & has comprehensive expertise in varied disciplines including motion graphic design. Working with various brands & visual communication projects in India for the last decade. Minti has been responsible for working on the development of many ‘Firsts’ in varied areas of communication. With the passion & urge to spread awareness for Art & Design, Minti along with two of her partners, curates & executes art & design workshops for all age groups & professions by the name of ‘The Drawing Room’.

Currently, an entrepreneur, Minti aims to encourage quality & storytelling by perceiving a design possibility from different scenarios & extending it further by creating various products & design projects.

A design and management professional with 20 years of experience in the fashion industry, Geetika Gupta has been Academic Director of the Art Institute of California for more than 15 years. She also started and managed Sitara, a company selling women’s resort wear and scarves for over seven years.

Aditi Gupta is the Managing Partner & Co-founder of Menstrupedia, the world’s most innovative company when it comes to teaching and learning about periods. Having been at the receiving end of period-related stigmas while growing up, she has a deep understanding of the discomfort people face when conversing about the topic. As a result, she has been committed to addressing menstrual myths and taboos through Menstrupedia, an initiative that she is a co-founder of, and that uses comic books and relatable media to de-stigmatize menstruation.

Aditi is a TED Speaker, and a Forbes India 30 Under 30 achiever. She was also named as one of BBC’s 100 influential women of 2015 and has been a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. Aditi has been invited to seven countries to share the model of her work in the field of menstrual health and awareness.

An award-winning graduate of the Graphic Faculty, Hanoi University of Industrial Fine Arts, Pham Huyen Kieu founded Haki Group in 1994; the Group’s activities cover branding, advertising and craft. Kieu has worked on hundreds of research projects, and created and managed brand development work across economic, social and public services, including the SEA Games 22.

After 18 years of direct management, Kieu is now a member of the Boards of Directors, Haki Group and Chief Consultant for the Haki Brand, spending more time on professional endeavors in general, and design in particular. He is also a strategic advisor for a number of businesses in the field of building materials, real estate services, manufacturing, and distribution of consumer goods.

An alumnus of the Prestigious National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad; Winner of several Industrial Design & Engineering Awards, Sanandan Sudhir (Sandy) is an accomplished Design Leader & the Founder & President of InventIndia Innovations Pvt Ltd.

With 24+ years of experience & proven abilities in Product Design & Development, Sandy is a true thought leader with a passion to create end-to-end products focused on IP strategy; every conversation with him is a chance to learn, grow or even change the world!

An Inventor at heart, he has more than 18 Granted Global Patents and another 57+ applied for.

Presently working as Professor in the area of Marketing and Dean – Academics with Indian Institute of Management Raipur, India, Sanjeev Prashar has thirty-two years’ academic experience of teaching Postgraduate Management courses, corporate training and consulting.

With Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Ph. D in Management from University of Kurukshetra (India), and Post-doctoral from Putra Business School, Malaysia, he has published numerous research papers (90) in prominent international journals of repute including Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Tourism Economics and Journal of Business Research.

Of the seventy case studies authored by him, few are available at Harvard Business Publishing (both English and Chinese versions), Ivey Publishing (Richard Ivey School of Business) and Emerging Markets Case Studies Collection (Emerald Group Publishing). Currently, he is pursuing research on shopping behavior including impulse buying, online buying and celebrity endorsement.

Design educator and graphic designer, Tarun Deep Girdher teach graphic design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He has over 22 years of experience in design education and professional design practice. Tarun has served as a juror in several international and national competitions including Poster for Tomorrow, FICCI Design Awards, and Typography Day and is the founder of the 35daysofgurmukhi challenge on Instagram.

Agnieszka Ziemiszewska is a graphic designer, educator, and art curator. She designs posters, publications, visual identifications as well as social art projects.

Agnieszka first built her career working as an independent designer creating visual identification systems. Currently, she focuses on experimental, non-commercial, educational, and research projects.

She is an active participant in international competitions and shows dedication to graphic design. Her works have been presented all over the world. Agnieszka has been awarded numerous distinctions. She has also curated and co-organized multiple exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Agnieszka is a professor at the Faculty of the New Media Arts at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology. She has led workshops and lectures at international events and universities and has been part of juries in national and international graphic design competitions and biennials.

Dr. Arafat Al-Naim is the former Dean of College of Design (CDES), American University in the Emirates (AUE), graphic artist, designer, educator, and the moving spirit behind international art and design projects. He holds a BFA, MFA, Ph.D. in graphic arts, and MST in art teaching from the National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria.

He has lectured and presented research papers at international conferences. Graphic works by Arafat Al-Naim can be found in Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas (USA), Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon (USA), Wrexham Yale Memorial Gallery, Wrexham (UK), National Gallery of Foreign Art, Sofia (Bulgaria), State Museum Gyõr (Hungary), University of Wales Collection, Aberystwyth (UK), Nord Art – Kunstwerk Carlshütte (Germany) and others. He has exhibited in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Italy, North Ireland, FYROM, Germany, Bulgaria, USA, Canada, Cyprus, South Africa, Tunisia, the Netherlands, Brazil, Japan, Egypt, South Korea, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere. He was awarded the “Rhea Bally” Art Award of the IBC, Cambridge, UK, 2008 and the “Best Professor in Design” of Asian Education Leadership Awards in 2014.

Mrs. Pratima Kirloskar belongs to the promoter group of the Kirloskar family that controls Kirloskar Brothers Limited, a 133-year-old engineering conglomerate. She is the Chairperson of Vikas Charitable Trust (VCT), that runs an 87-year-old primary and high school and an 87-year-old health care centre and works with 40 schools in and around the Kirloskar Brothers Limited (KBL) factory in Kirloskarvadi.

President of Innovations Society (a platform helping entrepreneurs and start-ups, to connect with industry, to fill specific gaps) and one of the Founders of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Pune Chapter, an international not-for-profit organisation that promotes entrepreneurs by mentoring, networking and connecting them to funding agencies.