IAMAI sets up design and innovation committee

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has set up a design and innovation committee aimed towards making India the design hub of the world. 

“The IAMAI design and innovation committee will work with the primary mission of enhancing the business value of Indian products and services through design like the Scandinavian countries or closer home, Singapore. This will involve the committee taking initiatives to help the design ecosystem in India through capability building and policy advocacy,” said Apala Lahiri, co-founder and chief of technical staff, Human Factors International.

The committee will focus on areas that will include setting up an index for designing, make it design and user-friendly, encouraging startups through incubators, working with other design associations or industry bodies and facilitating collaboration between industry and India Design Council (IDC), Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) for capacity building and skill development, IAMAI said in a statement.

IAMAI said that the key factor to achieve this goal will be an institutionalised approach towards developing, training and nurturing talent and skill sets that can cater to the ever-changing and ever-demanding UX/UI landscape.

The committee is chaired by Lahiri and co-chaired by Girish Prabhu, founder of Sakalya Institute for Design-Driven Entrepreneurship.

The Indian government is also shifting its focus on the importance of design and is looking forward to applying design in the areas of sustainability, smart cities, clean India, and effectively delivering public services. The government has also identified intervention points to support design education by implementing measures in terms of faculty development, aptitude assessment, the statement added.

The association claims that the design and innovation committee is the latest step to make design education reach out to masses, drive sustainable innovations, increase awareness on the importance of design irrespective of the industry, and develop design skills in the country.

“With IAMAI’s charter to keep digital in the center and spread the use of the internet to a billion-plus Indian, Design and Innovation becomes an important pillar for this vision Design-driven innovation not only can help and grow the emerging tech start-up ecosystem but also help Government to leverage digital for better governance and development,” said Girish Prabhu, founder, Sakalya Institute for Design-Driven Entrepreneurship.