Inspired by the clarion call given by Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi expressing his heartfelt desire to make India the global hub for toy production and urging all Indians to go Vocal for Local toys, the second edition of Ahmedabad Design Week (ADW) is being launched with the core theme,’Toy’ing with Design.
Ahmedabad Design Week is a neutral and non-commercial design festival event which is annually curated by Unitedworld Institute of Design with a sole purpose of networking and knowledge exchange between designers, academicians and students across India. This is the 2nd edition of Ahmedabad Design Week, which evolved from the India Design Confluence organised by Unitedworld Institute of Design in 2018.
Scheduled from 3rd to 7th February 2021, Wednesday to Sunday, the ADW 2021 has the potential to create many landmarks in toy design when the best of innovation and skill in toy design meet. With the core theme, Toy Design ADW 2021 intends to bring traditional toy makers and modern toy makers under a single platform. Such an effort has the potential to create many landmarks in toy design when the best of innovation and skill in toy design meet.
Addressing the nation in his radio broadcast Mann ki Baat, Shri Modi had said that toys augment activity, and also give flight to our aspirations. Keeping with this fervent desire to augment the concepts of ‘vocal for local’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ ADW 2021 will work on collaborations with various Indian toy makers, artists and industries to promote indigenous toys eventually taking a step towards helping everyone being Atmanirbhar and encourage the vision of Make in India.
ADW shall be reaching out to 15,000 school students, 15,000+ design students, 2,000 design faculties and 2,500 professionals from the design industry.
The proposed activities at ADW2021 are,
· Speaker Session
· Virtual Workshop
· Toy Exhibition
· Design Competition
· Paper Presentation
ADW 2021 shall be reaching out to 15,000 school students, 15,000+ design students, 2,000 design faculties and 2,500 professionals from the design industry. It aspires to be a platform that augment the designs students’ capabilities to think toy creation, and, over the period of four days, laid out a comprehensive programme involving the best of design minds of India as well as the world with a noble intent to foster toy thinking.
Besides the above, ADW 2021 also intends to foster the rich tradition of local toys of India by inviting participation and discussion with toy makers from local clusters of India. Some of these toy clusters are from where expert toy makers are expected to share their wisdom are Channapatna in Ramnagaram in Karnataka, Kondaplli in Krishna in Andhra Pradesh, ThanjavurinTamilnadu, Dhubari in Assam, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and from our very own Gujarat, Idar, Mahura, Patan & Kutch.
Among the events laid out at ADW 2021 are
· Design
· Culture
· Stories
· Artificial Intelligence
· User Experiences
· Marketing tactics
· Digital design and opportunities
· Networking and Knowledge sharing
Besides this, the focus areas during the five days of the Design Week would be
· Expert Sessions / Lecture Sessions withpeople of national and international repute
· Workshops by Design stalwarts
· Toy Design Competition
· Design Paper Presentations
· Technology & Design
‘Team up for toys’ is the motto that would be driving Ahmedabad Design Week 2021 as we all collectively share the dream of young childrens’ childhood blooming and smiles erupting as they play with toys made in the future’s global hub of toys, India.
High points of ADW 2.0
· Prof. Sudarshan Khanna and Shri Dadi Pudumjee are scheduled to give two keynote speeches.
· Toy manufacturers, Skillmatics, Funskool, Hasbro and Hamleys shall be organising speaker session with their Senior Designers.
· A virtual toy exhibition shall be organised, where the toys of various toy clusters and toy manufacturers shall be displayed.
· Industry Town Hall is being organised on 5th February 2021, Friday, in collaboration between Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), World Design Organisation (WDO), CUMULUS Association and Interaction Design Association (IxDA). ADW has invited members from the design industry to participate in this town hall.
· School Town Hall is being organised in joint collaboration between Children’s University and IIT Roorkee on 6th February 2021, Saturday. Students from schools across India have been invited to participate.
· Design Competition on various categories, primarily focusing on innovation, traditional arts and integration of emerging technologies will be conducted online.
· Pan-India colleges have been approached to submit ‘Academic Paper’ for the session of ‘Paper Presentation’. A unique feature of this ‘Paper Presentation’ is that all the ‘Paper’ received will be compiled and published in an ISBN-registered book by the Gujarat Student Startup and Innovation (i-Hub)
· Gujarat University will launch an online journal – ‘ख’ से खिलौना’. This journal would publish shortlisted ‘Papers’ of this ADW Paper Presentation contest.
· Jugaadopolis – an initiative of Ar. Aishwarya Tipnis’ Studio ATA, shall be conducting a 2-day workshop on the theme of ‘Play the City’. In this virtual workshop the participants shall apply the aspects of space & design thinking onto interactive gaming (analogue/digital).
· Echostream, Founder, SonamTashiGyaltsen to narrate Stories from North East.
· Session to be moderated by Kartikeya Sarabhai, Dialogue on ‘Ahmedabad – the Design Capital of India’
· Toy Manufacturers have also agreed to – give opportunities to winners of the toy design challenge to pitch their idea for commercial proposition and share royalties with them for future if the concept is commercialised.
Speakers at ADW2021
The Confirmed Speakers at ADW 2021 are;
· United States of America
o Paul Budnitz
Founder, KidRobot
o Miguel Wilson
Toy and Product Designer
o Dr. Mariana Amatullo
President, CUMULUS Association
· Greece (Hellenic Republic)
o KaterinaKamprani
Architect and Designer
· Latvia
o Anita Savicka
Jewellery Designer and Director, Anita Sondore Inc.
· Commonwealth of Australia
o Adrian Light
Director, ONE20 Group Architects
· Dominion of Canada
o Colin Giles
Head of Animation & VFX, Vancouver Film School
· Federal Republic of Germany
o Siegfried Zoels
Co-Founder and CEO, Support through Spielmittel e. V.
· Republic of India
o Mahendra Chauhan
Head of Design – Watches, Wearables & Accessories, Titan Company Ltd.
o Ar. Aishwarya Tipnis
Principal Architect, AishwaryaTipnis Architects & Conservation Planner
Some Special Curation by the Academic Institutions;
· IIT-Delhi
o Emerging technologies and robotics and Design
· IIT-Roorkee
o Townhall event for students and kids
· TAITMA
o Capacity building and how to scale up toy manufacturing
· IIT-Varanasi
o UI/UX of Toys and Aesthetics and Packaging
· National Institute of Design (NID)
o Toy workshop for students on the journey from idea to final product
o Design of traditional toys
o ‘Toy Tales – Past, Present and Future
· NID Jorhat/IIT Guwahati/IIM Shillong
o Round Table of Design stories from the Seven Sisters
· NIT Srinagar
o Design elements of Kashmiri Toys
· CEPT University
o Dialogue on ‘Ahmedabad – the Design Capital of India’
Workshops and Panel discussions by –
· UID- Unitedworld Institute of Design
· Anant National University
· CEPT University
· GLS Institute of Design
· Gujarat University
· NIT Srinagar
· SwarnimStartup& Innovation University
· Nirma University, Dept. of Design
· National Institute of Design (NID)
· NIFT – National Institute of Fashion Technology
Patrons
· Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), Govt. of India
· Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Govt. of India
· Education Department, Govt. of Gujarat
Organiser & Host
· Unitedworld Institute of Design (UID)
· Gujarat Student Start-up and Innovation Hub (i-Hub) – a Govt. of Gujarat Initiative
· Karnavati University
Powered by
· DA Group
Co-Organisers
· Anant National University
· Children’s University
· National Institute of Design (NID)
· IIT-Gandhinagar
· IIT-Roorkee
· IIT-Bhubaneswar
· NIT Srinagar
· IIT-Indore
· IIT-Varanasi
· IIT-Mumbai
· IIT-Delhi
· CEPT University
· SwarnimStartup& Innovation University
· Gujarat University
· GLS Institute of Design
· Dept. of Design, Nirma University
· NIFT
Academic Partner
· World Design Organisation (WDO)
· CUMULUS Association (International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media)
Industry Partner
· The All-India Toy Manufacturers’ Association of India (TAITMA)
· Hasbro
· Skillmatics
· Spinmaster
· Hamley’s
· Funskool
Various toy clusters from Gujarat, North East, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu shall be participating.
Due to the pandemic, Ahmedabad Design Week 2021 will be hosted online.
ahmedabaddesignweek.com
