 Good morning, and a warm welcome to our UX fatality, our distinguished speakers, guests, and everyone in the ballroom here today. My name is Shamma Sundar, I'm the co-founder of UX India, India's biggest conference on user experience design. So when we say UX and user experience, there will obviously be some people in the audience who would wonder what exactly is this, this term is and all that stuff. So can you just help me raise hands and then help me understand how many people in the audience are UX aware in general? Is everybody UX aware, or are there any people who still need some explanation about what exactly this domain is? I still see some hands that haven't been raised. So I'm just going to take liberty from my side and then with the permission of UX experts in the audience over here, I'll try to take an attempt at what exactly UX design is in a few sentences just to help our other folks who are not UX aware as such. So UX user experience design is a process of creating products that offer a great experience and that are simple, easy, and pleasurable to use, as simple as that. So this conference, I think, as this conference unfolds, you will clearly understand what exactly we are talking about. And as I mentioned, UX India has been around for 15 years now. So basically, we started by spreading awareness about this domain almost close to 15 years back. And since then, we have been building design expertise amongst our audience, amongst design fraternity, and also building on top of that by building design quotient of our design community over here. So from spreading knowledge to raising awareness and then to creating lasting impact, UX India 2016 brings the focus on the next crucial phase in our collective UX journey, which is creating impact by design. And that's the theme of this conference today. And we'll hear more about this over the course of the next three days and then get every possible understanding about how we go about creating impact by design and then also hopefully get to see good examples of how to create and talk about impact that we create knowingly or unknowingly. But then this conference is about being able to create and design things and design them confidently for impact. So that's the focus of this conference. And herewith, I would like to introduce Mr. Kaladar Bapu, the co-founder and architect of UX India. Mr. Bapu has very several firsts through his credit. So he pioneered user experience in the late 1990s when design was known to very few people. So he founded one of the biggest UX conferences in India. And he set up India's first state of the art usability lab at Cardis in Hyderabad over here in this very high-tech city area. His relentless commitment to spreading design awareness and creating sustained business and social impact has led to establishing this very platform. UX India connects the industry, the academia, and the governance through a host of programs for a sustained dialogue and implementation of design for a better future. It's my pleasure to welcome Mr. Kaladar Bapu onto the stage to take you through the first leg of the journey of our conference today. Please welcome Mr. Kaladar Bapu onto the stage. So Shyam has already explained a bit about how this has been, the journey has been started. So before I go into that, I would like to share a story. Oh. So is there anybody from MIT here, MIT Media Lab, or MIT Pune? Any student from MIT? MIT? Good. So I was at Awasa yesterday for a dinner. Dutch delegates have come yesterday. So that evening, I was discussing with them. So one of my old friends, he said, hello, sir. The cataract, the device going to test that it actually costs $250. You know that, right? $250 means it's 65 rupees times. So there is an institute called Alibi Prasad. Has anybody know about it? Alibi Prasad, I Institute. How many of you know about it? Good. So this gentleman, he did do, I think he was actually managing director positions and also at the higher positions, CEO positions, and then finally decided to go back to social service. And then now he's actually working with Alibi Prasad. So he said some of his designers, they came up with a similar lens for just 20 rupees. You know how much 20 rupees means? Maybe for you guys, it's $0.30. Think about $250 device versus $0.30. So to making this more affordable, and also it's actually for poor people in India, the kind of impact it creates and it is created by design. So this story why I'm sharing is all this conference is sold out, basically. They approached us. I didn't know that. Ramalakshmi, who takes care of operations, she said, no, we don't have space. Then after I heard the story, I said, we have to present this today. So we tried to squeeze the time today to bring that innovation. They actually got an award in UK. I think they got a second prize for social innovation. So we're going to see that. So starting with that, I'm actually very happy to share this story because we are going to share many more stories like this because the theme of the conference itself impact by design. So it is intentionally, carefully designed to create impact. So how did we arrive to this theme? I think this works, no? Does it work? So as I told you, this is India's biggest international conference. Is there any doubt in this? Why? Because I want to share, actually, maybe on some of the slides. When I was thinking about bringing this conference to Hyderabad, many of my friends said, discouraged. So I'm going to explain what happened and those stories before I go there. So we started this journey 16 years back. In India, I think you know anything about software, what do you get? India, any offshore, anything. Software, India is a synonym for software. So that means if you look at any parent, ask what your son to be or a daughter to be. I want my son to be a software engineer or maybe a doctor. Nobody ever says that, OK, I want my son to be UX designer or an architect. So most of us sitting here because of some reason we have moved to this field, do you agree that? Or anybody who says that I understood this concept, that's the reason I have taken this course or I've taken this UX design. Has anybody says that? Please raise your hand. You have taken this course intentionally. OK, so what's your background? What is that? Mass communications? Yeah, yeah. So we have mass communications, architecture, engineering, then moved to UX. I'm talking about your parents who decided that my son is going to be UX designer. Nobody, right? Yes. So in 16 years back, a gentleman called Jan Ban, he was the founder of Ban ERP company. He was the first guy to bring offshore model to India. He started Wannenberg IT Park over here. And I think if you're familiar with Hyderabad, now it's called VIT Park. He had a vision to understand that UX, or usability at that time, adds a lot of value to the product. So in fact, we were actually at IIT. So he came for a campus interview. So nobody knew, actually, what these guys are coming. They were talking about usability. We tried to Google it. Google was, I think, a couple of years old. So we didn't find that meaning, also. And we didn't know how to prepare for the interview. So finally, they actually tested aptitude, like design aptitude. That was a good thing, design aptitude. And I got selected, I don't know, somehow, maybe because Hyderabad or whatever. I don't know why I got selected. And then they actually gave me training. It's a kind of a military training. Two of their Dutch, my colleagues, were here. And then they were like almost eight to 10 hours of training. And then they've sent me to Netherlands to give me this human-computer interaction and all usability, those principles and fundamentals. So in fact, what happened? Today, Mr. Anban is going to be here to share his story. 16 years back, how was his vision? Now we are still thinking about what is design thinking. So sometimes it is a surprise when I talk about UX, UX. After an hour, they say, yes, this is really good concept. By the way, what you've been talking about UX, what it means UX means. After an hour discussion, they ask you this question, what do you mean by UX? So even now, people who are talking about what is UX and design thinking, that guy, that gentleman, visualize that. Product value can be brought out using these concepts. So we're going to have a discussion with him. If you have any questions, maybe let me know. I'm going to ask these questions to him so that we can understand what was his vision that time. OK, so we just started the team in India in Hyderabad. So then I felt that we need to have something that we're missing out. Because when you go for a campus interview for a next team mate to recruit, we are giving six months of training. It's not easy to do that. So what we've done is, OK, let's do one thing. OK, let's go for an ID, IDC. IDC, you know that, IDC. And even they don't have Anuradha or anybody at that time. So it was the same. You have to train them. Then I thought, why don't we decide, why don't we come up with a not-for-profit organization to create awareness about design? Because at that time, IDC, we had product design and visual communication. So when we asked them, hey, how about moving to UX? They said, no, what is UX means? Because they are all gray colors. I'm a visual designer. I don't want to come into. I'm a product designer. I don't want to come into. And I thought, why don't we create some awareness about design, basically UX design, usability. So we started a group called usabilitymatters.org. So that's how we started talking about usability in 2000. And luckily, we had an interesting collaboration with the ISB, Indian School of Business. They said, we are going to give you the space. If you want, you can organize an event. In 2005, we came up with the first event. It was so funny, because nobody wants to join. It was a free event. Nobody wants to come. So we used to beg people that, OK, there is a beautiful, interesting lunch. We have also non-visitarian, these many varieties so that people used to say, what time? 12.30. OK, so 12 o'clock, they used to come after lunch. They used to leave. That was a situation in 2005. So we didn't leave that. We're still working like, OK, let's see what happens. 2006, 2007, we start doing different programs. And slowly, some traction happened. Like, some visual designers wanted to join this. And then they said, it looks interesting. But do you think I'll get money if I join this? Or some people thought, is it a promotion if I'm a visual designer? If I go to, if I learn this, will I get promotion? This kind of questions. So it was so tough. And think about bringing international speakers to the conference. It was difficult, because people were not interested here. So 2012, in fact, 2010, I thought of going back to my education. So it was my long dream to study at Pratt Institute. I've been to New York, and then I started design management course out there. Then I started actually actively participating in UXPA conferences. Then I started making good friends. My major intention is to bring international talent to this country. Today, we have around 12 speakers from internationally. Thank you so much, sir, for all of you who are accepting our invitation and coming here and sharing your knowledge. 12 international speakers are going to share their experiments, international design trends. So it's a great opportunity for all of us. So last year, we celebrated 10 years of UX, UX in India. So this is the 11th year. So we came up with the concept like Shyam was talking about, awareness. First phase was we want to create awareness. In fact, we used to run bad design contests. I don't know how many of you are aware of that. Boycott bad design. You never aware of it? Yeah. Bad design contests. And we used to give them best bad design prizes. Because once you understand what is bad, it's easy to understand good. So this kind of, we used to start, we used to do cartoon contests about design. So then we started education, went to education mode. We did a lot of workshops, conferences. Now we wanted to see, we have actually seen a lot of traction. Everybody talks about design now. People have started joining the courses. Now we wanted to see what has happened after the couple of almost 16 years. What has, what kind of impact you guys have created? We wanted to know the stories of impact. So that's the reason the concept started with impact by design. So I just wanted to, this is just like a kind of interesting thing. We used to call this end user. Do you remember end user perspective? What does that mean, end user means? It comes at the end. And we never used to like him, right? So from that phase to today, we are talking about user centered. We are actually bringing him, hugging him, and you are talking about design thinking and user centered design. OK, let me talk about programs we've been doing. So we found that there is a lot of gap between industry and academia. So industry says that design schools are not really giving the people who are like day one onwards like they should be productive. That's what their expectation. And industry says that you're not giving an internship for our students. No, you're not giving projects. How can they be productive? How can they understand what industry is working towards? So we have a gentleman, Mr. Moraly is going to, Mr. Moraly is going to moderate this panel discussion. We have design schools represented and also industry represented. This is the third. I think this is the third, sir, fourth panel discussion. Third time we are doing that. And startup UX panel, clinic. This has become very successful. So what we found is when I say we means UX India or usability matters, this is, as I told you, right? It's a not-for-profit organization and it is driven by volunteers. So when you see a startup, UX service is very expensive these days. If I ask you to help, how much you charge? $100 per hour? It's very expensive here also. So what does it mean? Like you are a startup and you want your design to be right, but you don't have a design support. You can't afford to have a designer. So as a team, we invited mentors. So even now, if you would like to be part of this mentor network, mentors club, please give us, give your names so that now we'll be explaining to you what are the benefits. So what we are doing is we are actually inviting startups to submit their designs. We select 10 of them and then give them an hour time. They actually pitch us their design. And then our mentors, experts, evaluate the design and help them and guide them in the right direction from a user-centered perspective. So we have received around 52 designs, 52 startup submissions. It was very tough for us to shortlist them and then finally made the 10 startups. So we are doing a parallel session in a different boardroom for the UX clinic. So women in design. So I'm going to share the demographics of how many of us, like male versus female here, like women versus men. So this is very interesting. You always have more than 50%. And you always wanted to share the success stories of women entrepreneurs and successful people who have used design or innovation to make their product or created social impact. So we're going to have a separate track on women in design. Also, we had a panel discussion. We have a panel discussion. We're going to have four panels to share their stories. And UX ladder, this year we actually introduced. So what we found is, for example, how many years old? Two years, I think, you experience? You have one year. Somia? You just started, yeah. So a lot of people, they wanted to move to UX, but they don't know whom to ask. And if you see this conference, we created three tracks. One is leadership track, advanced track, and essentials. And fourth is women in design. So if you are just starting UX as a career, or if you're already in UX and you want to move to the next level, you are a leadership role. You want to know more about strategy. So the three tracks available for you to explain. That means you can ask questions. You can openly ask questions. For example, if you are from Fidelity, you guys are from Fidelity. So what do you see if I apply for you? What do you see? You can't ask this question, right? When you apply, you can ask this question to him. So what do you generally look at when I apply for a job? So you can answer that. So this is the UX ladder is that. Any question you feel that it is, you don't get answer, because it's very new here, right? And whatever that answers you find in net, it's very much like a west side. Like maybe all the US related answers are European. But we don't get any answers from India. So this is a great opportunity for all of us to ask questions, utilize that track. UX talent fair, this is another interesting program. So what we found is now the founders or the CEOs are now aware of design thinking is very essential for the product success. But they don't know how to recruit a good UX person. So this is where our mentors are going to help them. Because if you do a bad recruit, he's going to create a bad team. So this is where UX India mentors can help the companies to recruit a good talent. So as I was discussing about mentors club, mentors club is, if you are five years experience above, you can join this club. And for example, there are a lot of opportunities. NASCOM is actually our good partner. So they ask us to come and give a talk. If you are a qualified mentor, they're going to send you there. So you'll be representing UX India. You'll also be evaluating ideas, like UX clinic ideas you're evaluating. So so many things you can actually do if you want to become a mentor. So if you're interested, you can actually give your name at the registration desk. And then we'll actually add you in the club. So this is very interesting to see how many UX focused organizations available now in India. I'm going to share the number. How many of companies are sending up to this conference? Most of the companies who have got usability or UX labs or usability labs and also UX resources, they were attending this conference. So today we have 461 attendants. So I was talking about Hyderabad issue, right? So Anna was asking, is it okay to keep the conference in Hyderabad? So some of my friends said it is tough. Hardly you get 200 people. So Mr. Ramesh Lugnathan. So I asked him, I came here to understand whether Hyderabad is the right place to host this. I expressed my doubt. He was really angry. He was the first and he said, why do you think so? It's all matured audience and it will be successful. I never even expected that 200 would be a figure we can achieve. Today we have sold out and then 461 and there are still, people are actually walk-in registrations are happening. And if you see that 48% are male and the rest, you know that, the nomination. And out of this, 59% are professionals. That means people who are working for bigger emensis. And 31% are startup founders. That's a great change. That's amazing. Generally if you see this 59% you'll see most of them are UX designers. But this 31% they're all business technology, different background management and they are actually like startup founders. It's a great change. And 10% are students. 10% we actually, we are limiting this number is very consciously because we don't want to make this conference to like a student conference. So we always keep only 10% for students. And 184 companies are participating in this conference. So any other questions you have on this I can explain to you or I can give you numbers. No, this is just to show that most designers use Apple computers, right? So you use Mac or Windows? Okay. So this is an interesting thing. So far we've been, I think with the programs I've explained to you, they were like industry and academia. So the first time in the history of, as far as I know, but if you know anybody, any other government is talking about UX. Any other state government is talking about UX, please let me know. The first time the Telangana government, the IT minister is talking about UX. We are honored to have him here. He said, why don't you guys come back here and organize this event? And he wanted to involve government to be part of this platform. So as we are building this platform, what's going on there? As we are building this platform, we'd like to have you on board and help this community. It's not just only the industry or academia. We should also help work with government. Are you guys interested? Only few? Only few wanted to create impact by joining government. You don't have to be a government employee to create impact. You can be part of this platform. We all can actually help government to achieve this. So, is it working? Okay, so if you guys are interested, definitely we all should actually join hands and make it successful because the first time a government is asking us to involve. So the next talk is going to be our IT secretary, Mr. Jayesh, he's going to talk about his vision and his IT minister's vision. So I think this is a great opportunity for all of us because we are moving to the next phase. The 16 years, for example, we did do a lot of education to a C-level people. Think about government as an enterprise. So we have to do the similar thing, like we have to educate, we have to make them understand the value of design. Not just only telling what I'm talking about, they're already aware of it. I'm talking about other governments. We have to bring this awareness at that level and then we'll be more useful to the community, not just only for a software industry. Okay, so before we move on to the key notes and all, any questions? No, I'm talking about this year. It's hiking up, yes, yeah. The many, I think if you see, there is a little bit of, like in Bangalore, you see the crowd would be more, definitely, yeah. So you see the number of organizations, companies coming in are very high, yeah.