 We also have the second DT here, which is the emerging technologies which are driving the digital transformation, which is the second DT. So two DTs together, is there a bridge, something that we can look at both enterprises and startups and design thinkers like you, what's the sort of a link between these two DTs? And that's the sort of conversations that we are planning to have today. The one thing that I'm sure you would have started looking at is the bridge could be an approach change. Most of the organizations, the startups, not all of them, some of them, have all been looking at a technology-driven sort of an approach to solving problems. How can that change to an experience-driven approach? Is that the right answer for connecting these two DTs? It's a point for introspection, so I've prepared a two-minute video. So I would let the team play the video, and then we can get on to introducing the panel and taking the conversation forward. The video, please. Play for the first place. When I got to know that I need to moderate this panel, this panel is simply amazing with, you know, complete span of portfolio and experiences that they carry. So I took an easy route to do a digital introduction of this panel. But having said that, you need to still have that human involvement. So let me quickly talk about the roles that I have requested the panel to play for this panel discussion. So our first panelist is a corporate leader, an innovator, a VC, a music composer turned serial entrepreneur in Ramana Bokula. Thank you, sir. We also have the second panelist, a technocrat turned VC, Sri Unikrishnan, an ex-Googler himself. Our third panelist is an out-and-out design thinker. He's headed UX in large firms, an UX champ, Nitin Sethi. And our final panelist today is a design leader and a mentor and advisor to startups, Kranti. Okay, so let me start by asking each of you. We've saw the video on design thinking, digital transformation, and the roles that each of you play. So what is, from your role that you play, what does digital transformation mean to you? And if you could look at one element of what design thinking can actually do to digital transformation in terms of catalyzing it, it'll continue to happen. Maybe you can also look at some of the startups with design founders in it. Maybe I can give a minute or two to each of you and start with Ramana. So this was the time before, you know, you could Google for stuff and look for books and look for audio, music, snippets, whatever. So when I walk into a store, if I walk into a record store, I'd quickly go by and say, maybe that record will sound good. That book may be good. And my thinking was always, a book is always judged by its cover. No matter what. I mean, I just look at a book, I look at a record, and I said, this looks really cool. Wish you were here. I mean, if you look at the way artists actually present themselves, you know, a writer has, you know, the monk who sold his Ferrari. I mean, it's an interesting title. I mean, I don't know what the content of the title is. I may not know the author, but I pick up the book. I think that experience somehow I see translating into today's startups and designers and thinkers because you are looking, you know, not looking at the under the covers, but you're projecting what is under the covers with what you see visually. Right. So that's my, you know, not take up too much time, but I think that's where I come from. And we'll talk a little bit more what I'm doing and how I'm applying some of those principles in my work today. Right. Yeah. And if you can highlight on startups with design founders, what's your take on that? I mean, I really think, see, I have a company. I have three startups. Two I failed successfully. And one is moderately successful. There's a company called earth and glow. We do lighting for off grid terrains in India distributed solar. So we had to build design lights. We are designed the circuits and underneath we are a design. How users use the light. So when I went to villages, I figured out they need, don't need more than three to four hours of light, but how they use the light. And unfortunately it's not a digital experience. Mine is more physical where, you know, you have to design a light that works as a study light. It works as a torchlight that works as a ceiling light that works as outdoor light so they can see it. How do you come up with a design like that? Right. So I think design plays a critical role in startups today. Absolutely. But it starts from the customer experience. I mean, I went out to almost 150 villages throughout India, slept with the Knights, understood when they woke up, what, how much light they use, how much kerosene they used. And from that experience, you translate that and transform that into a product that they can use. The same applies in the digital domain too, right? So I think it's very, very important to stop for startups to actually think design from the customer point of view, even before you build a product. So your emphasis on experience, both physical as well as digital and the first impression, and that's what customers carry. Absolutely. I mean, he sees a light, you know, you take a light and you give it to him and suddenly it slips and it falls down and it breaks. Yep. Gone, right? You have one chance to kind of impress a customer and you go in and the light falls. So you should have done that stress test before you took the light there. Absolutely. And that's an experience. Okay. Thank you. Sri, from your perspective as a VC, digital transformation for you. I think the key word there is actually, so everything is digital, right? Our lives have become digital, right? Or digitized, binary, right? Very simple, in that sense. The problem is transformation, right? So what we've seen as a problem is digitizing the business, right? Not the concentration of transforming the business has not happened. I mean, not to say it has not happened, but very less of it has happened, right? To me, this whole process, you know, I have this, the D's that I call, right? This is a discovery, then the diverge, then define, sorry, decide, then define, and only then decide, right? And then comes development. What has happened? If you see the majority of the startups, you know, usually it's from the other end, right? Develop. They have developed, and then they say, hey, we need a designer, right? And then once the designer comes in and you find a different perspective to it, and then we say, oh, now we have to redefine this thing, right? And then there is this whole decision process that happens, right? And suddenly they diverge because they've lost their core goal here, and then they discover that, you know, they're a successor or failure, right? So if you take that path, you know, the first path is what would work, and the other is not. Now, for this to happen, you know, the discovery phase, I think, you know, we'll talk about it later also. So the number of originals out there, very less, right? And the scope for an original is also very less. Let's accept it, right? So then what is key is how are you going to create that difference, right? From what is there, this is what you are trying to do. For that, you need to actually spend a lot more effort in the first phase of the discovery or the understanding phase as far as the digital thinking process is concerned, right? Which is good to go look at all your competitors, potential competitors, look at other businesses that have a similar structure, right? See what you can borrow, look at things that you want to copy blatantly. Look at things that you like and you want, things that you don't like and you don't want. So you clearly have decided what you want as far as your end product is concerned. And only then you will figure out what to do with it. Okay, so if you would allow me to place you in a spot, unplanned question, given the being a VC yourself and we're talking about multitude of startups out there, if you have to put your bet on startups with design thinking principles in it, would that be one of your primary take points? Would you say so? Just a disclaimer here. So I don't focus so much on the investment part of it, right? So I focus more on the development part of it. But I can answer that question, right? So the thing is that as far as Axel and this, I can talk for Axel, right? Axel bets on founders. Long expertise in the field for Axel. So Axel bets always on the founder, the clarity of thought on the founder. The first investment has to come from the founder. Now for that to happen, the founder has to come and when he's making that pitch, you are gauging the founder on how much he has understood the problem, not what he's going to build with it, right? That can happen. You can build a team, you can build technology, you can innovate technology, you can invent technology, right? But in your mind, have you gone through this entire exercise? And that's actually, it's designed, I think we shouldn't kind of narrow it into the sketch and those kind of things. But if you look at the entire process of starting to put the empathy part of it, to put yourself in the users, your final customers, please look at how is this going to work for you. So from a VC, that's actually very important. Brilliant, thank you. Nitin, yes. So I think in my view, digital transformation is still not started in India. Only maybe 5-10% done. Digital transformation to me is solving basic problems for masters, right? It's making schemes, facilities, services available in tier 2, tier 3 cities, where the growth is coming from. So it's very, very important. Design thinking can play a huge role in making products and services better. But at the same time, in India, designers are not being valued a lot, right? We hardly see startups who have design co-founders. And not to be blamed, I blame each and every person in this room, including all the panelists, because very few of us have taken that courage to go out and start something of our own, including me. So that has to change. We have to lead from front to make the difference. Then only it can happen. Otherwise we'll keep having a situation where somebody will come and say, hey, there is a great technology which we can do, and can you do a UI or visual design for it? And that's a sorry state, but things are changing. Things are changing for good. I'm sure many things have happened in the last 3-4 years. We have seen some fantastic startup design co-founders and startups in India. I've been asked not to name a few, but very good food tech startup has been done by a designer. Very good travel startup has been done by a designer. But if you count, you can count the top five just like that, and there are hundreds. So yeah, the request and the advice is to go out and do more of it. It gets your hand dirty because there is no best time to be a designer right now. So the other part of the question is that how can we play a better role? Yeah, design thinking to amplify. I'll take where the gentleman stopped. So, you know, the customer empathy is something which has to play a huge role in terms of making startups successful. You know, we can't design sitting in offices. We have to go out regularly, validate the product at a recent stage, and then keep writing improving. That is very, very important. Many times designers and design function don't get that budget, but it's taken in a problem. You have to, you know, pitch in, show what it can deliver, and then maybe do it. So yeah, play a customer role. I represent the customer within the company. Thank you, Nitin. So while you were just talking about it, there was a comment that Nitin made that designers, the value that the designers need to have, perhaps we are not seeing it. And I was looking at the audience, there were a few nods here and there. And that's the right time to point to Kranti here. He's been advising a lot of startups, 40 plus startups in the role as a lead designer, a design thinker. So while you would be answering the question on your view of digital transformation, do you agree to the fact or is it like it's the beginning of the way where designers' value is being realized? Your perspective, please. I'll come to the last part of it. First. Okay. No, I'll come to the last. Okay. So I think design provides context for transformation. Like for example, I could give an answer to this question and it could be out of context to this audience. So let me start with that. How many of you are designers? Two of us? Oh. So this is a design audience, right? So hence this answer. And that's the context of it, right? So continuing the thread that Nitin and Sri continued with, which is about putting the consumer in the center. They spoke about empathy. And about putting yourself in the consumer's shoes to understand their pain points, their problems, and therefore conceive a solution. I think all designers do that well. All of you know how to do this. Still, we don't succeed quite often. And here's why. The problem is not wearing somebody else's shoes. The problem is taking off your own before doing that, right? We continue to keep our shoes on while we wear somebody else's. So typically what you end up with sort of is a schizophrenic view, while your biases, your colored views remain. So the real skill to learn has been to unlearn what you already think you know about the problem. And for a designer, this has to be repeated multiple times, because you might work with different audiences. If you're just in one company, all your career, great. But typically you might work in different projects. You might work with different audiences. So the learning and unlearning seem to be a key skill. And that needs to be not just with the designer, but the designer needs to be able to teach this to the rest of the organization. Because otherwise you end up, the problem that he was saying, right? You end up talking to the walls after a point. Nobody's listening to what you're saying. You don't know how to communicate it. So one of the roles that I have seen designers play successfully in design-led startups is to be able to evangelize it internally, to be able to tell others why this is contextual, why this is accurate, and then be able to prove it, stand by it, by the virtue of your designs. So it is really that skill which is under the heading of empathy when it comes to design thinking, but it needs to be unwrapped a little bit. Otherwise that word becomes too large to hold. But it's really this contextual approach which makes it possible for companies to go and succeed. Coming lastly to the role of designers and sort of design-led founders. I think the reason we don't have that many design-led founder successes is because they just aren't enough designers starting companies. If they did, I think they would succeed. It just needs the same advice that more people need to be doing it. Like Ramana did, I started and successfully failed in a couple of startups. So it's worth the effort. You learn a lot. It's more than anything you can learn in books or working. It's sort of a fast track MBA in some sense. You learn it really rapidly. But the role does come down, I think, to be able to also learn the language of translating design both internally within the company in terms of the ROI of design. Why does it make sense? But also in terms of translating consumers to say why this is better than that. Consumers see it more intuitively but internally it needs to be communicated. So I think the designers need to learn to be better communicators. And that is verbal communication. Okay. Now that's very distracting for me. I can't help it. It's an interesting challenge. I would request another 10 minutes if possible. Not more than that. Five minutes. Okay. Fine. We just started. So jumping topics here. We've been hearing about companies where a lot of leaders thinking that we need to look at startups to address the local challenges, which is important. We all understand. But then imitation of successful ventures in another geography is quite obvious. It's inevitable. It is sure to happen. We'll keep the debate on should we imitate or not on a separate note. But then if we are looking at a possible replication, we already have the equivalent of Airbnb's and Uber's here in India. If some of them wanted to sort of replicate what's really happening in a geography to a geography like India, what would be the role of design thinking in it? The key message that you would give to some of the design thinkers here for that. Maybe I can start with Ramana again. Every element of design starts with a problem. So if you have something that's working really well in the US, obviously they have, and successful is because they have solved a problem successfully that pertains to that geography and that terrain. So there's nothing wrong in bringing similar solutions to our country, but it should match a problem. There's no point bringing technology from the US and putting it down here, building designs from there and pushing it on to people when it doesn't fit. So it has to have cultural relevance. It has to have geographical relevance. And it has to solve a problem that is probably at the hyper-local level and then has the ability to scale much larger. That's what I would say, right? But there's nothing wrong. I mean you see music being ripped off, movies being ripped off. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But the essence is that it has to appeal to the emotion. I'm talking of entertainment, right? So it appeals to an emotion so you can take a movie, you can bring it down here and localize it and it works. But if it doesn't appeal to the emotion, it bombs, whether it's music. Same thing in design thinking too, I think. Thank you. Any one of you need to respond to that? Simple, adopt and adapt. Adopt and adapt, okay. Just having coffee and talking about this is that think of the real-world adoption, right? You take a kid, right? Now let's say you adopt an American kid, right? Who's four years old, or five years old. And then bringing that kid up in the Indian context is important. It's going to be a lot of work, right? Because there's a lot of learning that kid has already gone through like four or five years. That's exactly how you could translate that here. You could bring that thing here, but look at what are the other constraints that will not allow that particular product to survive the way it did in the year. Perfect. So we will take one audience question, one audience question, but one word of advice before that from each of you in adjectives for the designers here would be what maybe we can start from Kranti. If you're a design founder, only advice, persist. Don't give up. Fantastic. Persist, don't give up. Nathan? Design thinking is not for only designers for everybody. It's a culture more than a process. So make sure that you are an advocate in the company to make it in process. The good and bad procrastinate. Procrastinate, okay. Interesting. Well on it. Okay. Thank you. Ramna? I think the best designs come from people who actually understand the customer. I mean, if you focus on the customer and the customer experience, you probably will come up with an awesome design, right? Okay, fantastic. I think it's a problem with everybody, right? Even a technology guy is not a, you know, designer and a business guy is not a technology guy or a designer. So you have to have a right partners along with you to make a startup and compliment rather than, you know, only leading. What we are saying in the panel is saying that, you know, start, but we are not saying that start alone. Start with right complimentary skills, right? Don't four designers starting and you're not complimenting each other and having only one knowledge of one skill doesn't matter. There is one company in the world that is exclusively bounded by two designers. There are no other brands. Any company where there is a designer, it's not just a designer. So let's accept it, right? And there are our weaknesses. We understand what our business is. Perfect. We don't understand what our business is. Post-op business. All right. But you have to. Okay guys. So we would have continued in the interest of time. We have to stop it here. Thank you. If I may request the panelists to be available outside for any one or two questions because I'm sure a lot of energy is here. Thank you so much guys. Next we have Mr. Kranti. Next we have Mr. Srivani Krishnan. Next we have Mr. Ramana. Thank you so much guys.