 Are you on Facebook? Okay, great. Stand up. Are you on Facebook, sir? Not on Facebook. Great. So, okay. Okay, you can sit down. How many of you on Instagram? Stand up. Instagram. Instagram folks, let's stand up quickly. Okay, great. Sit down. Sit down. Sit down. Okay, next. How many of you on Twitter? Twitter. Twitter folks, stand up. Stand up. Stand up. Twitter folks. People at the back, no one using Twitter. Okay, great. You can sit down. All right, last. How many of you on LinkedIn? LinkedIn folks, stand up. LinkedIn folks. Okay, I'm sure everyone is on LinkedIn, right? I'm expecting a lot of LinkedIn invites. Okay, great. Thank you. You can sit down. So, now that I have your attention, I've just tried to do my first exercise in building social capital, right? I have your attention, right? And this is something which I have been thinking about for a long time. And since a lot of you are on Facebook, okay, now we're going to show off hands. Okay, how many of you have more than 1,000 friends on Facebook? 1,000 friends on Facebook? Okay, 500 friends? Okay, 200 friends? Okay, 100 friends on Facebook? Okay, great. So, our notion of social itself has changed considerably in the world today, right? So, what I'm going to talk a little bit is our notion of social and, of course, social capital because I believe strongly that we as designers rely on this a lot, right? And so, that's my Twitter handle because I'm a pretty much active user. So, if you are tweeting, you can talk about that. I won't talk about this because the host has already mentioned that. What comes to your mind when you see this picture? All right, what comes to your mind when you see this picture? You can just shout out. Power T. Okay, what else? RTI. What else? Girl education. What else? What else comes to your mind? Come on, quickly. Future generation. What else? Pardon? Hope. Okay, you know what comes to your mind when I see this or when I was there? I was like, we keep talking about tablets and phablets and phones. This is the kind of tablets that these guys have. And it hits you. Reality hits you very hard because you realize that we are talking about design thinking, user experience, the next-pex experience for technology products, et cetera. And we have a huge community in India which is still living in rural population, which is still defecating in the open. I'm like, where are our priorities? Sometimes, you know, this is questions which just hits you so hard. Malnutrition. Almost close to 40% of children in India, right? Less than five years old, stunted growth, low motor skills. That's it. Backbencher for life. The amount of effort that really goes into trying to get that back to mainstream is huge after that. Under five years, many millions of children die every year in India. So these are some statistics data, but I think it's important. I mean, we talk about teachers. 1.4 million teacher shortages. Can we design something for that? 50% of students in class five cannot read a class two text. A simple paragraph of text. Don't believe me. Go to any rural school in India. Pick up any classroom. Give them a newspaper to read and you will get this reality check. They just don't read. Dropout rates. The government was very happy. We have close to 98%, 99% enrollment ratio in primary schools. By the time you go to high school, more than 40% dropouts. Where have we failed? What's happening? Why is there a problem? You know, we keep talking about let's bring technology solutions, let's get technology innovation, let's do user experience design, design thinking everywhere. What's the reality here? Something tells you a very different picture. 47% of girls in India married before they turn 18. And if you go to a place where we work, 69% child marriages, the marriages that happen in Bihar are child marriages, between like before 18 years of age. And these are some statistics which I keep reading about and it hits me more and more. And that was one of the prime forces why we started the whole happy horizon stressed work because we believe that there is a responsibility that we as designers have, that we in the design fraternity have to bring solutions and not think tech solutions and not think build the next best website or build the next best app and not think to have gesture interface based classrooms. It could be very simple solutions. But where do the solutions lie for this country which is filled with wicked problems? Yesterday we had the minister talking about traffic. Today I'm talking about education. Tomorrow someone will talk about poor healthcare. Somebody will talk about lack of water, et cetera, et cetera. And this is a question which me as a designer, having moved from doing design and services company to a product company to working in corporates to setting up a design school to eventually coming to this basic guiding force of the life, which is how can design really help? Because when design, we talk about design being a problem solving tool that has to be a solution to the problems that we spoke about as well. It cannot be only for the elite, the people who sit in the BMWs and the AC corporate offices and think that we have made the next best enterprise app. And of course, when you're dealing in these kind of situation that I told you, finding solutions is really tough. Trust me. It's tough. It's frustrating. It's depressing. And as we move to a more connected world, right? All of your smartphones? Yes? Smartphones? Everyone? Raise your hands. Smartphones? Okay, great. So we move to a more connected world full of gadgets and systems. We designers, we question the very foundation, right? How these new systems that we are building, can it solve a problem? And how can it have a long lasting impact? So this is this why I always call this I want to change the world fallacy because, you know, we often have this designers who come out of design schools and have this notion that yes, I want to, of course, change the world, right? But we have to be very realistic, because it's not very financially rewarding as well. Someone I keep talking to people that okay, I'm going to do a full time into my trust activity and at least five people in the conference between yesterday and today have asked me, how are you going to sustain yourself financially? Because it's not. Does that mean we stop thinking of solutions for it? No. We have to think of, of course, we are in the age of quick rewards, right? You swipe your credit card, 20 reward points. You go to a mall, 50 loyalty points. Get your patrol with Paytm, 100% cash back, immediate rewards. Can I see the reward in a child for primary school if I do a short term impact, immediate assessment of my rewards? No. So I have to think of a short term as well as long term impact. And if anybody in the room is really interested in thinking of solutions, which cater to this 70% population living in the rural areas, facing problems every day and every day in the lives, it's important that we think from this perspective. And I personally think seeking help from the social capital that we end up building is really helpful. So what really it is, right? It's a network of relationships amongst people who live and work in a particular society, enabling society to function properly, right? And this is what it is eventually because all design, all design solutions end up creating social capital. All of you familiar with this term called user-centered design, user experience. So the moment your design touches any user, you are eventually creating social capital. How do you take that as a real source of inspiration, of motivation for you to really build the next best product, which will solve a problem and have that long lasting impact as well? So for me, it's about reciprocity, trust and cooperation, right? And any solution that we're thinking about from the today's generation, we have to think on those lines. If you cannot engage in the trust of the user, you have lost them. If you cannot cooperate with the users, you have lost them. So what we effectively mean is that we now have more challenges for the designer, because now suddenly I'm exposing you to a new domain where probably it's not so fancy, it's not so financially rewarding, but still an open call to say that we need to have designers working in that space as well. So it's not, it's, you know, how we create large scale impact to our solutions. But these solutions have to be participatory in nature, because I believe you have to engage with that social capital that you've really built to create solutions, right? That engages all the different stakeholders. And of course, this is the fancy word that we all love, right? Experience. That doesn't have to be limited only to the 250 million odd upper class and upper middle class bracket of India. Of course, they deserve a good experience. It's for them as well. A child deserves a good experience when it goes to a school. A woman deserves the experience of going to a bathroom in a primary household in a state in India. It's as simple as that. So our definition of experience, you know, who are we designing for? Why is it important? Because, you know, we all need to ensure that good experience is for everyone. It's not just for us sitting in the room here, right? So as I said, all good design leads to social capital. And of course, at the end of the day, it is about enhancing user behavior, right? If your user starts using a product a lot, there is a considerable amount of user behavior over there, right? They have changed the user behavior. How many of you use Uber or Ola for that matter? Ola Uber? Yes. So I almost reduced my driving thing, my driving habit, like the amount of time that I was driving drastically. I've reduced it down to almost 10% now. If it's a distance of less than two kilometers, I will drive. If it's in the peak traffic time in Bangalore or Delhi, I probably even don't do that. I probably prefer to just walk. But a behavior has changed. When our products get so involved in our lives, we start to realize so much on that product that our behaviors change completely, right? For me, I believe social capital is critical for the social innovations, right? But this is something which our society was built historically. Our neighbors knew our neighbors. You know, we would know each other. I would really know, even to, not so much today in my village, but when I was growing up, I would know if four houses down the road, when there is non-veg cooked over there, or when they have some special kind of a sabzi made over there. We would know that because our societies were structured around there. Something changed. You know, the notion of social itself changed, of course, with the advent of all the social tools that we talked about. So effectively, if you're a design leader, this is what we're trying to address, right? How can technology, business, and design work together to take advantage or to leverage the social capital that we are really built, right? And leaders need to find ways to work with this social capital. It's not about, you know, just forgetting them when we need them, or as in the politician's term, when it comes to voting, that's what I remember. It's not that. But of course, there's some challenges, of course. Who are you designing for? We keep talking about user-centered design users. Who are you designing for? You know, the biggest irony of the smartphone is that it has made us anti-social, right? That's the biggest irony. Being human-centric, of course, is a challenge, you know, because the moment we think technology solutions, technology becomes a center. We need to get away from it and make technology as the enabler and not the center of all our design solutions. Of course, how do you keep all the different stakeholders happy is also critical. Need versus want. If I ask a designer out of a young designer out of grad school today, he might want to design the next best chair. But do I really want, do I really need a new chair? That's the question I need to ask, right? How do you identify the true problems that you want to solve as a designer? Especially in places where getting influenced is easy. I use a product. I like it. I'm very likely that I can tell you to somebody and that person will believe only on the basis of that trust that he has in my understanding of that product or solution. So I'll just give you a quick insight into the amount of the how we work with the social capital at the work that we do at the happiness and trust. So we try to use the social capital to work in education for development and this is the firm belief that you cannot build a skyscraper on a weak foundation. All of you agree? Would you go into a building which has a weak foundation and try to think of taking an office in a high rise? No, because the chances that business might, building might just collapse. And that's why we work a lot with primary school students because that's important for us, right? So of course how do we improve the quality? We believe you have to empower the local community, right? So to create local leaders are very important. And that's your first way of really finding, these are your banks of social capital, if I were to call it, right? These are your banks and they of course then outreach to other people who generate a lot of that social capital for you as well. Storytelling of course, no one, everyone likes a good story. I'm hoping you like the story that we are talking about here as well. Of course we talk about women empowerment a lot because the society cannot really progress without this, okay? We try to develop critical reasoning using activities on skills, skills enhancements, using design creativity, design thinking, book design workshops, crafts to enhance motor skills, new mediums of learning. So the joy of seeing a movie in the first time in your life, many kids face that. You know when we do this project called learning through videos, many kids would have never seen a movie ever in their life because of course movie watching is bad, right? That's what we are told when we're kids, isn't it? Sports, don't play because it's a waste of time. Movie watching, waste of time. Who goes to a movie? I remember I got whacked by my father when I went to watch, I think it was Dildo Pargale and some whenever it came out, all right? And of course this is important, so apologies for the type who I just noticed it right now. Technology when needed, you know not always, you have to really know when you really need to intervene with technology. And most importantly I think having that system design thinking to ensure that you, you know, include all different stakeholders within your work as well. I'll just share some quick learnings that we have had along the way, which is kind of a nice way to conclude on this whole concept, social capital. Design is not cosmetic work because at the end of the day, this is what a lot of people tend to believe. Are yaar iskona sundar banata, just make it beautiful. In fact I'm working on a book and it's called Make It Look Beautiful. Like it's a straight pun from, a lot of times I would get mails from clients who would say, we have done our work, we have built the product, can we just make it look beautiful? And, you know, design is not cosmetic work. They realize there's so much things that talks about process, etc., etc., to make looks. Building social capital is tough, as we have seen, trust takes time, right, especially. It takes a lot of time to build a trust. You have to understand the local thing, have a global perspective, but at the same time, you have to have that local approach in the work that you're doing. Sustainability, of course, is important. We're still trying to figure out how we're going to make that, but yeah, it's a process. Collaboration, as I said, open integration of anybody who is interested in collaborating. And we want to build inclusive solutions, right? It's important. At the end of the day, you'll be reflective about the work that you do. I mean, I'm talking to you, it's just an act of reflection. I'm basically reflecting upon everything that we do. We truly believe that the impact of our solutions is important, right? At the end of the day, of course, spare happiness because nothing is more satisfying. That's probably the genesis of our trust work name, is happy horizons trust as well. So if I got a dollar for every smile that we generated through our work, I'd be a millionaire by now. So design India, design for India, design for India, but design with India. I think that's the critical thing. It worked, by the way. Really appreciate what you're doing. So I was also in this space. I was also trying to do something, you know, but as you said, financially, it was not practical for me. And I'm sure everybody in this room wants to do something, but the only thing that stops them is the financial part. So how can we make this whole you know, think practical? How can we make the whole design community, you know, participate in this and at the same time, make it more practical? So yeah, great question. And as I said, you know, as you yourself said, probably many people in the room have the same question as well. I think it comes to more, you know, I could probably end up becoming more spiritual towards the answer to this question. It's the whole answer being how much is enough, right? And I personally believe that how much, so let's say you were to hire a person in Bangalore. How much do you think you'd pay him? Like for doing a general office work, something, maybe around 10 to 15,000 rupees. Here, I probably, because one thing which I personally believe in a lot is to you have to create local teams, right, wherever the thing is happening. And I found that answer that this was not really too much financially taxing for me, right? So of course you have your work which you're doing and I was still working. It's only post-February that I'm going to go full-time and be based in Bihar. But I personally feel that if you can just find that answer that how much is enough for me and I can really empower two, three people. So the core team that we have around 10 people team in Bihar. And it's not that financially expensive to kind of manage that 10 team. Having said that, I think you have to bring in the checks of, because we were monitoring them from Bangalore. We were earlier based in Bangalore. So monitoring them on a regular basis, giving them the tools that they can really interact with you regularly. And for any kind of social development work that happens, I think the base foundation is trust. And you have to have that trust. You have to show that trust. You have to trust that manager who is in Bihar who is trying to work. You have to trust the people who are there on the ground impacting the work. And I think that's an important part, because we often we don't rely the importance of trust. And of course the other side is the breach of trust, which is of course really not acceptable as well. But in social sector, especially the trust is very important. And especially when we're working with communities where a lot of NGOs have tried and a lot of NGOs are coming to work. This notion of trust is always the first thing that you really need to understand and address. So if people understand that you know, what is it? Whom do I trust? Because again, there are like tons of NGOs out there. If you don't want to start your own work, probably there are a lot of NGOs whom you can collaborate with or work with. And of course the infamous part of NGOs is not many are actually doing real work. A lot of them are just fake and working. And we get that question, we are evaluated by the lens on a daily basis. But I think the work that you show, the way you presented, the people you talk to, it has to reflect that honesty and trust in what you're doing. So I think that would be my, you know, short answer to that short question. Yeah, you're talking about making things ecologically sustainable, right? I was talking things about socially sustainable. What happens is what villages have become right now is a place from where people want to escape to the city. Because the city seems to be more rewarding, more money seems to come from the city. And better chances and better employment opportunities are at the city. So what happens is people do not want to stay at the village. People who stay back at the village are the ones who did not make it in the life, right? So how do we make it more socially sustainable? So that people would really want to stay back at the village. I see a lot of people right now with me. I mean, I've got my friends here as well who want to go back to the village because they've understood that they want to see. I mean, they want to escape the troubles of the city now. They want to go back to farming. I think many people have started doing that as well. So how do we encourage that kind of thought, that kind of emotion? So this is where someone talked about yesterday. I think it was in the second or third keynote session yesterday where they said that, you know, at the very top is you have to become a public speaker or you have to evangelize about the values of it. I met this one guy in Noida where I was working and he had come from a village near Banaras and in Banaras he was earning close to 6,000 rupees and saving around 4,000 rupees because he had his own home and his expenses would be taken care of. That's effectively he was saving 4,000 rupees. He left Banaras that village that Banaras town and he came to Delhi and joined a company which was paying him 10,000 rupees and effectively he was ending up spending saving only 2,000 rupees, right? Because the expenses go higher, right? Your transportation cost is higher, the producer is higher, et cetera, et cetera. And of course it comes with a baggage of stress and pollution and traffic jams and et cetera, et cetera. So the social quality of life really goes. So somewhere, I think a lot of us have to really understand that and spread that message in whatever way possible. And I think it's not just socially viable, of course, but socially as well as economically viability is also very important because of course you don't want to just you know, only base your like, see it's a very easy, I said, you know, that I want to change I want to change the world fallacy. You know, I won't, I feel that if I go back to the village I'll be able to create a lot of impact. May not be the right thing actually. So yeah, I think a lot of people need to understand that in whatever capacity if you don't want to move back to village fair enough but at least find ways in which you can contribute back to a problem because I feel this is something which really needs our attention. It's not that I want to do something, it's actually needs and where our effort should lie.