People

Virkein blends deep strategic thinking with creative execution, delivering results that connect, resonate, and drive meaningful change. She helps businesses, creative agencies, and social impact organizations navigate complex challenges and unfamiliar contexts with ease, particularly where diverse stakeholders are involved. Virkein trained as an architect from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. More about Virkein here.

Nalin has a unique view on how entrepreneurs need to be supported. Since 2016, he has helped build a scalable model to develop startup ecosystems across the Global South (via a combination of accelerator programs, industry decarbonisation deployment programs, seed to pre series A funding platforms, and entrepreneurship education, with an underlying focus on growing a global climate-tech entrepreneurs community). Nalin has a MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures from the Imperial College London, and a B.Tech (Mechanical) from MNIT Jaipur, India.

INCLUSIVE IMAGINARIES

A guide to harness civic imagination that can catalyse forward-looking policy making.

Inclusive Imaginaries is a toolkit to utilize collective reflection and imagination to engage with citizens towards building more just, equitable and inclusive futures. It seeks to infuse imagination as a key process in developing forward-looking policy that can contribute to thought leadership in re-aligning methods for policies, projects and programming to be adaptable to the continually changing needs of people and their contexts. The tools are designed to support facilitators to acquire more locally driven, and culturally contextual visions for policy and programme development.Developed for the Strategy, Policy and Partnerships (SPP) team at UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBAP).The Inclusive Imaginaries Toolkit and Report sharing learnings from the pilot are available for download here.

RAJBAGH SILK FACTORY

Integrated Development and Revival of the Silk Industry in Jammu and Kashmir

Research and strategy for re-development of the Govt. Silk Factory, Rajbagh, Srinagar, conducted for a conservation and adaptive re-use project by CRCI (India) in JV with andBLACK Design Studio.A multi-stakeholder mapping and assessment across silk industry, craft, culture, agriculture and livelihoods domains in Jammu and Kashmir was carried out, to strategise and design an intervention program at the site. Through field studies and stakeholder consultations, a complex inter-dependent Silk value chain was identified, assessment of gaps and impacts documented, and subsequently an integrated systemic approach for regeneration of the Silk Industry has been proposed.Project was part of the World Bank supported Jhelum Tawi Flood Recovery Program for Jammu and Kashmir Industries Ltd.

SPACE10 - DELHI

SPACE10 is a design and research lab based in Copenhagen. Delhi was their first satellite space and learning outpost, set up with a mission to gain new knowledge and diversify their perspectives - by gathering designers, technologists, artists, architects, academics and entrepreneurs under one roof to explore how design and emerging technologies can create a better everyday life for people and the planet. We developed a strategic programme and facilitated partnerships for SPACE10 Delhi.
more here. (Photo by Sheena Dabholkar)

VATAPI

2 computer controlled lights | kinetic sculpture | water

Vatapi lies at the intersection of art and science, drawing on the transformative qualities of light and the infinite capabilities of reflection. As a constellation of sculpture embedded within a site, Vatapi re-imagines perspective outside of cartesian geometry, and explores ways in which we view our physical world. Co-created with artist and architect, Vishal K. Dar.
(Photo by Aakanksha Kapoor)
watch the trailer.

POWER OF SEEING

A learning toolkit for children to transform neighbourhoods into classrooms

Power of Seeing takes children on an exploratory, self-driven journey through their neighbourhoods, with the aim to sensitively connect them to spaces they occupy and enable their participation as citizens in the building of resilient future cities.It comprises a learning toolkit that aims to bridge disconnected parts of a child’s world- the physical spaces that their bodies navigate and the inherent space of imagination and creativity, by using the neighbourhood as a subject and journaling as a learning method. It is designed to incrementally deepen the level of engagement of children with their neighbourhood, broadening the connections to the city and the complex systems that govern it.The toolkit is under development, with partners- Navtej Singh Johar- dancer, choreographer, yoga exponent, scholar and founder of Studio Abhyas; and Amritha Ballal - architect, urbanist and founding partner at Space Matters.

CLIMATE INNOVATION LAB

Strategy and design to develop and build a network of multi-national enterprise-support organisations to help grow climate tech startup ecosystems in key countries across the global south.

BUILDING CAPABILITIES OF HUMANITARIAN INNOVATION MANAGERS

Scoping Report on building skills and capabilities of Innovation Managers at ELRHA

ELRHA is a leading global charity finding solutions to complex humanitarian problems through research and innovation, headquartered in London. Aligning with Elrha's commitment to Delivering Transformative Innovation in the Humanitarian System, we partnered with Quicksand Design Studio to analyse, reflect and recommend action towards - enhancing innovation practices to shift from a focus on tools to competencies; adopting non-linearity and plurality in processes; inducing systemic change and interaction between systems; and acting towards inclusion and participation that is cognisant of inherent power and governance structures in their Humanitarian Innovation programs. The Report is available for download here.

STUMBLE

An incubator and gathering to build better creative futures, together

The starting point for Stumble was a conversation with Roshan Abbas, imagined as gathering that brought together creators, brand makers and creative evangelists. It envisioned to become an incubator for creative entrepreneurs to discover new ideas, people and connections.
It was shaped around the idea that creativity isn’t a straight path. Instead, it was about the in-between moments - the doubts, experiments, the unexpected conversations that sparked something new.The gathering has since evolved into a digital community anchored within Kommune with a focus on exploring and discovering the latest on consumer culture and the creator economy in India. stumble here.
Identity Design by The Brewhouse

TABLE RADICA

A Table | 30 Guests | Taster's Menu |
A Radical Life

An immersive experience of memoirs with food, found documents and music. Table Radica is a food table, an archival table, a listener’s table. It presents the stories of radical lives from Modern Indian Theatre, not just in ways that the world remembers, but also the strife, the precarity and the many vulnerabilities that led to the actions that made them radical. Co-created with Amitesh Grover. More on tableradica.com
(Photo by Radhika Agarwal)

JAGAH.SPACE

Building futures from the periphery with the city as a site for stories and imagination

A public access platform that share citizens' lived experiences to influence how we can re-imagine future cities to be humane and inclusive. The approach is rooted in listening without appropriation or translation, in order to view, experience and imagine citizen perspectives, who remain excluded from the city-making process. We intend to archive stories and narratives by people, who document their first-person observations and experiences in the cities they inhabit. Co-created with Amritha Ballal. More on jagah.space
(Work in Progress)

KAHANIYON KE GHAR

Spaces for Creative Encounters

As a response to the absence of a state-led ecosystem that supports artistic innovation and creativity, India is host to a dynamic, people-led movement supporting creative thought and action, within independent spaces.Kahaniyon Ke Ghar (The Homes of Stories) was a research project that documented independently-run innovative spaces for creative encounters in Indian cities. While the initiative was too early for its time, a crowd-sourced directory remains here.