Our Pre-event in Pune (in 2017) was DesignUp’s first event outside Bangalore and our first pre-event. The half-day event at the Hyatt had hands-on workshops, a lavish spread over tea/coffee and eclectic talks.
Scalefactor, a Pune based Consulting firm, kicked off the event with a workshop on bringing design thinking, systems thinking and lean principles together to effect sustainable outcomes and systemic change. In 2018, the content of this popular workshop was revised and ran in several event formats.
Guru Vaidya conducted a parallel session for attendees to brush-up on their technical skills. Using Adobe XD, he helped folks learn how to make interactive prototypes for review or validation.
More attendees joined us for the talks and the evening high-tea.
The lavish spread with Pune specialities complemented the tea and conversations.
Manoj Kothari, Director & Chief Design Strategist at Turian Labs, Cofounder- Zepplers (extreme right) – took us through his understanding of how design and designers have evolved, and what careers would mean in the times to come (and if algorithms will actually take away our jobs). One of his predictions (watch out): Poets will be far more employable in the future.
Aakanksha Gaur – Product Manager at Wingify – was up next, she spoke about the jobs-to-be-done framework and why she feels designers will still be very relevant and employable in the future. Drawing parallels with former tech waves, she spoke about how solutions come and go and new jobs emerge.
The involved audience – of students and professionals, had a lot of questions after every talk
Sharad Baliyan – ex-Adobe, and then Head of Products at an educational startup, spoke about the disruptive Blockchain technology and how it’ll impact not just design or designers but even larger, deep set institutions (and therefore who we work for and how we work). Sharad spoke about how it isn’t hard to imagine that one day blockchain tech replace the Election Commission.
To conclude Jay Dutta – Founder & Curator DesignUp – wrapped up the evening with an overview of DesignUp’s journey and its vision. The speaker’s dinner followed, with members from ADI Pune – Bala Mahajan, Ashish and Ashwini Deshpande joining in.
