1. Global Social Venture Competition
Asia-Africa Regional Finals, March 08 - 10, 2012
Net Impact Symposium - Design Thinking
March 10, 2012

2. NET IMPACT SYMPOSIUM
DESIGN THINKING
Design thinking is a discipline that uses the designer’s IMRB Innovation Labs
sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is
We have partnered with IMRB Innovation Labs, a leading
technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy
innovation consulting practice, for this year’s symposium. At
can convert into customer value and market opportunity. It is a
the heart of Innovation Labs’ philosophy is ‘Design Thinking’ - a
human-centered approach, the ability to combine empathy for
problem solving approach that uniquely combines the power
the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights
of three very critical skills - Empathy, Creativity and Rationality.
and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the
Using empathetic creative problem solving skills, coupled with
context.
foresight and business strategy, Innovation Labs works with
organisations with short-term and future growth opportunities.
The team includes an eclectic team of professionals from varied
Relevance to Social Entrepreneurs
backgrounds - Futures (with formal training and expertise
A social entrepreneur commits himself to higher levels of in Scenario Planning), Business Strategy, Design Thinking,
complexity by embracing the double bottom-line concept. Industrial Design / Visual Communication, Design Ethnography,
Not only is he trying to solve a social issue but he is also and Innovation Consulting.
trying to generate profits to sustain his enterprise. Any social
Innovation Labs has been working with a variety of clients in
entrepreneur has to do the fine act of balancing these two
India, Europe and North America, across a variety of innovation
objectives.
projects that include
• Identifying disruptive innovation for rural telecom growth
• By understanding the approach of designers when they
try to solve a problem, social entrepreneurs will be able to • New product development for leading food / snack
invigorate their creative problem solving process to a new company
level
• Future opportunities in the Indian market, 5 years from
• Social Entrepreneurs face a multitude of issues on a day- now (using Scenario Planning and Design Thinking) for
to-day basis. These arise in diverse areas and are unique global technology firm
at the same time. Exposure to design thinking methods
• Service innovation in the financial services category
will help them come up with out-of-the-box solutions.
Innovation Labs won the Pepsico Marketing Impact award
for Retail Product Innovation in 2011.
The Design Thinking Symposium
This year, The Design Thinking Symposium is being hosted
alongside the Asia-Africa Finals of the Global Social Venture SPEAKERS
Competition (GSVC, 2012). Organised by the Net Impact
Parameswaran Venkataraman
Club at the Indian School of Business, The Design Thinking
Symposium 2012 will focus on Param is currently Head - Innovation Labs at IMRB, India’s
leading market research firm. Innovation Labs is an innovation
consulting practice, and specialist unit of IMRB International
(a) Exposure to the principles and process of design thinking
part of Kantar. Kantar is WPP’s insight, information and
and the process of identifying and developing innovation
consultancy network.
opportunities
(b) Relevance of Design Thinking to social entrepreneurs Over the last 15 years, Param has worn various hats -
Ethnographer, Innovation Consultant, User Researcher, Design
(c) Successful social entrepreneurs sharing how design
Manager - in companies such as Technopak, GE Healthcare,
thinking principles have been used to arrive at solutions
Sapient Corporation and Planetasia.com for the India / China /

3. US / UK markets. He specializes in using ‘Design Thinking’ as Nishant Banore
an Innovation tool, for addressing strategic business problems
Nishant is the Co-Founder and Managing Director at Desta/
and opportunities for organisations
Choices Prosperity Solutions. Desta is a for-profit, for-impact
Param has worked with clients across a wide range of business organisation that has a technology platform and a network of
problems focused towards the emerging markets - paint village managers to make available income generating and
purchase behaviour of women consumers, career management cost saving products and services in remote rural areas. With a
for an HR consulting firm, diabetes management for a strong focus on Agriculture, Education and Health, Desta aims
healthcare company, child immunization in rural India. to contribute significantly to rural prosperity.
Param is a member of the Executive Council for The Centre for Nishant is very passionate about researching and implementing
Emerging Market Solutions at the Indian School of Business, scalable solutions for poverty reduction. His other interests lie
Hyderabad. He has delivered several seminars, lectures with motivating youth to contribute to the development sector
and led workshops on Innovation and Design Thinking at via Net Impact and contributing to reduction in lifestyle diseases
ISB (Hyderabad), IIT-Kanpur, UK Design Council (London), via www.ialive.org . As the President of the Net Impact Chapter
Wellingkar School of Management, IIT-Madras and other at the ISB, he led the club to win the Best International
leading educational / corporate institutions. Graduate Chapter by launching strong programmes such as
iDiya (www.isb.edu/idiya), which is now a leading platform in
India to identify, mentor and make available seed funding to
Ashwin Mahesh new social enterprises. While at ISB, Nishant was honoured
Ashwin is the CEO at Mapunity, which develops technology to with the most prestigious award - Rajat Gupta Gold Medal for
tackle social problems and development challenges. Their GIS, Excellence in Leadership for outstanding leadership and all
MIS and mobile technologies are used mostly by government round performance.
departments and civil society organisations, and in the R&D
initiatives of commercial ventures. The company is incubated at
Rahul Paniker
International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.
Rahul is the Co-founder and President of Rural Products of
Ashwin wanted to be a physicist, instead went to business
Embrace, a social enterprise bringing to market a low-cost
school, but decided he’d be better off working harder on his
infant warmer that can work with or without electricity, for use
real passion. He then trained as an astronomer. This was a
in rural areas of developing countries. Embrace, which Rahul
lot more fun, since the world is much more livable at night.
co-founded with Jane Chen, Naganand Murty and Linus Liang,
Besides, he discovered a star - although an unimportant one
hopes to give a fighting chance to the millions of premature and
known only as ‘the companion to LkHα 234’. He then thought
low-birth-weight babies born every year through this device.
he should try something closer to earth, with a reasonable
chance of getting a job. This led to a decade spent as an Rahul loves people. At Embrace, his mission is to understand
atmospheric scientist studying clouds and snow in Antarctica, the rural user and their aspirations and translate their needs to
and also working on satellite-based detection technologies. products. His work has taken him through the many villages
and small towns of India, from Bhorugram in Rajasthan, to
These isolating professions could only be sustained by some
Bamni in Chattisgarh, to Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh,
parallel career, which has taken the form of public affairs and
where he applies his training in design thinking and the
development communication. He co-edits the public affairs
entrepreneurial approach he picked up in Silicon Valley. Rahul
magazine, India Together, and is an urban affairs researcher at
holds an MS and PhD from Stanford University, and a B.Tech
IIM Bangalore and with the Government of Karnataka.
from IIT Madras. He is an alumnus of the d.school (Institute of
Design) at Stanford.