By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 17 Dec: CII organised its 1st Virtual Himalayan Design Summit for the Northern Region covering Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir, today.
Sudhir Chandra Nautiyal, CEO, Uttarakhand Handicraft & Handloom Development Corporation (UHHDC) & Director, Industries, shared the design initiatives taken by the state government to make the state’s products better and also to increase earnings of the artisans. He spoke about the development of better products using local natural fibre, nettle and ringal, and about the good demand for nettle jackets and ringal lamp shades. He further informed how the state government is helping artisans by selling their products on the Himadari online portal and Amazon Karigar stores.
Dr Vijay Dhasmana, Past Chairman – CII Uttarakhand State Council, and Vice Chancellor, Swami Rama Himalayan University, in his welcome address mentioned that a lot needed to be done in the areas of innovation, policy framework, right infrastructure with zero impact on ecology, design and development of creative industries and entrepreneurship in the mountain states and Union Territories. The focus has to be on sustainable innovations and designs with strong research and development.
“Design of Marketing is important for positioning of any innovative product among people”, said Sonam Wangchuk, Co-Founder, Himalayan Institute of Alternatives (HIAL) and Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), as the key speaker at the 1st CII Himalayan Design Summit: Northern Region held today. He shared how a large company positioned its car for the poor and failed badly due to wrong marketing design. He apprised about his new design and innovation Solar Earth Buildings and solar pre-fab structures being built using local ancient material, with zero energy requirement, sustainable for the mountain regions and are being positioned for the upper class initially and later on for the poor once the culture develops for better acceptability. He explained how basic science can be put to use in everyday life for making innovative products, systems, which is being taught to students in his school SECMOL. He further spoke about his other innovations like Ice Stupas for meeting water requirement, building blocks using stubble from Punjab and clay from Ladakh, naturally solar heated buildings, among others. He shared his message for reducing carbon footprint to the delegates to live simply in the cities so that people on the mountains can simply live.
To position India as a Global Design Hub and to stimulate Indian industry to invest in design as a key component for increasing competitiveness, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has been pursuing multipronged strategies in promoting the value of design and leveraging its capability to accelerate economic growth for the last 19 years. As part of this initiative, CII organised the 20th India Design Summit which is ongoing since 11 December, 2020. As a part of this, the 1st edition of CII Northern Himalayan Design Summit was held today.
Prof Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, stated that they had a Design Innovation Centre while primarily addressing the relevant problems of the Himalayan region. He expressed that local problems couuld be addressed through partnerships and the centre has three partner institutes– Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kashipur, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand (NITUK) and GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology (GBPUA&T).
While moderating the session on Design Innovation & Sustainability, Prof Manisha Mohan, Dean, Department of Design, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, shared that Design and Innovation can play a very crucial role in the Northern Himalayan Region for ensuring enabling and eco-friendly infrastructure; green manufacturing practices; and entrepreneurial opportunities to the local youth.
Other speakers at the session included Sonam Tashi Gyaltsen, Founder, Ecostream, Anupam Joshi, Senior Environmental Specialist, Word Bank and Saurav Choudhary, Associate Counsellor, CII Indian Green Building Council.
The sessions in virtual mode were well attended by over 250 delegates from Industry, Institutions, Government and Academia.
