The Global Design Organization, What Design Can Do (WDCD), Makes its South Asian Debut with the Launch of WDCD Live Delhi 2025
New Delhi [India] November 5: What Design Can Do (WDCD) is hosting its first-ever event in South Asia, WDCD Live Delhi 2025, at New Delhi's India Habitat Centre. This groundbreaking festival brings together designers, innovators, and changemakers to address the most urgent challenges of our time: climate action and social change. In partnership with The Design Village, Unbox Cultural Futures and Quicksand, WDCD Live Delhi 2025 explores innovative and regenerative solutions for a fairer and more resilient future.
The event comes at a critical time, as India faces increasing climate-related challenges: India is the largest plastic polluter, coastal communities are threatened by rising sea levels, unpredictable monsoon patterns disrupt agriculture, and intensifying heat waves endanger millions, among other crises.
“We're very excited about What Design Can Do coming to Delhi. The climate urgencies we face as a region require a uniquely local response as much as it require collective global action. Any effort towards climate action must factor in the social, economic, political, and cultural nuances of South Asia. WDCD has, over the last decade, created a powerful global platform for designers and the wider creative community to demonstrate the power of design in addressing issues of climate justice and social equity. This is an incredible opportunity to center the voices and imaginations of creative changemakers from India and the South Asian region. As design practices that have worked on issues of social impact over the last two decades in the Global South, Quicksand and Unbox are honored to co-produce this festival with WDCD”, said Ayush Chauhan, Co-Founder — Quicksand.
“The planetary climate crisis calls for spaces of joint action and urgent collaborative efforts, WDCD’s Delhi inaugural edition intends to foster a collective, a community of stakeholders passionate to take charge of these key and critical themes for change, resilience, and social justice”, said Sourabh Gupta, Founder of The Design Village.
This year’s festival will dive into some of the most challenging environmental and social issues of our time, as well as the threads that connect them:
1. Circular Planet: Design for a Regenerative Future
Can we envision a world where the cycles of nature inspire the way we design, produce, and consume? By drawing inspiration from Indigenous traditional practices and knowledge systems that have been long grounded in circularity, we invite designers to rethink materials, energy, and infrastructure in a way that can lead to solutions that not only meet human needs but also restore the health of ecosystems.
2. The Power of Community: Design through Radical Collaboration
This theme calls for radical collaboration across all sectors—policymakers, local communities, creatives, investors, and industries—to deliver impactful solutions where they are needed most. Together, we will explore how design can help reconnect people, amplify underrepresented voices, and create opportunities for healing and learning.
3. Rethinking Technology
Amidst the rapid rise of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, creative practitioners, curious by nature, are not afraid to experiment with new tools and processes, and many increasingly turn to them in their search for solutions.
The one-day festival, backed by Global Methane Hub and Rockefeller Foundation, explores creativity's role in climate action. Connect with global innovators through talks, workshops, and performances.
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