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Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Sam Pitroda, born in Titlagarh, Orissa, India, is an inventor, entrepreneur and policymaker. Currently chairman of India's National Knowledge Commission, he is also widely considered to have been responsible for India's communications revolution. He is the Chairman and CEO of World-Tel Limited, an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) initiative. He holds many key technology patents, has been involved in several startups, and lectures extensively around the world on the implications of communications and information technology. Ric Edinberg, recent MDes graduate of the ID-IIT, Chicago, spoke to him personally over the phone.

DesignwithIndia had the opportunity to interview him to share his thoughts on design and the future of India. And here's a snippet,

Question: Mr Pitroda, you have extensive experience with the user centered design methods and tools that the Chicago school promotes through your position as member of their Board of Trustees.

Can you share with us your vision of how India's design community can apply design thinking, design research as well as tools and methods in order to best effect positive change in India and add social and economic value? Also, What key 5 areas do you see as priorities for India to focus on for social and transformation design initiatives?

Sam: In my perspective, before we can look at the priority areas to focus on, we must first take a closer look at the challenges that face India today. These can be broadly summarized into three areas:

1. Disparity
2. Development
3. Demographics

Our nation is well known for one of the most obvious and gaping divides in disparity of income for the majority of the population, 550 million of whom are under 25 years of age, versus the very few who are rich in any currency standards. Our nation also requires high speed development - not only economic, but also social, educational and skills – this is our future workforce, we must provide development opportunities; we must focus on empowering them. What India must do is invest in the future, face the enormous human resource development problem and find solutions within our principles of democracy for all and the multiplistic perspectives of our diverse nation.

Our priorities for India can be identified as follows:

• Knowledge
• Infrastructure
• Institutions

Therefore we must look at the challenge of developing our nation’s resources – the youthful population who are our future. The basic need is education, across all linguistic and social barriers, around the nation. At every level, there is a gaping void in terms of infrastructure required and numbers of teachers to meet the demand.

Read the whole interview here.