Global South Design Summit · 13–15 November 2026 · HCD Labs Campus
Where the majority world designs its future.
Two days of debates, symposia, and cinema on how design thinking — across economy, engineering, frugality, and public policy — will transform the Global South.
Co-hosted by HCD Institute and the Design Innovation Centre, HCD Labs
The Global South is not adopting design. It is redefining it.
The dominant design frameworks of the last two decades were built for resource-rich, formalised markets. Most of humanity does not live there. Most of humanity lives amid informal economies, stretched institutions, and infrastructure that arrives intermittently — and it is precisely there that the most consequential design of this century is happening.
UPI moved a billion-person informal economy onto real-time payments. Community health workers redesigned the unit of healthcare delivery itself. Frugal engineering turned cost from a constraint into a method. These are not adaptations of Western practice — they are a design tradition of their own, rooted in lineages like India's National Institute of Design and the pedagogy of Prof. M P Ranjan.
The Global South Design Summit convenes the researchers, practitioners, students, policymakers, and filmmakers building this body of knowledge — to argue it, document it, and set its agenda. Not a conference about the Global South. A summit by it.
Four tracks · One argument
Design thinking in every dimension of the majority world
Call for papers · Open now
Present your work at the Summit
We invite speakers, researchers, practitioners, and students to submit papers and presentations within the four tracks. A dedicated student category recognises the best original research by undergraduate and postgraduate scholars — presented live on Day 2 and honoured at the Sunday Night Showcase.
Step 1
Submit an abstract
300–500 words stating your question, method, and argument — mapped to one of the four tracks.
Step 2
Hear from the committee
The programme committee of HCD Institute and DIC HCD Labs reviews submissions on a rolling basis.
Step 3
Present at HCD Labs
Accepted papers are presented in track symposia; the strongest join the debates and the Showcase.
The programme · 13–15 November 2026
Two days of argument, framed by cinema
The Summit opens with the Global South Film Festival on Friday evening, runs through two days of debates and symposia, and closes with the Sunday Night Showcase & Dinner on the HCD Labs campus.
Global South Film Festival — Opening Night
- Inaugural screenings: cinema of the majority world — stories of constraint, ingenuity, and everyday design
- Curtain-raiser conversation: what cinema teaches design about the Global South
- Open to all summit delegates and the HCD Labs community
Debates & Symposia — The Argument
- Opening keynote: Designing for the Next Six Billion
- The Great Debate I: 'Western design frameworks cannot solve majority-world problems' — for and against
- Track symposia (parallel): Economy · Engineering — invited papers and responses
- Practitioner panels: builders of digital public infrastructure, frugal engineering, and community health systems
- Evening: Film Festival screenings continue — documentary strand
Papers, Resolutions & The Showcase
- Student paper presentations — the next generation's research on the Global South
- Track symposia (parallel): Frugality · Public Policy — invited papers and responses
- The Great Debate II: 'The most valuable design knowledge now flows South to South'
- Closing plenary: a shared agenda for Global South design research
- Sunday Night Showcase & Dinner: best paper awards, film festival honours, closing address, and dinner under the Deccan sky
Global South Film Festival
The Summit begins in the dark.
Before the papers and the podiums, cinema. The Global South Film Festival opens the Summit on Friday evening, 13 November, with features and documentaries from across Africa, Asia, and Latin America — films that show, rather than argue, what life and ingenuity in the majority world look like.
Screenings continue through Saturday evening, and the festival's honours are presented at the Sunday Night Showcase & Dinner — where filmmakers, researchers, and students close the Summit together.
Filmmakers: write to dic@hcd.institute to submit your film for the festival programme.
Who the Summit is for
Five communities, one table
Co-host
HCD Institute
Democratising human-centred design in India since 2011 — across schools, universities, professionals, and government. Rooted in the NID lineage and the Design Concepts and Concerns pedagogy of the late Prof. M P Ranjan.
Co-host
Design Innovation Centre, HCD Labs
The Summit's home. The DIC advances design research and innovation at one of India's premier institutes of technology — hosting the debates, symposia, screenings, and the Sunday Night Showcase on the HCD Labs campus.
Bring your argument to Hyderabad.
Papers, films, partnerships, and delegate registration — one address for all of it. The majority world is writing its design agenda; add your page.
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