HCD Policy Lab · The think tank of HCD Institute
Designing for the next six billion.
Most design frameworks were built for a small share of the world. HCD Policy Lab, the think tank of The Institute of Human-Centred Design, studies how human-centred design works in the rest of it: public services, schools, cities and governments across India and the Global South.
The argument
From designing products to designing systems.
The hardest problems people face are not products. They are services, systems and institutions. Designing them well, for people with different languages, incomes, abilities and access, is the work of the coming decades.
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Person
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Service
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System
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Institution
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Society
Research areas
Five questions our think tank works on.
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Public services & digital public infrastructure
How services reach people who are new to digital, on low bandwidth, in many languages.
Read: UPI, design at scale02
Education systems
Bringing design thinking and experiential learning into schools at scale, in line with NEP 2020.
Read: Design thinking & NEP 202003
Accessibility & universal design
Standards, audits and frameworks that make buildings, transport and digital services work for everyone.
Universal Access framework04
Design in government & diplomacy
What human-centred design brings to policy-making, public administration and foreign policy.
Read: Diplomacy by Design05
AI & people
Keeping people, not models, at the centre as AI enters public services and classrooms.
Our researchPublications
Read the work.
Essays and briefs from HCD Institute and our fellows.
- Designing for the Next Six BillionWhy design built for one part of the world fails in the rest of it.→
- Diplomacy by DesignWhat human-centred design brings to foreign policy.→
- UPI: human-centred design at scaleWhat a nation-sized digital public system teaches us about design.→
- Design thinking & macroeconomicsHuman-centred design applied to economic policy.→
- Design thinking & NEP 2020How schools can deliver the experiential learning the policy asks for.→
- Human-centred design examples from IndiaTen case studies from Indian public and private life.→
- What is human-centred design?Meaning, process and examples: our reference guide.→
Convenings
Bringing the right people into one room.
Summit
Global South Design Summit
Co-hosted with DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad. Designers, policy-makers and researchers from across the Global South.
About the SummitRoundtable
Nordic Blue Horizons
An Iceland-led roundtable on Nordic–Indian collaboration at Huddle Global 2026.
About the roundtableComing in 2027
The Next Six Billion: a podcast.
Conversations with the people redesigning public systems across the Global South. Season one is recorded at the Global South Design Summit.
How we work
An independent think tank, evidence-led, in the open.
Independent
Our research is ours. Partners and funders do not decide what we conclude, and we name them.
Evidence-led
Field research, real projects and long-term studies with DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad.
Open
We publish what we learn so others can use it.
Who's behind it
The people.
Dr Deepak John Mathew
Founding Board Member, HCD Institute · Professor, IIT Hyderabad · Nodal Head, DIC Hub
Mathew Sebastian
Founding Board Member, HCD Institute · Fellow, DIC Hub
Work with HCD Policy Lab