Ahmedabad Design Week-ADW 2021 ‘Toy’ing to make India the Global Toy Hub

Inspired by the clarion call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing his heartfelt desire to make India the global hub for toy production and urging all Indians to go Vocal for Local toys, the second edition of Ahmedabad Design Week (ADW) is being launched with the core theme,’Toy’ing with Design.

Ahmedabad Design Week is a neutral and non-commercial design festival event which is annually curated by Unitedworld Institute of Design with a sole purpose of networking and knowledge exchange between designers, academicians and students across India. This is the 2nd edition of Ahmedabad Design Week, which evolved from the India Design Confluence organised by Unitedworld Institute of Design in 2018.

Scheduled from 3rd to 7th February 2021, Wednesday to Sunday, the ADW 2021 has the potential to create many landmarks in toy design when the best of innovation and skill in toy design meet. With the core theme, Toy Design ADW 2021 intends to bring traditional toy makers and modern toy makers under a single platform. Such an effort has the potential to create many landmarks in toy design when the best of innovation and skill in toy design meet.

Addressing the nation in his radio broadcastMann kiBaat, ShriModi had said that toys augment activity, and also give flight to our aspirations. Keeping with this fervent desire to augment the concepts of ‘vocal for local’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ ADW 2021 will work on collaborations with various Indian toy makers, artists and industries to promote indigenous toys eventually taking a step towards helping everyone being Atmanirbhar and encourage the vision of Make in India.

ADW shall be reaching out to 15,000 school students, 15,000+ design students, 2,000 design faculties and 2,500 professionals from the design industry.

The proposed activities at ADW2021 are,

·       Speaker Session

·       Virtual Workshop

·       Toy Exhibition

·       Design Competition

·       Paper Presentation

ADW 2021 shall be reaching out to 15,000 school students, 15,000+ design students, 2,000 design faculties and 2,500 professionals from the design industry. It aspires to be a platform that augment the designs students’ capabilities to think toy creation, and, over the period of four days, laid out a comprehensive programme involving the best of design minds of India as well as the world with a noble intent to foster toy thinking.

Besides the above, ADW 2021 also intends to foster the rich tradition of local toys of India by inviting participation and discussion with toy makers from local clusters of India. Some of these toy clusters are from where expert toy makers are expected to share their wisdom are Channapatna in Ramnagaram in Karnataka, Kondaplli in Krishna in Andhra Pradesh, ThanjavurinTamilnadu, Dhubari in Assam, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and from our very own Gujarat, Idar, Mahura, Patan & Kutch.

Among the events laid out at ADW 2021 are

·       Design

·       Culture

·       Stories

·       Artificial Intelligence

·       User Experiences

·       Marketing tactics

·       Digital design and opportunities

·       Networking and Knowledge sharing

Besides this, the focus areas during the five days of the Design Week would be

·       Expert Sessions / Lecture Sessions withpeople of national and international repute

·       Workshops by Design stalwarts

·       Toy Design Competition

·       Design Paper Presentations

·       Technology & Design

‘Team up for toys’ is the motto that would be driving Ahmedabad Design Week 2021 as we all collectively share the dream of young childrens’ childhood blooming and smiles erupting as they play with toys made in the future’s global hub of toys, India.

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