Incubating the Revolution
The Limits of User Research
This piece is part of an on-going series of blogposts from the frontlines of Startup Tunnel, a new incubator based in New Delhi. You might also want to check out dispatches one, two, three and four. by Aditya Dev Sood Having commissioned a new suit of armor, the emperor Akbar was now in the process…
Lessons in Prototyping
When Startups Begin to Fail
This is the 3rd of a series of brief weekly pieces on the unfolding journey of a new incubator based in New Delhi: www.startuptunnel.com, @StTnL. Checkout earlier pieces in the series: Entering Startup Tunnel and What Makes an Incubator Tick? by Aditya Dev Sood Prashant and Ishita came to see me on Monday afternoon. We’re…
What Makes An Incubator Tick?
by Aditya Dev Sood It’s been three days and our eight teams are already up, pitching for their lives. Watching them from the front row is a series of mentors we’ve curated, from areas like branding, user interface design, product development, technology, business and investing. There’s a tug between the mentors and the startups underway…
Vanaprastha
India’s Innovation Path
The Aesthetics of Change
by Aditya Dev Sood I’ve been reading Gandhi’s writings off and on for several months now, but just last week I turned to Joseph Lelyveld’s recent book on him. I’d been thinking about the kind of attitude towards the present that Gandhi must have had, in order to undertake social change at such a spectacular…
Tughluq, Innovator
By Aditya Dev Sood One day the Sultan was looking from a turret window onto the city of Delhi and he no longer liked what he saw. These people were spoiled and unimaginative. Like the residents of every other large and imperial city, they reeked with the parochialism of the metropolis. Even before he became…
Natural History of the Game
Having a Literary Experience
by Aditya Dev Sood The plane shudders and groans, forcing me to look up. The rumble of the cabin has passed clear through my body, rattling my stomach. I give up trying to read, or even to think, allowing myself to acknowledge the inchoate signals emanating from deep in my bowels, rising up through layers…
The World That Is The Family
A Letter from Karavali
Love for the Meaning of Form
The Layman
By Aditya Dev Sood Brownian motion at a macro-scale. That's what my working week feels like these days. On Monday I flew from Delhi to Ahmedabad, the next day to Bangalore, a couple of days later to Patna via Calcutta. And now, after a tense hour's delay in Patna, while this decrepit Air-India plane was…
The Techno-Future and Pre-History of Toes
At the Intersections of Design, Ethnography and Global Governance
By Aditya Dev Sood At my table were two diplomats and a cultural researcher. My own role was designated as 'designer.' We were told that there was a post-conflict situation in an African nation where the U.N. had been called in. Local institutions and forms of self-governance had been eroded during the long and bloody…
Fashion as a Metaphor
Aditya Dev Sood Your correspondent has wrangled a place in the first elevated row, just behind the backless futons reserved for buyers. The Three Quarks Daily seat is adjacent to the New Indian Express (Calcutta) and The Man (monthly). Black bleachers cascade all along on either side of the runway. There are bells suspended above…