Chasing Impact: Greatest Hits (and Misses) | Ayush Chauhan | TEDxTDV
The speaker argues that successful design for social impact must navigate the tension between creating small, meaningful moments and responding to massive global disruption. Key lessons include prioritizing curiosity over immediate answers, understanding that design is an inquiry, and leveraging internal and external pluralism to find opportunities. The session concludes with a call for emerging professionals to "Collaborate deeply, stay curious, and embrace plurality." ## Speakers & Context - Unnamed speaker representing the firm **Quicksand**. - The presentation reflects on **20 years** of work in **design for social impact**. - The speaker addresses an audience, including students entering design and impact fields. - Contextual tension highlighted: The merger of the firm with **European partners** (global south practice joining global north firm) versus the sudden dismantling of **US aid** on **January 24th** of the current year. ## Theses & Positions - **Small is Beautiful**: Real impact is measured by small, thoughtful experiences that make people feel valued and seen, not just millions of lives saved. - **Small is Also Vulnerable**: Design for impact must thrive between the tension points of *beauty and vulnerability*, and *hope and disruption*. - **Design’s Role:** Design's primary function is to *build collaborations* by finding the overlap (common ground) between different actors' interests. - **Design as Inquiry:** Design is not the answer; it is part of the inquiry, requiring **curiosity**, **listening**, and **research** to understand underlying human motivations. - **Complexity Reflection:** Professional work and practice must reflect human complexity, rejecting artificial lines drawn between analytical/creative or personal/professional. ## Concepts & Definitions - **Design for Social Impact:** An approach focused on creating positive change using design thinking, which must balance visible "impact" with underlying human experience. - **Global South Practice / Global North Firm:** Describes the international scope of the firm's mergers and partnerships. - **Design's power in collaboration:** Creating space for people to *reflect, share ideas, [and] debate*—a rare privilege in bureaucratic organizations. - **Symptoms of Collaboration Difficulty:** Incentives not aligning (governments want stability; design demands disruption), Academia moving slowly vs. policymakers needing speed. - **"Therapists of Systems":** Role adopted by the practice; learning to diagnose, reframe, and listen to systemic problems rather than just suggesting superficial solutions. - **Curiosity:** The essential starting point for design, which requires asking *what motivates people* and *what holds them back* rather than immediately providing answers. - **Plurality:** Embracing the diversity of internal views/values (e.g., wealth creation vs. artistic expression) and external clients (philanthropic funder vs. mainstream bank). ## Mechanisms & Processes - **Collaboration Building:** Achieved by finding shared purpose and then creating tangible value that encourages other actors to build upon it. - **Process of Inquiry:** The mechanism that counters superficial solutions, ensuring that research (listening/curiosity) precedes design intervention. - **Impact Measurement Critique:** The failure of the **Great Washiatra** campaign demonstrated that spectacle and buzz do not equal sustained behavioral change without understanding root causes. - **Identifying Opportunity:** Holding diverse client worlds together (e.g., fertilizer company vs. farmer collectives) allows spotting opportunities that are otherwise unseen. ## Timeline & Sequence - **2012:** Time when the firm had the privilege of leading the massive sanitation campaign in India, called the **Great Washiatra**. - **Early this year (unspecified date):** The new US administration began dismantling US aid, creating a global crisis moment. - **Past 20 Years:** Span of the firm's experience, encompassing multiple crises. ## Named Entities - **Quicksand**: The speaker's design firm. - **European partners**: The entity with which Quicksand merged. - **Government of India**: Partner in the sanitation campaign. - **Philanthropic funder, mainstream bank, nonprofit working with disadvantaged communities, arts and cultural institution**: Examples of diverse clients. ## Numbers & Data - **20 years**: Span of the firm’s experience. - **January 24th**: Date the dismantling of US aid started. - **Five states**: Number of states the traveling fair moved across during the Great Washiatra. ## Examples & Cases - **Merger:** Global south practice joining a global north small firm. - **Great Washiatra:** A pan-India sanitation campaign featuring a traveling spectacle, interactive games, and a cheeky sanitation jingle. - **Failure of Washiatra:** Despite significant media attention and spectacle, *no message was remembered* and *no behavior changed*. - **Youth Aspirations Study:** Research on youth and social media used to help design a public health program for adolescence. - **Unbox Festival:** Annual arts festival serving as a major network builder for innovation work. ## Tools, Tech & Products - **Design (as a tool):** Used to create space for reflection, idea sharing, and co-creation in complex systems. - **Sanitation Jingle:** A "very cheeky" piece of media produced for the Great Washiatra. ## References Cited - **Great Washiatra**: The specific sanitation campaign in India. - **Liberal arts, sciences, engineering**: Disciplines comprising the Quicksand team. ## Trade-offs & Alternatives - **Government Priority vs. Design Need:** Governments desire stability, while design often necessitates disruption. - **Commodity vs. Art:** Tension between the need for wealth creation/profitability and the necessity of artistic expression that cannot be measured economically. - **Indigenous Knowledge vs. Development Aid:** Balancing the protection of local practices against external institutional interventions. ## Counterarguments & Caveats - **"Small is Beautiful" vs. Reality:** The concept that impact is found in small experiences is challenged by global crises like aid withdrawal. - **Speed vs. Depth:** The pressure to move fast in policymaking often leads to skipping the necessary time for deep inquiry. ## Methodology - **Curiosity-led research:** Focus on *what motivates people* and *what holds them back* rather than imposing solutions. - **Observation of Systemic Tension:** Identifying and analyzing the friction points between different institutional actors (government, academia, private sector). ## Conclusions & Recommendations - **Core Actions for Emerging Professionals:** **Collaborate deeply, stay curious, and embrace plurality.** - **Design's Goal:** To equip individuals with the tools to perform these three actions. - **Mantra:** *"These are often very artificial lines because as human beings we are complex and our work and practice should reflect that complexity."* ## Implications & Consequences - **Erosion of Impact:** When the inquiry process is shortcutted, the potential for lasting impact vanishes. - **Future Landscape:** The world is becoming more complex, faster moving, and harder to predict, making the skillset of deep collaboration essential. ## Verbatim Moments - *"small is beautiful"* - *"small is also vulnerable."* - *"Impact is also about many small thoughtful experiences which make people feel valued and seen."* - *"Design for impact has to thrive between these two truths between beauty and vulnerability between hope and disruption."* - *"the secret to strong collaborations is on one part finding shared purpose. on the other part you need to create value so that the other can build on it right"* - *"design felt like therapy right because it created space for people to come together to reflect to share ideas to debate"* - *"Design must start with curiosity, with listening, with research."* - *"No one remembered the message. No behavior changed in all kind of effectiveness, it was actually a massive failure."* - *"Collaborate deeply, stay curious, and embrace plurality because design gives you the tools to do all three."*