Hyderabad will host yet another prestigious event — World Design Organisation (WDO)’s World Design Assembly — in October 2019.
The WDO, formerly the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid), is an international non-governmental organisation founded in 1957 to promote the profession of industrial design. Its 31st Assembly will be held in tandem with a five-day local design event organised by the India Design Forum which will include installations, interventions, exhibitions and workshops that demonstrate the power of design to improve lives.
Hyderabad got the offer to host the event in a selection process and WDO reviewed different bids, examining each city’s working style, capacity to host a large scale international event, ability to rally the wider design community and its citizens as well as the relevance of parallel design event theme and its application in both local and global setting.
Industry department sources told The Hindu that a team of officials from the WDO visited the city in April for the survey and selected Telangana for the first time in the country. Hyderabad “competed with the world to get this event”, they said.
The theme for WDO’s 31st Assembly is Humanising Design and Hyderabad presented an “outstanding proposal” with numerous opportunities to position design as a critical tool for addressing the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, said WDO President Luisa Bcchietto. “We look forward to working with the Telangana government and the local design community to elevate the role of design in creating inclusive, resilient and sustainable cities,” she said in a communication.
The World Design Assembly is held biennially, bringing together the organisation’s leadership, membership and external stakeholders.
