Global South Design Summit · January 2027 · DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad, India
Where the majority world designs its future.
Two days of debate, papers and cinema on how design, across economy, engineering, frugality and public policy, is changing the Global South. Co-hosted by HCD Institute and DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad, India. The first edition is at IIT Hyderabad, India; the second comes to Dubai in mid-2027. Exact dates to be announced.
Why this summit
The Global South isn't adopting design. It's redefining it.
Most design frameworks were built for rich, formal markets. Most people don't live there. They live with informal economies, stretched institutions and infrastructure that comes and goes. That's where some of this century's most important design is happening.
UPI moved a billion-person informal economy onto real-time payments. Community health workers redesigned how healthcare reaches people. Frugal engineering turned cost from a limit into a method. None of this is Western practice adapted. It's a design tradition of its own, built under constraint across India and the Global South.
The summit brings together the researchers, practitioners, students, policymakers and filmmakers building that knowledge, to argue it, write it down and set its agenda. Not a conference about the Global South. A summit by it.
Four tracks · One argument
Design, across every part of the majority world.
01
Economy
Informal markets, digital public infrastructure and financial inclusion. From UPI to street vendors: economies built around real users, not paperwork.
02
Engineering
Frugal engineering and appropriate technology. Products and infrastructure that work where power, connectivity and supply chains can't be taken for granted.
03
Frugality
From jugaad to systematic frugal innovation. The case for scarcity as the hardest, and most generative, design brief of our time.
04
Public Policy
Human-centred policy for education, health and governance. How states can design with citizens, not just for them.
Call for papers · Open now
Bring your work to the summit.
We're looking for speakers, researchers, practitioners and students with papers and talks in any of the four tracks. A dedicated student category recognises the best original research, presented live on Day 2 and honoured at the Closing Night Showcase.
01
Send an abstract
300–500 words: your question, your method and your argument, mapped to one of the four tracks.
02
Hear from the committee
A programme committee from HCD Institute and DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad, India reviews submissions as they arrive.
03
Present at IIT Hyderabad, India
Accepted papers go to the track symposia. The strongest join the debates and the Showcase.
The programme · January 2027
Two days of argument, framed by cinema.
It opens with the Global South Film Festival, runs through two days of debates and symposia, and closes with the Closing Night Showcase & Dinner on the IIT Hyderabad, India campus.
Prologue · Opening evening
Global South Film Festival — Opening Night
Inaugural screenings from the majority world: stories of constraint, ingenuity and everyday design. A curtain-raiser conversation on what cinema teaches design. Open to all delegates and the DIC Hub community.
Day 1
Debates & Symposia — The Argument
Keynote: Designing for the Next Six Billion. The Great Debate I: 'Western design frameworks cannot solve majority-world problems'. Track symposia on Economy and Engineering. Practitioner panels. Documentary screenings in the evening.
Day 2
Papers, Resolutions & The Showcase
Student paper presentations. Track symposia on Frugality and Public Policy. The Great Debate II: 'The most valuable design knowledge now flows South to South'. Closing plenary. Closing Night Showcase & Dinner, with best paper awards and film honours.
Global South Film Festival
The summit begins in the dark.
Before the papers and the podiums: cinema. Features and documentaries from across Africa, Asia and Latin America that show, rather than argue, what life and ingenuity in the majority world look like.
Screenings run through the first evening, and the festival's honours are presented at the Closing Night Showcase, where filmmakers, researchers and students close the summit together.
Who it's for
Five communities, one table.
Researchers & academics
Scholars in design, economics, engineering and policy working on majority-world questions.
Students
Undergraduates and postgraduates with original papers, in a student category with its own awards.
Practitioners
Designers, engineers and builders making products and services for emerging markets.
Government & development
Civil servants, multilateral agencies and NGOs designing public systems across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Filmmakers
Directors and documentarians whose work shows life, ingenuity and systems in the Global South.
Next edition · Dubai · Mid-2027
From Hyderabad to Dubai.
After IIT Hyderabad, India, the summit travels to Dubai in mid-2027, hosted by HCD Institute UAE. The UAE sits between Africa, Asia and the Gulf, which makes it a natural meeting point for majority-world design: the same four tracks, the same debates, and the film festival, with partners from across the region.
Now
IIT Hyderabad, India, January 2027
The first edition, at DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad, India. Papers, debates, the film festival and the Closing Night Showcase.
Mid-2027
Dubai
The second edition, hosted by HCD Institute UAE. Venue and dates to be announced.
Open
Partners and speakers
Universities, government entities and organisations in the UAE and the Gulf can join as partners, speakers or delegates.
Hosts
Co-hosted by two institutions.
Co-host
HCD Institute
The Institute of Human-Centred Design has been building design capability since 2011, across schools, universities, professionals and government in India, and now in the UAE through HCD Institute UAE, with a focus on the Global South.
About HCD InstituteCo-host
Design Innovation Centre (DIC) Hub, IIT Hyderabad, India
The summit's home. DIC Hub advances design research and innovation at IIT Hyderabad, India, and hosts the debates, symposia, screenings and the Closing Night Showcase on campus.
DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad, IndiaGlobal South Design Summit · January 2027