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India’s first design-led start-up DesignGild launches start-up accelerator

DesignGild, India’s first design-led startup has announced the launch of its first startup accelerator program. DesignGild is an initiative of the MIT Institute of Design (MIT ID), Pune. The boot camp for these startups commences in January 2017 in Pune.

Harshit Desai, Chief Operating Officer – DesignGild said, “Globally design is gaining recognition as an important driver of innovation and business growth. Designgild acknowledges this and aims to create an ecosystem where high quality design mentorship and resources are made available to startups. Designgild will offer a 6 month intensive design focused accelerator program for startups and enable them to build design-led business at scale. The accelerator program will help startups to convert their ideas into market ready product and service offerings and create value at the intersection of design, technology and business.”

This is the second accelerator to be set up by the MIT Group after Edugild, India’s first accelerator for edtech startups.

The program will expose startups to latest design methods, co-working space, access to prototyping facilities, IPR consulting and facilitation, business development support, public relations and processes that will enable them to unlock business opportunities. A set of experienced design mentors and a dedicated design team will work together with the startups on various stages from design strategy to operations.

Some of the mentors associated with Designgild are Ashish Despande – Co-Founder, Elephant Design; Vice President, Association of Designers of India and Apurva Chamaria – Vice President & Head – Corporate Marketing, HCL Tech, Abhimanyu Kulkarni Design Head – Philips, Shekhar Badve – Director LokusDesign, Jay Dutta – Design Partner at Saif Partners among others.

DesignGild also has a strategic partnership with The Institute of Healthcare Design Thinking – USA.

Source: Times of India

Image Courtesy: Tech Story