GDTA Conference 2026 | September 29 & 30, 2026
We are living through a decade of compounding complexity. Technology, climate, and social change are reshaping the ground beneath organisations faster than most can respond — and in that noise, clarity has become the rarest and most valuable resource of all. What do we do when the world refuses to behave like a well-defined problem? As technology accelerates, expectations shift and old assumptions stop holding, the challenge is no longer simply to find answers—but to make sense of complexity and turn uncertainty into purposeful action.
d.Conference 2026 asks a simple question with far-reaching implications: how do we use Design Thinking to navigate chaos and create clarity? Over two days at SNS Institutions in Coimbatore, the global Design Thinking community comes together to turn complexity into direction — sharing what works, testing new ideas, and building the capabilities that help organisations, communities, and societies make meaningful progress. All Panels include at least one voice from the Indian context for local connection and are overall an international group to cover diverse, global perspectives.
Collect your event kits and grab fresh coffee before we kick off the opening ceremony.
Special tribute honoring the life, pioneering contributions, and legacy of Stanford Professor Larry Leifer.
How can design thinking help us navigate chaos—and create the clarity needed to move forward? Illustrated by personal experience in the Indian context and beyond.
Panel discussion exploring navigating chaos and driving progress through design thinking.
Concurrent panel discussions exploring key design thinking topics and AI innovation:
Education is shifting from knowledge transfer to self-directed, collaborative and challenge-based learning. As AI makes knowledge increasingly accessible, the focus moves toward Future Skills such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, agency and the ability to navigate complexity. This panel brings together perspectives from government, teacher education, design, research and the student experience to explore how Design Thinking and AI can help reshape education for the future.
Industries across the world are being reshaped by new technologies, changing expectations and increasingly complex markets. This panel brings together perspectives from India and the United States to explore how Design Thinking can help organisations rethink products, services, business models and the ways value is created. The discussion considers how different market contexts and approaches to innovation can offer new perspectives on turning uncertainty into opportunity and creating meaningful, sustainable progress.
AI is rapidly reshaping how we understand, practise and teach design thinking, opening new possibilities while challenging established ideas of creativity, expertise and human agency. Bringing together perspectives from the global south and north, this panel explores how different design communities are responding to the rise of AI and what it means for the future of human-centred innovation. The discussion considers how we can harness AI’s potential while keeping human judgement, creativity and responsibility at the centre.
Addressing complex social challenges requires more than good ideas — it calls for an understanding of systems, communities and the different realities in which change takes place. Bringing together perspectives from the global south and north, this panel explores how Design Thinking can contribute to meaningful social impact across diverse cultural and societal contexts. The discussion considers how human-centred approaches can help navigate complexity, build inclusive solutions and turn local insights into lasting change.
Networking lunch and informal discussions for attendees, speakers, and delegates.
Pitch presentations from the top 3 finalist teams of the GDTA Hackathon 2026.
Cultural evening blending traditional South-Indian / Tamil heritage, networking dinner, local cuisine, informal meetups.
A brief recap of Day 1’s keynotes, panels, and reflections to set the context for the day’s sessions.
Inspiring morning keynote address setting the theme for workshops and collaborative learning.
Interactive hands-on workshop tracks exploring cutting-edge Design Thinking techniques:
This hands-on workshop introduces participants to trend-watching models and practices, connecting them directly with the Design Thinking process and the idea generation phase. Through an interactive tabletop game – "Playing the Future" – teams collaborate to generate innovative ideas for products, services, and markets. The session explores how trends can create new opportunities, illustrated by real-world cases (such as Miro interactive boards), and culminates in team presentations of breakthrough concepts.
Design thinking education often makes visible the methods, tools, and activities of the design process, while leaving much of the work that makes learning through these processes possible unseen. This workshop explores the work that happens beneath and around design thinking in our teaching environments, the work that educators and participants may not always be mindful of, but that is necessary to create the conditions for people to engage, make sense of and move through the design process. The workshop invites us to look beyond the visible design-thinking process and consider what this unseen work looks like, what it asks of us as educators, and what becomes possible when we begin to recognize and make space for it in how we teach design thinking.
This interactive workshop invites participants to explore how Design Thinking can be reimagined through the dialogue between Indigenous / traditional knowledge, artificial intelligence, and responsible future-making. Rather than approaching Design Thinking only as a contemporary innovation method, the session will ask how long-standing cultural wisdom, local problem-solving practices, and intergenerational perspectives can help us rethink the way we frame challenges, generate ideas, and imagine futures. Through a simple AI-supported activity, participants will create and compare visual scenarios, reflecting on how the questions we ask shape the futures we design. The workshop aims to open a space for responsible, resilient, and regenerative ways of thinking across design, education, innovation, and society.
Share key insights and takeaways from the parallel workshops before the closing ceremony.
Concluding ceremony, final reflections, and closing remarks for GDTA Conference 2026.
Site visits and real-world immersion tours. Delegates choose one route: