TinkerLabs

Our Journey&The Road Ahead!

A StorybirdOur Journey

&The Road Ahead!

ByTinkerLabsIllustrated by

Nidhi ChananiPublished on

August 18, 2016

© Storybird 2016. All rights reserved. Not for resale.

Ankur & Kunal met as engineering students at BITS Pilani where they had a ball withlate nights, movies, gup shup and what not…. life was easy breezy!!

Post Engineering,their lives were fairlyconventional:

- Work for a few years- Get an MBA

Kunal went to IIM A andAnkur to INSEAD

During their MBAs something interesting happened: both of them got exposed toDesign Thinking. They were super excited!

Design Thinking- asimple, intuitive &creative process to solveproblems.

They kept wondering-Why weren’t we taughtthis before-it is so powerful andcross applicable, can beused to solve:

-personal problems-social problems-business problems

They thought, “What if we could build a company which trains people & consultsorganizations on Creative Problem Solving using Design Thinking?”

Let’s take Design tonon-design places, theysaid!

That is how TinkerLabswas born in 2013- atraining & consultingfirm focused on DesignThinking.

The initial phase was tough- most companies and academic institutes did not knowwhat Design Thinking was; it took some time and effort to create awareness and getclients excited.

Soon, they conqueredthe first hill - their firstset of clients wereacademic institutes.

In 2014, they workedclosely with topEngineering & BusinessSchools (IITs, IIMs, SPJain, Symbiosis et al)conducting workshops onDesign Thinking forCreative ProblemSolving.

Early 2015- two things happened 1) Infosys went loud about training 30,000+employees on Design Thinking 2) IIM A introduced a course on Design Thinking.Leveraging this industry momentum, they just pushed for acceleration!!

It was now time to targetthe corporates.TinkerLabs launched itsfirst Design Thinkingworkshop for corporateexecutives in Feb 2015.

This workshop was a great success- they were able to excite not just private firms butalso the public sector- they soon began working with organizations like IndianRailways, Future Group, HUL among others

This year, their trainingbusiness sailed well. Theytook Design Thinking to:

- IT services companieslike Tech Mahindra andL&T Infotech- Social ImpactOrganizations likeAshoka, IRMA, WorldVision- Startup incubators likeCIIE, Startup Oasis,IIM C Innovation Park

Looked like DesignThinking was oneveryone’s mind!

2016 was about the next elevation- TinkerLabs launched its Design Thinkingconsulting arm and soon were able to attract diverse clients. Projects ranged fromStrategy and Marketing to IT and New Business Ventures.

To deliver on theseintersting projects theycollaborated withdesigners from IITBombay, NID, CIID andParsons New York.

Demand for DesignThinking services is onthe rise.

With the currenthead-start,team TinkerLabsis keen to become thepowerhouse of DesignThinking in India.

To achieve this goal- they are building a strong and diverse team of MBAs, Designers,Engineers and Social Scientists!

They are looking for:

1) Design Guru:3+ years of industryexperience- InteractionDesign/Service Designpreferred

2) IT Raja/Rani:Project Manager with 5+years of IT servicesexperience

3) Learning Champion:L&D professional with5+ years of experience,preferably in technologycompanies

Reach out to them at:ankur@tinkerlabs.in | +91 99207 28510kunal@tinkerlabs.in | +91 98678 74533

You'll find this story online at:http://storybird.com/books/our-journey-the-road-ahead/