Can Design Contribute to Human Happiness? | Anand Mahindra | Mahindra Rise

First and foremost, the graduating students and their families, and then Dr. Devi Shetty, our chief guest, members of the Governing Council, Dr. Vyas, members of the faculty, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to first of all share a piece of news that allows me to uplift the mood here at the very outset of my address. I'm delighted to announce that Dr. Vyas has been reappointed as head of the NID for another five years. I'm greatly honored. I'm greatly honored to be the first to announce this and the first to congratulate NID — in other words, congratulate ourselves on our good fortune in having him as our North Star for another half decade.

Now, I truly enjoy having this opportunity to address this gathering as chairman every year because it gives me the opportunity to think about design and to toss some ideas out at you, to an audience, frankly, that is a favorite audience of mine — a graduating class of young people, all of whom are set to go out and conquer the world with their talent as their sword, their idealism as their shield, and their hard work as their brilliant armor.

This year I was even more stimulated than usual to think about design because of the presence of Dr. Devi Shetty. Now, I know that sounds counterintuitive because we all know what Dr. Shetty does — he is a pioneer in neonatal cardiac surgery, he's the hero of affordable healthcare, and he gives children a future. So what on earth does this have to do with design? And in trying to explain that connection, I want to refer to an old but very popular song — a classic, in fact. Now, of course, some of you may recall that last year I referred to another song, a Dylan song. I don't know, maybe I'm creating some kind of tradition or precedent for myself. But this year, when I found myself thinking of Dr. Shetty's work, I was reminded of the old Beatles song 'Hey Jude' — and you probably know how that goes: Hey Jude, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better.

Legend has it that Paul McCartney wrote this song for his partner John Lennon's son to help the boy cope with his parents' divorce. Of course, I know that by now it's not jumping out at you what the connection is between this song and Dr. Shetty and design, but bear with me, because that song, I believe, very poetically encapsulates what Dr. Shetty does. He takes sad songs and makes them better. He converts despair and sadness into happiness and hope. And that got me thinking: how can design have an impact like that?

The business arena, of course, is littered with examples of how design has been pivotal to the success of companies. If you take the mobile phone for example, it's not technology that's the differentiator anymore — the technology of communication is now tiny enough to be embedded and squeezed into a chip the size of an earplug. But it's what one does with the remainder of the phone — the body, the design, the styling — that's what determines success. We all know the iPhone's sleek design and features contributed to its enormous success, even as the once-mighty Titans Nokia and BlackBerry fell by the wayside because they were late to the design party.

Closer to home, at least my home in the automotive industry, it's not the mechanicals, it's not so much the technology that's a differentiator — it is the vehicle design. Just this morning, in one of the newspapers, they reported the JD Power consumer report and they found that consumers list design as amongst the top priority for them when they're choosing a car.

But frankly, I'm not here to reiterate the fact that as designers you're going to create tremendous economic value both for yourselves and for society. I really want today to urge you to think differently, to think bigger, and to aim for loftier goals. For example, I was wondering: can design contribute to human happiness? And almost as if on cue, I came upon a quote from G.K. Chesterton who said that a great city may be loved because it is great, but it first became great because it was loved.

Even more important, I stumbled onto a newspaper report which highlighted the adverse impact that badly designed cities can have. The report claims that people who battled peak-hour traffic rushes, whether they were driving or taking a train, suffered higher stress than fighter pilots. Forty percent of them had higher divorce rates. So the cues were getting warmer at this stage, and it set me thinking that with increasing urbanization, with the inevitable proliferation of satellite towns and cities, is this going to be your chance to be pioneers — your chance to make an impact? Can you use your talents and your skills and technologies to create cities that are loved, cities that create a sense of connectedness with other human beings, a sense of community, in other words? Is this the way, in fact, that design can indeed contribute to the sum of human happiness?

And this question really resonated with me because it meshed with the experiences we've had in our group of companies. In our real estate company, some decades ago, we were the pioneers in setting up India's first private special economic zone, just on the outskirts of Chennai, and we gave it the rather immodest title of Mahindra World City. And most of you are probably unaware that I'm a half-baked architect — I studied for a couple of years at the J.J. School of Architecture before I went abroad and changed my undergraduate major to filmmaking. But given those unfulfilled architectural ambitions, and actually getting carried away with the title of 'World City,' it was too much temptation for a semi-literate architect like me to resist.

So we set to work designing what we thought was a world-class city. We built broad boulevards, we built beautiful buildings, proximity between the home and the office so that you could walk or cycle to work, we built a beautiful school — and yet, and yet, when people populated it, we found that many of the families preferred to live in Chennai despite the two-hour commute. And that's when it dawned upon us that building a city is a whole lot more than just building infrastructure, building housing, building schools, building pleasant surroundings. A city works when it creates interconnectedness between human beings. A city works when it has a soul.

So when culture, connectedness, and community are designed into a master plan, that's when you have a real city. And that's what we are frankly trying to do now over there. Despite the commercial success of the SEZ, to me personally the job is only half done. Now, to accommodate our rising levels of urbanization, India is going to have to add in the next 20 years about 14 Delhis, 18 Mumbais, 30 Bangalores. How on earth are we going to create this much livable urban space, and at the same time create great cities that enhance human happiness?

And sustainable urbanization is not only something that the budding architects amongst you should be concerned with, because even if urban design specifically is not your thing, once you look at design as a way to contribute to happiness, it can apply to any product — from the humblest teacup to the greatest metropolis. Can you design a chair, for example, that is not just an object to sit on but one that in fact reduces stress? Can you design it in an affordable manner so the poor who really need to de-stress can afford it? And can you make it sustainable so that it doesn't deplete the earth's resources?

In other words, can you fill a city with products and processes that build community and make cities truly our homes and not just a pressure cooker to earn livelihoods? But at this point I recognize that I've really exceeded my brief, because there's no need for me to elaborate to all of you about the elements of design — that is something that you are capable of doing. In fact, you are capable of completing my thesis. My task today was simply to spark a conversation.

So let me cut to the chase and leave you with my message today for the graduating class: when you design, and whatever you design, could you possibly spend a few minutes reflecting on how you might be contributing to the happiness of our species? Reflect for a few minutes on whether and how you have embedded happiness into the experience of your products. Are you taking a sad song and making it better? And can you take a happy song and make it even happier?

So I delight in congratulating you all as you head out into the world, armed with your talent and your tablets, your ideas and your iPads. I wish you great success. May you always be the ambassadors and designers of happiness. And whatever you do and wherever you go, good luck and Godspeed.