The 25th CII Global Design Summit 2025 marks a pivotal moment in India’s design narrative. Celebrating its Silver Jubilee edition, this landmark event arrives at a critical juncture when design is being repositioned as a fundamental driver of economic growth, social development, and environmental sustainability. Scheduled for 26-27 November 2025 at Hotel Leela Bhartiya City in Bengaluru, the summit represents the culmination of 25 years of strategic advocacy by the Confederation of Indian Industry to establish design as a cornerstone of national competitiveness.
A Movement Championing Design
The thematic framework “People, Planet, Purpose, Profitability” signals a fundamental shift in how design is understood within Indian industry and policy ecosystems. The summit frames design as an integrated force capable of addressing existential challenges while simultaneously driving economic expansion.
This positioning is particularly significant given the broader context of India’s creative economy. The nation’s creative sector, valued at approximately $36.2 billion in 2019 and generating $121 billion in exports, now contributes nearly 8% of total employment and over 20% of the nation’s Gross Value Added. These figures place India ahead of developed nations like Australia (2.1% employment share), South Korea (1.9%), and Mexico (1.5%) in terms of creative workforce concentration. The 25th Design Summit arrives as this economic segment experiences accelerated growth, with creative exports rising by 20% in 2023 alone.
Institutional Leadership and Global Recognition
The summit’s significance is amplified by the leadership within India’s design establishment. Prof. Pradyumna Vyas, Senior Advisor for Design Promotion and Innovation at CII, has just been elected as the 2025-2027 President of the World Design Organization (WDO)—a historic first for India.
With over 35 years of professional and academic experience, Prof. Vyas brings extensive credentials to this global role. His tenure as Director of the National Institute of Design (2009-2019) coincided with NID’s transformation into an Institute of National Importance through an Act of Parliament. His role in establishing the India Design Mark in collaboration with Japan’s Institute of Design Promotion has created a benchmarking system comparable to international standards like Germany’s prestigious Good Design Award.
Thematic Architecture: Seven Dynamic Focus Tracks
The summit’s seven thematic focus tracks reveal the breadth of design’s application across contemporary challenges and opportunities:
Designing for 8 Billion: Creative Economies and Global Impact targets the intersection of design thinking and inclusive economic growth.
Intelligence by Design: AI, Data & Ethics addresses the most pressing concern in contemporary technology adoption. As artificial intelligence systems become increasingly embedded in consumer products and business processes, the ethical dimension becomes paramount.
From Waste to Wonder: Designing for Sustainability directly engages with India’s ambitious circular economy transition.
Future Mobility & Smart Materials encompasses India’s advancement in Urban Air Mobility and advanced transportation solutions.
Horizons Beyond Earth: Aerospace & Defence Design reflects India’s growing ambitions in space exploration and defence innovation.
Threads of Change: Fashion, Lifestyle & Jewellery celebrates India’s heritage crafts while acknowledging their contemporary evolution.
Shaping Cities of Tomorrow: Urban Innovation & Growth directly addresses India’s urbanization trajectory. With sustainable urban design emerging as a critical field, this track explores how design can create livable, inclusive, and ecologically balanced cities.
Awards and Recognition: Design Excellence Beyond Markets
The summit will conclude with the felicitation of CII Design Excellence Awards 2025 winners, with award announcements occurring on 26 November 2025. These awards, administered since 2025 with launching in February of that year, recognize exemplary work across product, system, service, and interaction design.
The International Pavilion represents a critical structural element distinguishing this summit from purely national design conversations.
Target Audience and Ecosystem Engagement
The summit explicitly targets diverse stakeholder categories. Industry leaders and CEOs seeking to integrate design-led innovation; industrial designers and creative professionals shaping products and services; educators and students from design institutions; entrepreneurs and startup founders; investors and venture capitalists evaluating design-driven companies; government stakeholders and policy experts; and international delegates together constitute an ecosystem spanning the entire design value chain.
Experiential Learning and Industry Engagement
Moving beyond traditional conference formats, the summit emphasizes experiential learning through B2B networking sessions, design sprints, live product demonstrations, and exclusive industry visits to cutting-edge design and innovation centres. This pedagogical shift from passive knowledge consumption to active participation recognizes that design learning occurs optimally through engagement with real-world challenges and practitioners.
The 25th CII Global Design Summit arrives at a juncture when design’s role is being fundamentally reconceived across sectors and geographies. India’s positioning within this transformation reflects both the nation’s accumulated creative capacity and the urgent challenges demanding innovative solutions, from sustainable urban development to ethical artificial intelligence integration, from circular economy design to advanced mobility systems.
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