The Index Project Playbook

Our playbook

Design is for humanity

Our evolution

evolution

We’re in a world of trouble

Design to improve life

Going beyond the SDGs

Our purpose

Our principles

Things are changing

Strategic priorities

Our programmes

We award design to improve life

We invest in design to improve life

We teach design to improve life

We operate as a community

Will we ever succeed?

Our playbook

This playbook defines who we are, where we’re going and we update it biennially with each award cycle.

This is internal and used to guide our organisation, partners and friends, defining where we stand and how our community can get involved by following our lead. It’s based on three simple rules: we practice what we preach, learn as we go and share all we know.

Design is for humanity

Design helps us, as humans, understand, engage with and shape the world around us. To date, it has birthed some of our most impactful products, services, symbols and movements, from prosthetics that complete the human body to the pride flag; a celebration of freedom and diversity.

We’ve seen rockets take us to the moon, virtual telephones enable worldwide connectivity and drones bring hope rather than destruction. The Tesla Roadster took electric vehicles mainstream, borderless currency Bitcoin burst the banking world wide-open, and the Apple iPhone became a permanent fixture in the palms of more than a billion people.

These advancements have given new meaning to the word ‘disruption’ — nudging, tripping and even derailing industries to offer alternative and better ways of living.

But design isn’t just about aiding technological progress, it’s a tool for the people. Design thinking, as creative problem solving combined with a human-centered mindset, is the go-to practice for innovation and transformation. And time has shown these techniques lead to better solutions, from simplifying complex business processes to designing products for the most harsh and remote locations on Earth.

Design thinking empowers, giving those who aren’t trained as designers the creative tools to actively shape an equitable and sustainable future worth living in. As we say, design is far too important to be left just to the designers.

2001 2002

Global research launched Design to improve life concept coined

2004

2005

2014

Our evolution

2013

Design to Improve Life Challenge launched

Investor day launched

Inaugural call for nominations for INDEX: Award

Index Award launched

2006 2007 2008

First international city partnership launched Global INDEX: Award Exhibition launched First international student challenge

20112012

First acceleration Summer School for INDEX: Award finalists launched

Media partnership with CNN

2010

Design to Improve Life investment Launched

2009

Pilote project to Improve Life Education

2015

Google Arts & Culture partnership launched

2017

Design to Improve Life Fund 1

established New leadership Liza Chong appointed as CEO

PAGE 11PAGE 10 2003

The index project is born Business x Sustainability conference launched

2016 2018 2019 2020

As we embark on 2021, we can safely say we’ve achieved our major goal: design is now seen as one of the most transformative industries. Now, we’re at a critical juncture — so, what’s next?

Media partnership with NYT The Index Project becomes an independent foundation

“There is no bigger project than designing world 2.0”

- Arnold Wasserman, Index Award Jury Vice Chairman

We’re in a world of trouble

Humanity has come a long way but the biggest fight remains ahead of us. As a global society, we face countless critical problems, from cybersecurity to systemic racism, species extinction to social inequality. And the list keeps on growing. There’s a growing urgency combined with a complex landscape, politically, socially and environmentally, that’s constantly evolving.

We need radical collaboration—not just between countries, unions or businesses, but a mix of all combined with a focussed effort on engaging the coming generations. Firstly, those we know as millennials, who’re in their ‘prime’ currently in or approaching positions of leadership and seeking tangible ways to contribute. As well as Gen Z, a motivated generation hungry for the right knowledge and tools to design a sustainable future from the ground up.

Design to improve life

Our mandate, design to improve life, has guided our work since 2002 and is just as important as ever.

Why = to improve life How = design

To improve life is about closing that inequality gap and design is how we get there. We’re striving to ensure everyone in the world has equal access to food, housing, healthcare, education and fair employment. And, along the way, we make sure to preserve and protect our natural ecosystems.

Design to improve life is about solving real problems, small and large, simple and complex, systemic and emerging and is a life-long pursuit. Each stumble is a chance to learn, iterate and redesign a better way forward, and we now have the history and credibility to set the global benchmark for design to improve life

Going beyond the SDGs

Balance Human & Artificial Intelligence

Achieve a healthy balance between human intelligence and the exponential growth of artificial intelligence;

Navigate Post-Factual Society

Understand the drivers behind post-factual society and promote the value of factual information as the sound basis for global development

Refugees and Migrants

Help stabilise the growing refugee and migrant crisis and promote more inclusive systems for newcomers

Sustainable Tourism

Build and boost sustainable tourism models that minimise impact on global ecosystems and improve livelihoods of locals

Trust, Tolerance & Empathy

Promote trust, tolerance & empathy to achieve a broad sense of global solidarity

Innovative Financial Systems Generational Harmony

Develop and support financial mechanisms that prioritise profit, people and planet - the triple bottom line model

Strengthen understanding between generations and create models for improved inclusivity and collaboration between age groups

Ethical Leadership

Establish a global code of ethics for leadership, at all levels, and develop better tools to hold leaders accountable for their actions

We’re not alone in this endeavour: the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a given for any business or organisation wanting to do their part in shaping a better future. But, the world is evolving quickly, and not all of life’s challenges can be encompassed in a neat package of 17 targets. The Design to Improve Life Goals go beyond SDGs to chase that moving target, identifying new opportunities for change as, or even before, they arise.

Our goals are derived from speaking with hundreds of people within our global community, from young designers to thought-leaders in business. We penned our first five goals in 2016 and our additional three in 2020, a process we plan to continue every four years to ensure a proactive approach to tackling global challenges.

Project

Marsha Index

Our purpose

We’re in a red ocean of design-for-good, but that doesn’t mean we’re not needed. The world has many problems, and we need many solutions. But, it does mean we’ll need to evolve constantly. It’s no longer enough to award the best; we need to drive real impact. That’s why we’ve gone beyond promoting design to improve life to both catalysing and scaling design to improve life.

Design to Improve Life = award (promotion)

education (catalysing)

investment (scaling).

Now, as a foundation, we’re self-governed and are held accountable to serve our mandate. But, while we’re a foundation on paper, we’re still a unique hybrid of an award, educator, investor, publishing house, influencer and incubator. We’re not a one-size-fits-all foundation and recognise to tackle complex problems; we need to be adaptable.

We lead the way by leaning on our rich legacy and deeply-rooted culture but, more importantly, by being open to change and adaptable in the face of uncertainty.

Our principles

Prioritise diversity

We take representation seriously. From internal programmes to public air-time, we listen and elevate more projects and people beyond the western world.

Be a ‘bootstrapper’

We’re resourceful in the face of change. We embrace the unpredictable and build on our adaptability to go where the chase leads us.

Meet eye-to-eye

We keep it professional but always empathy-led. We lean on our strong assets of warmth and approachability to maintain and grow our community.

Embrace collaboration

We celebrate value-exchange and build together. We look beyond financial exchange to co-create with partners to drive the movement forward.

Live sustainably

We not only champion sustainable design, we live the lifestyle. We do our best to reduce any unnecessary consumption and prioritise circular business.

As a team, we’re guided by these core principles. They’re a sum up of our DNA and culture—our backbone for the past 20 years that we want to bring forward into this new chapter.

“[The Index Award] has emerged at the forefront of one of the most important developments in contemporary design: the reinvention of design practice from a predominantly commercially driven discipline into one that also pursues social, political and ecological objectives.”

- Alice Rawsthorne, The New York Times.

Things are changing

Things are changing, so we need to change with them. If we’re to survive long-term and achieve critical mass, here are five key points we need to follow.

Showing tangible results - We’ve got 20 years of experience, now we need to show the real results to get backers onboard. We need tangible numbers on our impact, across each programme area, to clearly show what a ‘buyer’ gets when they opt in or partner with us.

Clarifying the synergies - Due to how we’ve grown, the synergies between programme areas can be unclear, not just publicly but also internally. We need to concretely define these synergies and strive to create more value between programmes.

Looking beyond our borders - Awareness of design to improve life may be high in our direct communities, like-minded peers and competitors, but not beyond our European/Western borders. We need to increase efforts where we can offer the most value and impact in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Setting concrete standards - As pioneers in the field, we need to set benchmarks that other businesses and organisations can strive for, creating a global design to improve life standard. We also need to improve our tools to clarify what problems they’re solving and what people can exactly achieve by using them.

Making it easy to contribute - With a broad selection of initiatives, it’s been difficult for the public to understand how they can get involved, beyond nominating for the award. We need to define a clear set of actions people can take, regarding each programme area, to make it easy for others to join the movement.

What are our overarching top-tier priorities for this next chapter?

PAGE 29PAGE 28 1. 2. 3.

Focus on scaling-up strategic partnerships to grow

we need to co-create with more partners, across all programme areas, to create a ‘multiplier’ effect, enabling as many people as possible to leverage design to improve life to create impact. These partnerships will be a key source of revenue fed back into foundation.

Test and solidify our new business model

We’ve ideated, sparred, tested and now have a solid list of ‘products’ across all programme areas. With set targets, we now need to clearly define our fundraising strategy to secure stable streams of revenue until 2023, where we reevaluate our strategy.

Develop the award as a design aggregator

The Index Award should be developed to easily aggregate solutions from other awards to improve representation and reach. This could be a tech-driven solution, a partnership model with like-minded awards programmes or regional Index Awards to reach local populations.

Our programmes

We use design to improve life in three strategic ways to ensure we have the desired impact;

We award design to improve life, through every Index Award biennale, to constantly push the global design benchmark, provide recognition to pioneers and inspire the our community;

We invest in design to improve life, through our funds, to scale the best purpose-driven companies, ensuring the impact is amplified and doesn’t stop at prize-giving; We educate to design to improve life, through our tools and programmes, to enable and empower the next generation of pioneers, ensuring a future pipeline of solutions.

Our community is the mixing pot where we bring together our network via events (online and in-person), from all programme areas, to share, learn and collaborate.

We award design to improve life

Diversify The Index Award by increasing nominations by 20% in the underrepresented areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia;

Goals for

Develop and launch a set of ‘design to improve life’ metrics or guidelines, derived from The Index Award, to enable companies to benchmark their sustainability/impact work.

Develop and launch another regional Index Award competition with a largescale local partner (a second Diseno Responde - Latin American challenge)

What’s The Index Award about?

“It celebrates the people using design to solve real-world problems. Each award cycle, we recognise the best-in-field solutions, and the great minds behind them, from all over the world.”

Why do you do it?

“We need to think beyond our life cycle. We need to demonstrate better ways forward and envision the future we want to live in before it’s too late. And, at the end of the day, the pioneers who’re designing this way forward need recognition, backing and a network to scale. That’s where we come in.”

How do you do it?

“Like most awards, we have lots of nominees, finalists and, eventually, five winners across five categories: Body, Home, Work, Play & Learning and Community. We run lots of campaigns digitally, sharing all these incredible stories, and then have a big celebration in Copenhagen when we announce the winners.”

with Liza Chong

CEO

Who’s your primary audience?

“The do-ers: designers, entrepreneurs, engineers, teachers, makers -- anyone actively working with design to make a positive difference. We also serve as an inspirational design beacon to the public.”

When does it take place?

It’s a biennale, usually celebrated in September but we campaign all year ‘round to garner nominations, share

“We need to think beyond our life cycle.”

inspiring stories and get the big picture on the current design landscape.

What’re the most important do’s?

“We lean on what we’re good at:s ervice, compassion and servitude to each other. Moving forward, it’s important we take the risks and experiment and along the way, be humble, resourceful and focus on doing ‘better’ rather than perfect!”

What will you do differently moving forward?

“Take our accessibility and representation more seriously -- moving further away from the elitist brand. Saving our planet means reaching out to the overlooked areas and providing incredible digital experiences that ensure deeper exploration and more inclusion.”

How does the award compliment the other programme areas?

“The award is the heart of our foundation, providing the lifeblood, in terms of people, cases and investment opportunities, to all other programme areas. It also offers great case studies and learnings we use for our education programmes.”

Zipline

In 2017, Zipline won an Index Award in the Body category for its medical drones carrying life-saving remedies to remote areas in Africa. Since, Zipline has expanded its services into even more African countries and been a crucial carrier of vaccines in the US during the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, the company is valued at about €1B and continues to expand and further its mission to save lives.

Zipline Index Award 2017 Winner

We invest in design to improve life Goals for

Ensure the DtIL Funds are the best performing funds compared with the markets benchmarked via the Cambridge Associates annual VC comparative reports

Diversify our investors - Establish and launch a ‘crowd equity’ platform for all types of investors to invest in ‘design to improve life’

Grow our fund sizes 10x, to accommodate more than 12+ companies, to ensure we can invest into more of The Index Award pipeline

Q&A with Vittoria Casanova

Investment Manager

What does the investment programme encompass?

“We started as an acceleration program for early-stage companies and, over the years, developed into a multi-stage international micro-VC fund. Our funds invest directly into promising companies from The Index Award pipeline, the award nominees, alongside international investors and funds.”

our portfolio companies too -- we give company founders and teams design thinking tools/training to help them run their businesses more sustainably and effectively.”

When does it take place?

“We launched the first fund attached to Index Award 2017 and typically launch a fund for each award cycle, so it’s always a juggling act!”

Who’s your primary audience?

“We’re the connector between lifeimproving companies looking for capital and like-minded investors who want to make a meaningful difference.”

Why do you do it?

“All great solutions need backing to have a real impact and our goal is to help these companies reach their full potential. We also want to show the world that doing good and turning a profit can go hand-inhand.”

How do you do it?

“Coming from a very different background than the usual VC funds and financial institutions, we do things in our own style. We also provide human capital to

What’re the most important do’s?

“The investment world can be intimidating but don’t pretend to be someone you’re not just to conform to a stereotype or fit in. Listen and learn from others, stay humble, curious and never lose sight of impact.”

How does the investment programme relate to the others?

“The companies we invest in are selected from The Index Award pipeline each cycle. We also use the same tools and methods as the education programme to support portfolio companies with their challenges and strategy.”

Piñatex

Ananas Anam, the company behind the innovative textile made from pineapple leaf fibres Piñatex, was shortlisted to become an Index Award 2017 Finalist. In 2019, the Design to Improve Life Fund I invested in the company which since then has multiplied its impact. The textile has entered the fashion industry through collaborations with H&M, Hugo Boss and Chanel to name a few, won awards for its ingenuity and been covered in several media outlets. It’s a testament to how caring for people, profit and the planet can make an impactful business.

Pinatex, Design to Improve Life Fund Iportfolio company

Works as a catalyst for others to join the movement - empowering people to get off the sidelines and become a do-er.

Develop and launch fully-fledged digital resources, including all videos modules and digital gamified tool, to accompany in-person facilitation

We teach design to improve life Goals for

Establish a permanent trainer team, xx employees, to enable the smooth rollout of education workshop and session deliveries

Establish and launch two (2) large-scale partnerships with reputable educational institutions (e.g. Carnegi) for developing DtIL into a permanent fixture on the university curriculum.W

What’s education all about?

“It’s about giving people a training in using a tool that can help them make this world a better place. Our edu is where you actually achieve that goal -- find the right challenges and create these real solutions. Many people don’t have the right mindset.

give them the tools to fulfill this vision and share their knowledge with others -planting a seed of change.”

Why do you do it?

“We simply have to, it’s our reason to get up in the morning. Education is the answer to so many problems and differences in the world and how to create a more equal system -- it all starts with education. We want to get to a point where everyone has access to the same opportunities.”

Q&A with Charlotte

“Prioritise authenticity over authority - creating a warm and comfortable atmosphere will always foster better results,” -

Who’s your primary audience?

“Anyone that wants to make an impact with design, but we mostly work with educators, education institutions and businesses from all over the world. We

How do you do it?

“We meet them where they’re in their own context, we take them through the programmes, or workshops, that are developed to meet the needs that they have. We give them the tools but it’s ultimately their responsibility to implement them and make them work in their own daily practice. It has to work for them.”

When and where does it happen?

Andersen

Education Director

“Our education initiatives run all year ‘round. Right now, our workshops and sessions happen in cyberspace but we usually meet people face-to-face where they live.”

What’re the most important do’s?

Research and really understand your users -- to go in with the right mindset, know how they like to work, and make sure we can best meet their needs so they’ll actually use the skills after; Get comfortable with unpredictability -- always have a plan B, C or even D. You can be prepared but things will inevitable change, as many sau: “fail early to success later”;

Prioritise authenticity over authority -- creating a warm and comfortable atmosphere will always foster better results. In the end, we want users to feel we’re more like sparring partners rather than experts.

What’ll you do differently moving forward?

“With so many programme options and clients from all over, it’s easy for things to get complicated. But, from now on, we’ll keep it simple and make our offerings very straight-forward for our current and future clients. We also want to foster

more synergies between education and investment to create better businesses and better relationships between investors and investees.”

How does education synergise with the other programme areas?

“Many of the investment companies need new design-thinking techniques and skills to optimise their solution or business, we can offer these sessions based on our methodologies to be a stronger company and to be more clear in what investors are investing in. Regarding the award, we also offer training to our winners to help them solve business or leadership problems.”

Siemens Stiftung

Since 2018, The Index Project has partnered with Siemens Stiftung to bring the Design to Improve Life methodology into STEM teaching. In 2020, the focus became up-skilling STEM teachers in Latin America to implement design thinking in their teaching. The collaboration is based on developing and executing co-created tool training programmes for teachers and multipliers. Having a collaboration with Siemens Foundation gives our education activities a worldwide outreach and the potential of multiplying the mindset of Design to Improve Life to educators in many countries is enormous. It’s brought us to Chile, Peru, Mexico and South Africa.

We operate as a community Goals for

Establish two (2) major partnership with an ‘influential’ community to give us credibility, greater reach and access to new members

Grow our following in the digital community groups and event attendance by 5X

Develop and launch our own digital community platform (website) to showcase our members, accommodate interaction etc

Q&A with Ditte Fiil Ravn

Community Manager

What’s The Index Community about?

“Our community is a network of entrepreneurs and engineers, teachers and talents, start-ups and students –whatever they’re title, they’re all invested in the mission of design to improve life. The community offers access to changemakers, trend spotters, knowledge hubs and shooting starts within the fields of design, sustainability and impact.”

Who’s your primary audience?

“Our ‘alumni’ as we call them: former nominees, finalists, winners or portfolio companies, also our board members, jury and partners -- new and long-term ones. But, we also have a secondary audience of our social media followers as well as global design, impact and sustainability institutions and organisations.”

Why do you do it?

“Both as of now and in the future, the community will be what scales and sustains all of our initiatives. Their endorsement of us, their word-of-mouth and their use of our services will be the foundation of our projects’ success. Community initiatives such as guest blogging, tailored networks and events will be a meaningful offering to sponsors and partners.”

How do you do it?

“We have three initiatives we aim to succeed with: Digital/physical events with and without partnerships at least every two months, enabling decentralised events hosted by local ambassadors and a fullyfunctioning community platform with high engagement.”

What’re the most important do’s?

“As an extended arm of Copenhagen HQ, we need to create meaningful events for our followers, connections with local stakeholders and most of all, encourage our audience to give back to the community.”

What will you do differently moving forward?

“Creating a community means expanding the experience people have when attending in-person awards and we, as a team, are great at making people feel welcomed and supported and acknowledged. Our design community is based on meaningful interactions and connections: our mission is to make these last all year ‘round. By 2023, we’re aiming to have a toolbox of initiatives that we know our community engages with and finds meaningful.”

Will we ever succeed?

In an ideal world, we’d be obsolete. Most of the world’s critical problems would be solved and everyone would truly prioritise people and planet, equally alongside profit. With the right knowledge and community, we can design a better future. But we have to act now.

The Index Project is a call to action. Are you in?