ReSoi Magazine

RESOI Cover

July 2051

Issue #308

Re-Humanising the Rasoi

July 2051

Editors’ Note W

e present to you, Re-Soi’s July 2051 Edition, that encapsulates various products, articles and ideas around cultured technology. Cultured Technology is technology that takes into account the cultural values and behaviours that are important to people, and tries to restore these through various interactions with technology.

The magazine is an overview of the happenings in the innovation labs at ReSoi, to show the readers a vision of what appliances within the kitchen could transform into, in a few years. It gives a first look at a few modern appliances that detail out the cultural relationship, sensorial and embodied interactions to give a larger idea of the world where these technologies exist. These appliances are not “solutions” to problems that might exist in this space, but tools by which the concept of cultured technology can be further understood.

To better enhance the experience of reading this magazine, we’ve also created advertisements and articles (both by us, and by other professionals). These components of the magazine create a more concrete image of this world where cultured technology has become a part of everyday life. The idea behind the magazine is to spark discussions and critique about technology that exists today, while questioning the interactions that we have with it.

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We’d like to thank Gaurav Singh, Rocio Fatas Arana, Christina Ajith and Denise D’Souza for contributing to this project.

Contents

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New Releases

Issue #308

JULY, 2051

Get a first look at some of our latest releases - products that you must have in your kitchen!

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Interested in working with us? Find out if any positions excite you! We value diversity in our employees.

Read about our co-founder Ananya Rane speak about her work and values at Re-Soi.

Join the crew!

Founders’ Speak

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Cultured Technology doesn’t stop at appliances. Read about smart environments, all designed for your kitchen!

What values do we hold close to our heart at Re-Soi? Read more about what keeps us going.

Smart Environments

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Conversations about the future Find out what some industry experts have to say about the happenings in the human-tech intersection!

Our Values

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Founders’ Speak

Read about our co-founder Janaki Syam speak about why she started designing cultured technology.

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et’s go back to a time, many years ago, when the kitchen looked very different. Appliances within the kitchen were being used to do many things - they made everything easier.

These appliances were placed all over the kitchen and were used for various functions. At that time the kitchen was a very different space.

In an Indian household like mine, I remember how at meal-prep time, the kitchen was full of many noises - whirring, swishing and clicking. To make her signature chicken curry, my mother used to need most of these appliances. However, I distinctly remember something she used to complain about almost all the time that she made this curry.

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The kitchen was full of many noises - whirring, swishing and clicking.

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Anya Rea Ann

Discussion

What is cultured technology?

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She would tell me that her grinder always makes the coconut finer than it’s supposed to be and it spoils the thick, creamy texture of the gravy. She had tried to work around this by just pulsing the grinder, but this made the process so long and tedious, because each time she would have to open the grinder vessel to check the progress.

Her friend, on the other hand, would be upset that the grinder wouldn’t grind as finely as she wanted. This was the story with so many others too, it felt like they would have to adjust to the appliances more than the appliances could adjust to them.

If things were left to be how they were, automation would take over this space too. In a room like the kitchen, culture and tradition would’ve been dissolved if things went on in the same way.

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At Re-Soi, designers studied and understood the kitchen space, to see what could be done about this problem that was being faced by so many kitchen-users. Our innovation lab has been working on this space for many years now. We now have what we at Re-Soi like to call “cultured technology”.

This kind of technology takes into account various cultural attributes of users. Uptil now, users had to adjust to technology and appliances within the kitchen, but now, with “cultured technology”, appliances within the kitchen would be able tailor experiences such that users found them simpler to use. Cultured technology uses actions that are easy for users to understand and carry out - taking them back to their roots.

Our blender, called Movesal has a mortar and pestle attachment to allow users to gain complete control of their appliances. The grinding allows users to slow down and be more mindful of themselves.

Read on to find out more about our work at Re-Soi!

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July 2051 New Releases

Give your kitchen a facelift

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Get to know the latest cultured kitchen appliances collection consisting of everything you need to help you spruce up your kitchen for the summer.

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MOVESAL Blender

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The Movesal Blender comes with a glass jar and a fully equipped preset panel that allows you to make the perfect blend while being away from the device. What’s better? Our blender also comes with a mortar and pestle attachment that gives you all the control you may need, to grind to utmost perfection. So whether you want to spend all your time in the kitchen, or no time at all, our blender is the perfect appliance for you!

INR

12,000

Cryptocurrency payment available

New Releases Move the pestle to make the blender do its job!

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Movesal is built around the concept of “Niksen”, which is a Dutch philosophy that involves doing nothing. Since the burnout epidemic around 25 years ago, people are continuously tired, striving to achieve maximum productivity every single day. Our blender makes sure you slow down in the kitchen, and makes the ten minutes that you spend with the appliance the few minutes in the day that you relax. Being more mindful of your actions, you can engage better with your senses of touch and smell while you grind.

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Fast blending, slow cooking

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CHULLAH

INR

Cooktop

18,000

Cryptocurrency payment available

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Our Chullah Cooktop, programmed for Indian cooking, comes with not only preset options but also a stove knob to assist all your cooking needs.

The sleek design allows you to carry it anywhere and place it anywhere in your kitchen. The smooth glass top allows hassle free cleaning and its anti-magnetic wall allows you to cook with the at most safety and ensures direct heating to lower wastage of energy. Our flame free heating allows you to cook efficiently without any worry.

Turn the dial or use the presets to adjust the heat - it’s your choice!

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Perfect for any type of schedule

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Whether you’re on a busy schedule or need to monitor your entire cooking process, our induction can help you with that. The preset options range from cooking traditional meals to more modern dishes as well that can enable you to walk away from your kitchen and trust your induction to do the rest.

For those who like to be more involved in the kitchen and need more control with the cooking process, the addition of the stove knob helps in manually changing the amount of heat giving you full control in the kitchen.

July 2051 New Releases

SAB-KAAT Chopper

INR

8,000

Cryptocurrency payment available

Make cutting your vegetables easier, with our handheld chopper fitted with thin stainless steel replaceable blades that ensures a fast and safe cut. This portable and rechargeable chopper also comes with a screen on which you can specify the size of the vegetable you would like to cut it to and thus get evenly cut vegetables anytime for your soups, salads and curries. No need to spend your time trying to cut vegetables perfectly; let our chopper help you instead!

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Adjust the distance between your fingers to tell the chopper what size you want the pieces!

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What if technology understood andaaj?

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Different dishes require different vegetables, meaning some of them need to be cut differently depending on a dish. The chopper allows you to convey your estimation directly to the product to help you cut the right size for any dish you wish to make. Using the rulers shown on the screen, by moving them around with your fingertips to construct any size you want and then with a push, you can get perfectly cut vegetables or fruits anytime.

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AGNI

Microwave

INR

23,000

Cryptocurrency payment available

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Our microwave is equipped with a new and improved nichrome heating element, that allows for all round heating. With a long list of preset options, it makes sure that your food is heated to perfection, be it a cup of chai or a plate of biryani. The new defrost option thaws your food, no matter how much, in just 10 seconds.

With being able to control exactly how much time you want to heat your food, but blowing into our detector, you are able to see how bright the flame is glowing to see how hot your food would be.

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Borrowing from the concept of a smokeless chullah, the Agni Microwave uses an interesting gesture that requires you to take a deep breath in and blow into the detector to denote how long the food is to be heated for. The new interaction ensures that the food is heated slowly, just how it used to in the days of the smokeless stove. The microwave comes with a pipe that ensures that you can use it as efficiently from any height. So happy slow cooking!

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Blow into the detector to adjust the heat!

New Releases

Deep breaths to calm yourself and heat your food

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Jasmina Kay

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their culture and seemed similar to the digital technology that existed in the earlier years.

With every technology that we build, especially in a space that is culturally rich like the kitchen, all digital technology should enable users to maximise their experience with the influence of their culture. Fear not!

Since understanding this about our product, we have been working on coming out with a more cultured and better version next month that will be able to be configured with your smart appliances at home.

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re you wondering what happened to the Digital Recipe Book and why it stopped showing up in stores? At ReSoi, we aim to design and develop cultured technology that promises a more fruitful and rooted experience for users interacting with our technology. However, aside from the many successful products, our Digital Recipe Book was one such product that didn’t really fit the bill.

With the various technologies that we design, our focus is on how we can use this technology to help people be more involved with their culture and senses. Although our Digital Recipe Book seemed to acknowledge preserving culture by saving recipes, smells and textures, we felt that it wasn’t allowing those using the product to be deeply rooted with

About Re-Soi

Why didn’t our digital recipe book work out?

July 2051 Discussion

Why are our senses important?

Sanjay Akim

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ur senses contribute to many different experiences we have everyday. Our experiences are a result of sight, touch, smell, sound and taste. Human perception has the ability to select stimuli from the environment, organize them and interpret them to perceive them.

The way that one perceives stimuli changes based on their cultural values, experiences, relationships, etc.

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Although as a species, humans are dominated by their sense of sight, the hierarchy of senses does depend on culture and linguistics. Each language has its own sensory profile, and what we perceive is as much a description (us as a) person (race, nationality, age, gender etc) and of

the language and the culture as it is one of the scene itself.

Even if we aren’t aware of the other senses that may exist in our body, the main five senses have a significant impact on us. Our senses connect our body to the outside world allowing us to perceive the environment and to interact with people. They play a role in assisting us complete our everyday tasks such as driving, walking, etc.

Most importantly our senses are closely connected to our emotions and memories and can have a dramatic effect on them.

Technology can sometimes cloud our sensory perception by exposing us to textual and factual information rather than human emotions. When it comes to screen-based interfaces,

It is important to be aware of the impact our senses have on us and interact with technology in ways where our senses can be stimulated properly. This may be able to give us a more holistic experience with technology than just restricting our interaction to only a few senses at a time. Next time you go into the kitchen or are driving, make sure you are aware of which senses you most commonly use.

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It is important to be aware of the impact our senses have on us...

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it is observed that the interactions mostly involve the use of our rational senses - hearing and sight, while leaving out the other senses that are not so commonly stimulated through technology. While we cannot imagine our lives without these devices, as they help us mediate almost all our daily activities, this trend of technology may cause us to lose touch with our senses.

July 2051 New Releases

Smart appliances need a smart environment

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Learn more about our new cultured technology environments to accompany your smart appliances in your kitchen.

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New Releases

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July 2051 New Releases

SAATH

Communal Dining

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Our new communal dining setup called Saath allows people to connect to their ancestors. With changing meals and changing eating habits, Saath ensures that you have a traditional dining experience. You can choose from a set of preset options to have your dishes arranged in a certain way.

This makes it easy, even for children to help around in setting the table. So be it a traditional Onam Sadhya or a Maharashtrian Thali, Saath makes your table set up a breeze!

INR

40,000

Cryptocurrency payment available

With Saath, people can now connect more deeply to their traditions, not only in terms of how the food is made, but also in terms of how it’s eaten.

Saath places traditional meals in today’s world, making everyone, from children to grandparents happy. The set up could be used as a learning medium for children as well, to teach them how to set the table according to different meals.

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Dine the traditional way

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CHATUR Countertop

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Upgrade your boring and basic granite tops to our new smart counter, that will be your new favourite kitchen assistant. With the latest technology, our smart counter helps you with your cooking prep, assists you with any recipe, and helps find any ingredient no matter where the ingredient is in your kitchen. But that’s not all! Chatur also helps you stay clean and efficient by highlighting any mess you may have made in the kitchen and also syncs with any and all smart appliances you may already have. So, no more stressing in the kitchen, our smart counter is your kitchen’s perfect companion.

INR

56,000

Cryptocurrency payment available

Our smart counter allows you to be more efficient in the kitchen without invading your space. While it still provides you with complete control of your kitchen, Chatur can take care of smaller tasks that can help you gain the richest kitchen experience. The smart counter not only is able to assist you with any Indian recipe, it can also send you a grocery list prehand of ingredients you may not have, and the level of assistance it provides is totally up to you. Don’t wait, get yours installed today!

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No more scales and measuring cups

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July 2051 New Releases

SAAF

Dishwasher

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Our dishwasher is a recent upgrade from the previous Scrub-Buddy that we had. The new appliance comes with a variety of features including a set of preset options to take into account as many things as possible, including the food that was cooked in the utensils! So no more egg-y smell even after washing multiple times.

Saaf is top load, making it very simple for you to fill it up without having to bend down. To fulfil the Indian need to scrub each and every vessel, the dishwasher comes with an inbuilt scrubber for you to indicate how intense the cleaning should be.

INR

37,000

Cryptocurrency payment available

With its new interaction, Saaf makes sure you have as much control as you want on how the appliance works within the kitchen. It comes with a variety of preset options that allow you to change settings for different kinds of foods. Be it a dark yellow haldi mark or greasy ghee stains, you can make the dishwasher clean accordingly. What’s more? You can set the intensity to exactly what you want using the inbuilt scrubber. From having full control to full automation, this dishwasher makes the journey smoother.

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No effort with all the same benefits

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July 2051 About Re-Soi

What do we value at Re-Soi? Do not disrupt human-human connections The kitchen is a very communal space and we don’t want our interventions to take away from the rich cultural experience that people have within the kitchen space.

Enable preservation of rich traditional knowledge, methods and tools People are moving further and further away from tradition, we want to make sure that our products use methods and gestures derived from familiar culture.

Stimulate underused senses

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After the sensory underload epidemic in 2025, we decided to make our products enhance senses that were dying because of screen based technology.

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About Re-Soi

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About Re-Soi

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About Re-Soi

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What type of work I do and why I do it Ananya Rane

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s a designer starting out in a Human-Centred Design field, a lot of my work borrowed from this kind of methodology, where we would understand how to create an effective connection between humans and technology, while keeping humans first. I was intrigued by the relationship humans have with technology and how their behaviours (for the better and the worse) are changing with the presence of this beast. Businesses focussed mostly on bombarding users with as much technology, and then combating that with more technology. I wanted to take a step back, to look at the bigger picture; look at how this phenomenon would change things in a few years. So that’s where my practice started.

Following that, I worked with a lot of small firms, as a Speculative Design Consultant, a field that was quite unheard of at the time, to look at the implication of technological interventions on humans, in the future.

The idea of looking at the flipside of technology was new and unknown for businesses, especially because taking responsibility for one’s own creations wasn’t as common a notion.

Janaki and I started Re-Soi (first called Re-Imagine) back in 2030 with the intention of helping clients understand the need for speculative design in their work. We then were very intrigued by the kitchen space and the role that appliances played, especially in an Indian kitchen. We then slowly started shifting to studying

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About Re-Soi

I feel that this segment of the process is extremely essential especially because the ones using these products need to be looked at as humans, not as mere users. Our process at Re-Soi keeps changing as and when we come across new methodologies and tools that help us better encapsulate our work.

The idea of looking at the flipside of technology was new and unknown...

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current appliances and building new ones, using cultured technology.

Within Re-Soi, I look more specifically at understanding what the implication of people using such appliances would be, to understand how this would change the narrative within the kitchen.

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July 2051 Discussion

How technology changes the speed of society Narayan Nea

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ow has digital technology changed the work norms of society? From the days of letters, to telegrams, to the telephone - long-distance communication was revolutionised because of the internet. Equipped with the internet, communication went from taking weeks to minutes, and now less than seconds. Judy Wajcman, in their paper talks about an “acceleration society” where speed manifests itself in our technology, and as a result in us as a society. Now that digital technology has destroyed the concept of time as we knew it linearly, we are stuck in multi-tasking and

multi-living to be able to do as much as we can, in as little time as we can.

How has this manifested itself in our culture as a society? With technology speeding up, we now expect work to be done faster, and more instantly.

We feel rushed and pressured by this speed, but since we can work so fast, we expect to be constantly on our toes. As Rega Jha, in her column in the Times of India says, technology platforms themselves create guilt by using design features that are used to imbibe the sense of urgency in users. The culture of hyper-productivity has set new parameters for the measure of

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success. Overworking, increased work stress and addiction are equated with commitment and hard work, and as a result digital nomads aspire to be workaholics and overachievers always working. Mazmanian et al. in their paper discuss an “autonomy paradox” that mobile devices have produced, because of which devices that we actually supposed to allow them to “own” their time have resulted in digital nomads and other working professionals being burnt out, stressed and tired.

At 1am Thursday, a stranger messaged me on Instagram asking if I could help with charity work. I saw it and thought: it’s past midnight, I can reply to this tomorrow.

A few minutes later, she messaged again: “You could at least reply.” I felt instantly furious — how could anybody feel so entitled to my time? I said I’d planned to — just, in the morning. And she said: “It showed ‘seen’ so I thought you don’t wanna reply.”

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- Rega Jha, The Times of India

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By Gaurav Singh

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By Gaurav Singh

July 2051 Discussion

What’s next for our smart counter?

Sanjay Akim

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hatur, our latest release, is a smart counter that assists users during their cooking process. This version of the smart counter is able to assist with any Indian recipe, help with locating items within the kitchen, measure out ingredients, and highlight spills and messes to ensure a smooth kitchen experience. Upon thinking about how we could further design the smart counter for the users, we also started to think about the various users in the household. So how can we design this technology to enable all the members in the house to be able to interact with it?

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As this technology allows users to be more grounded with their culture, this version is targeted towards those individuals who spend the most

time in the kitchen. What if we could extend this experience for children?

As children get older, they should be exposed to more aspects of their culture, cuisine, cooking and dining being one such aspect. We figured that Chatur could help by providing interactive ways through which young kids could experience this part of their culture.

In order to do this, we at ReSoi, are developing a feature within Chatur that is specifically designed for kids.

This will include interactive tasks, games, and learning experiences that allow kids to have an enjoyable learning experience without feeling like they are being forced into it. We wanted the experience of this concept to not just teach kids

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Discussion

We are hoping that we will be able to launch this feature by summer next year, and hopefully deliver a product that is right for your home.

We believe that learning through hands-on experiences creates lasting impacts, and thus with Chatur, we believe that it can help users develop lasting connections with their culture.

We at ReSoi, are developing a feature within Chatur that is specifically designed for kids.

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how to cook dishes, but to also be able to expose them to various textures, sensory experiences and cultural behaviors so that they can appreciate and understand their culture better.

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Want to turn y from useless t

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your partner s to useful?

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July 2051 About Re-Soi

Why I became a cultured technology designer Janaki Syam

ood design is not just about the aesthetics and making things look nice, but it should also be able to deliver a thoughtful and meaningful experience to the users interacting with it. We as designers have a multitude of mediums to design for and with, technology being one of them. While growing up, I was always fascinated by technology and how it played such an integral part in the life that we live and how much we interact with it to the point where it seems impossible to believe technology didn’t exist at some point.

As we look back at the technology that existed centuries ago, we come to realise that it was rapidly evolving and we started designing technology that dictated our every move, and eventually our culture as we knew it, started to evolve. While learning more about the implications that this technology had on the community and society, I realised that I wanted to be able to design technology that was going to empower at an individual level, societal level and a universal level.

As an individual who is really in 59

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July 2051 About Re-Soi

touch with my culture, I realised that part of that credit goes to my mother who pushed me to learn more and introduce me to various parts of my culture. With technology becoming more involved in our lives, I felt like it also needed to help root users to their culture and change the involvement of technology in our daily lives. I wanted to be able to use my skills as a designer to be able to design technology that not only is a way for people to connect with each other, but to also help them understand and preserve the culture they are a part of.

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Ananya and I wanted our company to also mirror these same objectives and especially in a culturally rich space like the indian kitchen, for the design of these technologies to pay attention to the experience it provides, the implications it has, and be careful of how the interactions, culture, sense and human play out. As a cultured technology designer, I hope that many also design with the intention to make the world a better place.

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The idea of looking at the flipside of technology was new and unknown...

July 2051 Discussion

Chorizo & Eggs Denise D’Souza “Often when we do things, or are taught to do things a certain way it, feels like it’s the only route to take until someone or something comes along and nudges you to say “hey but have you tried doing it like ‘this’ ?”.

And that applies so much to our food.

All my life I’ve eaten Goan sausage and fried eggs seperately in different meals and only recently I tried it in combination. That’s how I figured what my favourite breakfast was.

Chorizo and eggs.”

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Our featured creator of the month, Denise D’souza is a visual artist who tries to explore the role of design and art in social scenarios.

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Our online hologram store is now live!

Visit www.resoi.com/store

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Shop from amongst your favourites at Re-Soi

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