About.

IDF Singapore (Innovation & Design Forum) encourages and enables strategic alliances, and facilitates cross cultural design thinking and application. We seek to promote designers in product, furniture and industrial design by connecting them to international markets and producers, take part in exhibitions, trade fairs and biennales. Our core strength lies in networks and organising world class design conferences events. IDF Singapore plans to initiate a global design forum and several other design initiatives and hopes to play a supporting role in making Singapore an important design hub.

RAJSHREE PATHY – Founder & CEO

Business leader, design thinker, art collector, Rajshree Pathy is the multifaceted visionary behind IDF Singapore (Innovation and Design Forum Singapore).With IDF Singapore, Rajshree hopes to explore regional design as well as to promote cross-cultural design interventions including generating opportunities for designers in Singapore and the Asian region and facilitating production and establishing market networks.

In 2012, Rajshree started India Design Forum-IDF (www.indiadesignforum.com), an inclusive design conference for dialogue, debate, consensus and action, partnering with the Foreign embassies, CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), NID (National Institute of Design) and Museums. IDF stands as India’s most influential design forum in the country, spanning all design disciplines. Four Conferences over two days has been held so far in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai with an attendance of 1400 participants. DESIGN TRAIL - week long celebration of Design with workshops, district wise events and exhibitions is held during the Forum.

Throughout her career, Rajshree has consistently strived to create awareness for contemporary art, design and architecture, through world class forums, workshops and partnerships; her in- depth understanding of business and commerce gives her a unique perspective on design evolving role in the socio-economic landscape of a country. As such, the overarching objective for IDF is to create a platform to promote discourse around the social relevance of design, its commercial appeal, and the innovations that drive it - raising awareness for the power of design.

IDF has been actively involved in the ‘Make in India’ initiative - launched by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2014 - as part of a wider set of nation-building initiatives, devised to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub. With a shared objective to spark a renewed sense of pride in India’s manufacturing and innovation sector, IDF was invited by the Government of India to hold a one-day conference on ‘Empowering through Design’ in February 2016 (as part of the Make in India Week). The conference brought together global design leaders, corporates and media heads to rethink contemporary design practices against the backdrop of manufacturing.

IDF was invited to represent India at the Inaugural London Design Biennale in 2016 and in the words of the Biennale’s director, Dr Christopher Turner “Your installation was such a highlight o our event. With its mirrored floor, hanging textiles and wall of street signs, it was definitely the most vibrant of our exhibits and certainly one of the most photographed. You are a magnificent force of nature and should be proud of your energetic promotion of Indian Design.” Rajshree has earned many accolades and been recognised in her career as a leading industrialist, including being nominated as a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland and as an Eisenhower Fellow. The Government of India conferred Rajshree Pathy with the prestigious Padma Shri Award in the field of Trade and Industry in 2013. A powerful voice for design advocacy in India, she is active in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), serves on the Committee of the India Design Council, and is on the board of the National Institute of Design, Andhra Pradesh, India.