The city of Ahmedabad and the Indian state of Gujarat have a number of unique factors making it an ideal location for a project that brought together three leading global design education institutes, each with their own expertise; the Royal College of Art (RCA) with its design thinking and innovation, Imperial College’s leading science and engineering and the National Institute of Design’s (NID) strong culture of design an innovation through craft and economic upliftment. Students from the double masters Innovation Design Engineering and a range of NID’s design programmes in Paldi, Ahmedabad and the Gandhinagar campus were coordinated by Professor Praveen Nahar of the Industrial Design faculty. The aim was to combine bring the diverse mix of a dozen faculty and over sixty students to design to work in mixed groups to collaboratively design projects with the rich culture of local craftsmen and artisans to look for new innovations and design approaches.