Toy Innovation at NID - An introduction to Virtual Toy Exhibition 2021

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The online virtual toy exhibition we have put up is around the overarching theme of play, learn, and design. Often we consider play to be a frivolous activity and not so important without recognizing that play and development in a child goes hand in hand. [00:00:21] Speaker 2: The tradition of Indian toys has been in existence since years. Ancient games and toys like wooden puppets, chopat, gilidanda have been played in many Indian houses. [00:00:33] Speaker 3: India has a promising toy sector. It has been contributing to our country on an economic, entertainment, and development front. It has immense potential owing to the fact that it creates a variety of toy products that are available in the market. And this is also owing to the fact that India offers a huge market for all types of toys. [00:00:53] Speaker 1: India is home to the largest population of children and children actually form the foundation of our society. Toys have the potential to make learning fun for them, but not all toys could do that. So design is very important over here and we need to design sensitively and with good understanding of child psychology and educational aspects to actually transform the learning landscape for them. [00:01:17] Speaker 4: After a decade of research, India established Toy Centre in 2000. So Toy Centre is basically to help the toy industry in the design domain. So we are helping the toy industry to give new design to them. [00:01:35] Speaker 3: So what we need now are toys that are new, unique, safe, they are of good quality and especially well designed. Till now, whenever we have been trying to make new products, we have been depending upon our instincts or on existing market trends to come up with new designs. But rather, we should look at informed insights which can be developed through a proper design process to come up with designs that could be fresh, innovative, as well as development friendly. [00:02:04] Speaker 5: Uniqueness of NID is a very, very strong design process which makes any outcome very, very robust and strong and with a lot of iterative and feedback oriented approach, which gives a very strong outcome in terms of what the value of that outcome, in terms of its play value, in terms of its educational value, in terms of its replayability and things like that. So that really helps. We consider a lot of nuances of cultures, regions, folk traditions and all kinds of influences comes together. [00:02:48] Speaker 1: When I say learning, it means formal classroom learning to help understand concepts of science, geography, maths, history, etc. Through exploratory, experimental toys and games, but it also means development, where you are looking at physical development, working with your fingers, developing your senses, observational skills, tactile experiences, creative expressions. And because toys are so interactive and children get so involved in the play of it, that it's possible to have this sort of a holistic development through play and through creating such experiences. And because toys provide such interactive experiences and multi-sensorial experiences, they are also very good for special needs children. So that is another area we need to work with, which is looking at inclusive classroom education and to be able to create this sort of playful learning environment for children with special needs. [00:03:47] Speaker 5: One of the things at NID, we are also very strong in a system oriented approach and looking at complex issues and scenarios and looking at things at a very meta meta system level and then translating into various kinds of opportunities. We have done a lot of projects and we have done a lot of projects and we have done a lot of projects which concerns with the education and the play, the relationship of the children in the cities and how the play is an important integral part of our lives. So looking at very systemic and complex issues and translating them to various sectors of opportunities from products, service infrastructure and which has been a very strong component of the educational outcome of NID. [00:04:45] Speaker 4: We involve students here in Toy Centre to do research on different new toys ideas in order to also help the toy industry to get new ideas. [00:04:57] Speaker 2: But somehow because of modernising technology in materials and system, the look and the feel of traditional local materials are degrading. I think bamboo is one of the material which we can use to create toys because it is sustainable, it is durable, it is strong, it is child friendly and at the same time we do not have any contemporary or modern toys in India. [00:05:19] Speaker 1: We are privileged to have such a variety of sustainable local materials as well as rich craft traditions all across India. Can we look at this as an opportunity to work with artisans and come up with new designs for contemporary educational needs? [00:05:37] Speaker 5: There is a lot of opportunities to also look at issues of sustainability, circularity, circular economy to be an integral part of our process. And at NID we will strive to take various initiatives for this sector, not only from the industries and industrial needs and design for India in Atmanabebar Bharat, but also from the point of view of our traditional crafts and folk traditions and how those translate into meaningful objects. [00:06:15] Speaker 2: There, designer can play a role to create beautiful designs. Bamboo can be used as a local material. So I think one must go for bamboo toys, one must promote bamboo and I am sure this can make our Prime Minister's dream come true, make it India, design in India. [00:06:32] Speaker 1: We need to work at various levels, not only to design new innovative toys, but also work at a macro strategic level to understand the actual needs, to understand the challenges of implementation, to understand the importance of equity so that children from different socio-economic backgrounds and abilities can all have access to good toys. [00:06:55] Speaker 3: For all the industries and the new start-ups that are coming out, design can be really instrumental in helping them not only in coming up or thinking of new ideas, but also in developing smart and cost-effective manufacturing solutions. [00:07:09] Speaker 1: Consider the new education policy and the toy-based pedagogy which it is coming up with to see how we can align ourselves with that, how we can create employment through intervening in craft clusters so that they are able to manufacture and produce toys with good development and educational possibilities. [00:07:28] Speaker 5: We are also looking at focusing on our new educational policy and there is a strong kind of emphasis on experiential learning and there is a huge demand for various aids which will facilitate experiential learning and we will also put up a trust on that area as to come. [00:07:52] Speaker 1: So there are lots of areas to work with but we need to do it sensitively with depth and with a great amount of understanding and see that how design and innovation can change this landscape of education, employment in India and take care of these issues. For more information, visit www.fema.org/webcast.org/webcast.org/webcast