Khushboo Balwani

Khushboo Balwani is a Strategic Designer, working on how collaborative methodologies can solve social challenges. In 2012 she wrote a thesis entitled “Future of work in sustainable living”, as part of her MA studies in Design Strategy at Politecnico di Milano. Through this paper she intends to stimulate a strategic conversation among policy-makers, educators and researchers on the conditions that can lead to the creation of new ways of work in sustainable living.

Since 2013 she has been a OuiShare Brussels connector and has worked locally in mapping the community, researching case studies, fostering collaborations and strengthening the collaborative economy movement. She has been a speaker, workshop facilitator related to innovation in the collaborative economy and an advisor for entrepreneurs, companies and other organisations in Brussels.

On a global level, within OuiShare she was involved in the global communications and lead the fellowship for OuiShare Fest 2015 & 2016 communications.

She is one of the author of Sharing Cities Book project organised by Shareable and co-authored two chapters for the book on the topics Work and Food.

Currently, she is driving civic innovation network in Brussels, to foster unforeseen collaborations that can tackle the systemic challenges of the city by connecting people, projects and communities.

Before coming to Europe, she practiced the design profession for four years in Bangalore (India), where she mainly focused on designing the interior environments of living spaces. It was there that she explored the amazing capacities of designers in getting closer to users, understand their needs and provide customised services. It was at this moment that she decided to leverage on this skill and practice an empathetic design approach to resolve complex systemic challenges.