DesignUp 🔔 Issue #84 > DesignUp in the Time of COVID19

Dear friends, members of the community, our wonderful supporters -

There’s little to say on the disruption, concerns, chaos and suffering that the COVID19 outbreak has caused. We’re all living through it first-hand in some form or the other - disruptions at an unimaginable scale, brought on by microscopic creatures. The paradox.

Here's a detailed overview of what it means for us, as the DesignUp community - given our ambitious plans for the 5th year of the conference and multiple initiatives in the run up to the Festival...

Not BAU

At DesignUp we start planning for our events early - super early. By Jan 2020 we were already in discussion with some inspiring speakers for our 5th Conference, planned for Nov this year.

We’re keeping all it on hold for now.

We won't be opening our Super Early Birds early in the year, as has become customary. This is not business as usual. There are way more important concerns, and we’ll revisit the planning once the confidence starts to return. And we’re confident that collectively we’ll overcome and move up.

Launch of the Deconstruct Report

We had planned the launch of the DesignUp Deconstruct Report on 20th of March in Bangalore. The offline event stands cancelled, because that's the right thing to do. The silver lining - it’ll now move online and many more of you will now be able to attend - from Singapore, Jakarta, Pune, Seattle or Tel Aviv. From the comfort of your home. Dates to be announced soon.

Meet-ups, minus the fear

Your support has made DesignUp SE Asia’s leading Design conference and the region's largest - and we are still looking forward to seeing more of you, sans the fear and apprehensions.

We believe learning, sharing must continue - so we’ll be moving a few of our events online until we are able to meet in the real world, without the need for masks.

Joining the Tribe

On stage in 2019, we announced the Tribe. The good news - some great conversations and feedback post announcement, which allowed us to fine tune the membership program. We're ready, all integrations in place - but we believe this isn't the right time. So joining the Tribe will have to wait, for a bit - though invite requests are open for now.

The Port in sight...

We have been working on a platform, called Port, for you to submit talks, nominate speakers, download the Deconstruct report and much more. And to help us upvote and shortlist, include Tribe members in blind-voting. March 2020 was the was the time when it would all come together - Deconstruct launch and downloads, Port, Tribe, talk submissions, upvoting. And we might open speaker nominations soon, via Port. Updates to follow...

Finally, I know I am leaving with you with a lot of 'coming-soons' - but that's the nature of the times we live in, we improvise, as our best laid plans get unravelled.

So let me add a recap of the 2019 event 👇it was just 16 weeks ago, but a lot has happened since. Here's to hoping that a lot more positives come out from the next 16 weeks - and we have own small part to play, in healing the world!

Stay safe,

J