By Anijo Mathew Head of Department of Art and Design/American University of Sharjah + Founder/Vamonde A few weeks ago, Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Chairperson of Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, described a vision for the future of art experiences in the UAE. I…

Tea, Opium, and the Future of Information Politics — By Anijo Mathew Head of Department of Art and Design/American University of Sharjah + Founder/Vamonde 1840. The Politics of Geography Tea, as everyone knows, is a quintessential part of British culture today. In fact, over 60 billion cups of tea are consumed by Britons every year. The British had their first taste of tea towards…

How the Indian giant, Godrej used design-led innovation to create a whole new product category. — By Anijo Mathew Head of Department of Art and Design/American University of Sharjah + Founder/Vamonde Our story begins over a century ago when a young Indian entrepreneur started playing around with safes. Ardeshir Burjorji Sorabji Godrej was not new to innovation. A few years ago, he founded a company with…

It’s that time of the year. Students are starting to talk about jobs, job interviews, career choices, hopes, dreams, student loans, and such. As a professor at the IIT Institute of Design, one part of my job is to counsel students on their career decisions. My students are arguably some…

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good (or mis) fortune (depending on how you look at it) of traveling halfway across the world and being in five major international airports in less than three days. During my travel, I noticed something interesting. It appears as though all of…

By Anijo Mathew Founder and Chief Experience Officer/Vamonde + Academic Director of the Ed Kaplan Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship/IllinoisTech Chicago We all know how Apple Stores have mapped out a whole new level of retail experience for their users. I recently walked into the flagship Apple Store on Chicago’s…

My name is Anijo Mathew, and I am an Associate Professor at IllinoisTech’s Institute of Design (ID) in Chicago. Two years ago, I founded Vamonde because I saw that most institutions did not have a way to engage their audiences through technologically enabled cultural narratives. For these institutions, Vamonde provides…