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 was especially thrilled to see her challenge to the community to come up with ideas and proposals for projects and events in a post-COVID-19 world. As we slowly emerge out of this crisis, this is a great opportunity for the UAE community to take a leadership role in this new reality. To do, so we must explore the intersection of physical and digital experiences. …

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 the end of the 17th century. By the late 18th century, the British were completely intoxicated by the drink and its demand grew manifold. There was just one problem. Tea came mostly from China. And China was not interested in trading with Britain.

In the 18th century, China was the world’s largest economy, a global superpower. There was very little that Britain could offer China in exchange. Much of the tea that came into Britain came in from Dutch traders, not through British traders. But the British soon figured out that the Chinese had a liking for a drug called opium which they used for both medicinal and recreational purposes. Coincidentally, the British had recently acquired some new real estate in the region — India. In the province of Bengal, the company had virtually established a monopoly on the growth of opium. The British began to use the eastern trade routes to smuggle opium into China in exchange for silk, tea, and porcelain which then made its way back to the island and to the colonies. …

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 a loan of 3500 rupees (about US$45,000 today) because he believed that merely boycotting British goods was not enough. Instead, he wanted to create a modern Indian enterprise that understood and designed for the needs of the Indian people. Today, his legacy, Godrej, is a giant of the Indian economy. They make appliances, furniture, agricultural augments, beauty products; they have service solutions in security, construction, real estate, retail, and even build rocket engines. …

By Anijo Mathew
Head of Department of Art and Design/American University of Sharjah + Founder/Vamonde

Most companies are founded on the premise of either technology or business innovation. While no company falls squarely into any one of these buckets, it can be argued that the DNA of every successful company is based on one of these two directions:

1. a Technology-centred evolution, where the founder invents a new product, process or service that is significantly better than a previous product or service. This innovation starts off small but eventually dominates the market. Ford, Nike, Godrej, Apple, Google, Facebook are all technology-centred companies. Godrej, a company I work with regularly was founded by Ardeshir Godrej with revolutionary new technology and manufacturing innovation in locks. “We are inherently a manufacturing company” is an oft-heard statement at Godrej, because the ethos of the company is in the technology of manufacturing. …

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 of the best design students in the world (or I believe so), but like all students, they struggle when it comes to searching for jobs.

How do you, straight out of school, decide which career choice is best? What constitutes an excellent opportunity and what constitutes a mediocre one? Should you go in for a long-term opportunity that pays less or a short-term step-in-the-ladder one that pays more? …

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 the world’s major airports have built retail experiences that look the same. In fact, I could pluck you from one duty-free shopping space in one airport and drop you into another one anywhere in the world, and it would take some time before you noticed the difference.

Destination Marketing Organizations love to highlight their museums, Michelin starred restaurants, bars and nightlife, international music, parks, but shopping is the core revenue generator of tourism everywhere. Who can blame them? International tourism is seeing stable growth levels; destinations around the world welcomed 956 million international visitors between January and September 2016. A large majority of international travelers are big money spenders when it comes to shopping. If you look at the international traveler, almost 15% of all travel expenses going towards shopping at the destination. Destinations specifically love the Chinese traveler, whose spending, according to a recent report by Nielsen, reached USD 261.1 billion in 2016, an increase of 4.5% year-on-year, and ranked first worldwide. Unlike others, Chinese travelers spend 25% of their in-location spend on shopping, while only 19% on accommodation, and 16% on cultural experiences such as dining. The average Chinese traveler is likely to spend a staggering $3,064 per person on location. This number is higher when the traveler is in western locations, such as the United States where they spend $4,462 per person! Surely the investment in creating familiar shopping experiences is likely to pay off. …

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 Michigan Avenue and, as usual, everything in this store, from the personalized concierge service and the minimalist graphics to the thoughtful blend of modern aesthetics and wood furniture, is designed to make you feel special. The store design itself blends into the surroundings so that public and private spaces coexist. …

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 a unique ability to present their narratives through temporal and spatial extensions that go beyond the four walls of their establishment. We then empower these narratives through a multi-channel network where partners can connect to the cultural traveler through very unique hyper-local experiences. No other platform does what Vamonde can do. …