Martina Spies holds a PhD in architecture, is a builder and activist. In 2013 she and her father founded the organization Anukruti, www.anukruti.org, which builds playgrounds on vacant urban sites within slums in the megacity Mumbai. She has gained experience in international offices such as Shigeru Ban in Japan, COSTFORD, B.V. Doshi and Hasmukh Patel in India. Between 2013 and 2016, she worked as a research manager for the project Ground Up – A Dwellers‘ Focused Design Tool for Upgrading Living Space’ in Dharavi, Mumbai in one of the highest density and largest informal settlements in the world. At Studio X Mumbai, Martina Spies, in cooperation with Columbia University, was the successful curator of two international exhibitions called Dharavi: Places and Identities and Mumbai – which bring the four neighbourhoods in the slum in the middle of Megacity Mumbai alive and Let‘s play! Children as Creators of Informal Playspaces, which showcased the culture of playing in India for the first time.

Jayaraman Subramanian is a noted Indian Architect who has used his expertise acquired in the Middle East to tackle many of the large and fast-track projects such as the National Games Facilities at Hyderabad, the International Airport at Hyderabad, and the Head Office Building for Indian Oil Corporation at Delhi. He had the opportunity for working on prestigious projects in Africa and the Presidential Complex at Ghana, West Africa has become a landmark in that region. He is Currently, Executive Director of STUP group of companies, Technical Director, AEEC; Oman and associated as Guest Professor with many architectural colleges of India.

Lilo Viehweg is a design researcher and curator. Her research interest lies in the investigation of material cycles and social processes between humans and non-humans. She studied Industrial Design at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle and graduated in Product Design at the University of Arts in Berlin. Since 2015, Lilo Viehweg has also been teaching at various universities. She has held guest lectureships at the Zurich University of the Arts in Interaction Design and at Academy of the Arts Berlin Weißensee and is currently a lecturer with the COOP Design research Master program at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. 

Prayas Abhinav is a writer, teacher and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of a startup focusing on board games and flat-pack furniture. He has worked in the last few years on numerous pieces of speculative fiction, software, games, interactive installations, public interventions and curatorial projects. He has written extensively on poetic thought as a form of lingual communication. He contributed to research and projects at northeastwestsouth (n.e.w.s) (Amsterdam, NL). He has conducted workshops at Centre for Environmental Planning Technology (CEPT) (Ahmedabad), Dutch Art Institute (Arnhem, NL), MICA (Ahmedabad) and National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad & Bangalore). In the past he led the Centre for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA) at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore. At present, he is driving the development of a volunteerism project at Ahmedabad University. 

He has developed his research and practice with the support of fellowships by Sarai, Openspace, the Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA), TED and Lucid. He has been in residencies at Khoj (India), Coded Cultures (Austria) and dis-locate (Japan). He has shared his work at festivals including Transmediale, 48c, Futuresonic, ISEA and Wintercamp.