Akanksha Deo Sharma

Akanksha Deo Sharma is an Indian multidisciplinary designer and artist working at IKEA, whose practice merges craft, technology, and sustainability to engage vulnerable communities while rethinking materiality and innovation. She was recognised in Forbes India 30 Under 30 for this approach to design.

Her work has been featured in Fast Company, Wallpaper, Dezeen, FRAME, Vogue, and Elle — and has found its way into exhibition at the London Design Museum and onto the juries of the Frame Awards and Danish Design Awards. A TEDx speaker and One Young World ambassador, she explores how design shapes society and behaviour, advancing conversations around identity, power, and inequality, and working to broaden design narratives to better reflect diverse cultural contexts and voices.

Living between Copenhagen, Malmö and Delhi, Akanksha works across the creative landscapes of the Nordics and South Asia, building bridges through mentorship, shared learning, and community-driven creative exchange.

“What happens when the Global South moves from influence to authorship? The knowledge was always there. Generations of it, in craft, material intelligence and community. I work at the intersection of Indian heritage and global industrial systems, designing from Scandinavia while remaining rooted in what I carry from India. Constraint has always been the Global South’s most underrated design tool, where resources are limited, imagination expands, and that is precisely where the most radical design thinking is emerging. Across Delhi and Mexico City, Shanghai and Cape Town, we are weaving lateral futures, carrying our knowledge into new contexts.”