What is Nil?
Nil or Zero is the starting point of all creation. Imagination and ideation know no bounds when starting at nil, allowing experimentation to unfold and innovation to thrive. From this vantage point, the possibilities of creating positive and sustained impact are limitless.
Passionate about investing in capabilities of people to enhance their growth and well-being.
Our Story
Nil is a design lab with a purpose to co-create human-centric solutions that address some of the most prevalent, complex and behaviour oriented problems.
Nil is borne out of 15 years of immersive and on-ground experience of NRMC in catalysing impact. NRMC is a social development advisory that uses an evidence based approach to design, implement, and deliver sustainable solutions to today’s development challenges. NRMC strives to achieve results at scale by catalysing partnership with communities, enhancing models of service provision, and establishing last mile service delivery mechanisms.
“...Imagine all the people sharing all the world,
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.”
- Imagine, John W. Lennon
Our Philosophy
At Nil, we strive to build a world which transcends barriers and brings freedom and opportunity to all.
Inspired by John Lennon’s iconic words, we strive to build a world which transcends barriers and brings freedom and opportunity to all citizens. To realise this dream, we use empathy as our guiding principle to design and deliver services and experiences that enhance the quality of life for people. With empathy, we are able to look beyond the obvious, unbox different identities, and nurture solutions that help individuals and communities to grow.
Our Principles
We understand the end user's environment while designing and delivering solutions to them.
Experiment to unlearn
We believe in the words of the Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, about what can be expected when we experiment. “There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.” Experimentation is central to our process of design. Only with experimentation can we design solutions that bend the norms, are resilient, and are cognizant of the multiple contexts we live in today.
Immerse in the context
Immersing ourselves in the community’s environment provides us with context of the problem. Contexts have the power to transform the narrative, shift our perspectives, and reset our direction to reach the solution with accuracy. At Nil, we believe that unless the context is right, the content won’t make sense. So we start with the context knowing well that the content with shape itself.
Celebrate imagination
Crazy and seemingly impossible ideas become a reality because at some point, somewhere in this world, someone, imagined it. At Nil we celebrate imagination that allows us to develop our perspectives, look at new ways to process information, create new prototypes, and learn to improvise. Imagination that fuels design for people, making their lives better.
Build a community
Only with collaboration can we identify solutions that lead to real impact. As strong proponents of empathy-led models of change, we are keen to build a community of individuals and institutions who are committed to solving complex social problems. A community of thinkers, seekers, builders, designers, and those ready to experiment bound together by that one goal of creating a world shared by all the people. And this is what we strive for!