12.02.2024: Chair of Conference Session: Measuring Civic Pride

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been invited to chair the session on ‘Measuring Civic Pride’ at the Cambridge Arts Network Conference 2024: Creative Placemaking.

The session will discuss the findings of research conducted by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, which looked at how cultural infrastructure contributes to a feeling of civic pride in our cities, how to measure belonging and attachment to a place, and how to promote pride in place.

11.12.2023: Shaping the Cultural Landscape of Cambridge

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop brought together and hosted Cambridge's diverse and esteemed cultural leaders at the Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University for a dynamic discussion on shaping a more vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape for Cambridge.

This is part of X-Crop’s Thinking City project exploring a new strategic narrative for Cambridge based on a novel perspective of ‘connected-urbanism’.

06.11.2023: DRS 2024 'Ethics in/of/for Design'

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been invited by the Design Research Society to review journal submissions under Track 24 'Ethics in/of/for Design' for DRS 2024: topics include responsible design and innovation; ethics of collaboration; ethics in education; aesthetics of design; and ethics for social and climate justice.

The 2024 Design Research Society (DRS) conference will be taking place in Boston, MA (USA) from June 24th-28th, 2024, hosted by the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University.

24.10.2023: The Hopes and Fears Lab: AI Edition

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been invited by the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science and the Public, University of Cambridge to speak about the future of Art & Design education and practice with a focus on ethics, purpose, and values in the age of Artificial Intelligence and the hopes and fears around AI and creativity.

Taking place in Cambridge aboard a double-decker bus from 26th to 28th October, the Hopes and Fears Lab is a project in partnership with AI@Cam as part of the AI Fringe that connects scientists and the public in conversation about the implications of AI for the future we all share.

12.10.2023: Academician of The Academy of Urbanism

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop is honoured to have been made an Academician of The Academy of Urbanism by invitation and recognition. AoU’s Academicians are a high-level, broad, and diverse international community of leaders, thinkers, and practitioners engaged in the social, cultural, economic, political, and physical development of local and global cities.

The Academy of Urbanism founded nearly two decades ago, is a politically independent, non-profit organisation that brings together both the current and next generation of urban leaders, thinkers, and practitioners - supporting the belief that good design can establish a high-quality built environment and support economic, social, political, and cultural activity while delivering robust, distinctive, and appealing experiences and environments.

30.05.2023: Designing for the Future Congress 2023

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been invited by The Academy of Urbanism as part of a distinguished panel to explore and share how design (design practice, design research, and design education) can address Cambridge’s wicked and long-term urban issues (unequal local communities; low levels of trust; differentiated geographical needs; pressure on revenue streams; disparities between education and skills; and deteriorating urban relationships) and enable a collective and integrated approach towards a more connected, sustainable, and inclusive vision for the city that meets the needs of its residents while embracing innovation and preserving its unique identity.

Idrees will be sharing findings from X-Crop’s [Thinking City] project; exploring ways in which design can renew urban relations and interactions, habits and patterns, practices, belief systems, values, and attitudes towards circular, shared, caring, and joined-up learning and doing that are contextual, ecological, strategic, and systematic.

20.01.2023: The Thinking City at the CAN Conference 2023

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been invited by the Cambridge Arts Network to give a keynote presentation at the CAN Conference 2023 taking place on the 22nd of February where he will be presenting his vision for Cambridge as a 'Thinking City'.

The Thinking City is a project central to Idrees’ work at the Cambridge School of Art and our mission at X-Crop that forms a new strategic narrative for Cambridge based on a novel perspective of ‘connected-urbanism’ and design for the renewal of urban relations and interactions; habits and patterns, practices, belief systems, values, and attitudes—towards circular, shared, caring, and joined-up learning and doing that are contextual, ecological, strategic, and systematic to help develop and deliver big opportunities for the sustainability of further and higher education, employment, and knowledge in the region.

23.11.2022: Chair of Validation Panel for Master of Architecture

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop appointed by the School of Architecture, ARU to chair the validation of a new Master of Architecture (widely known as MArch ARB/RIBA Part 2). The programme will focus on a suit of novel design strands including retrofit, heritage and conservation, new speculative agendas, and ecosystem architectures, and builds upon John Ruskin’s legacy and X-Crop’s mission that “design should reconnect people with society through education and eliminate the detrimental effect of human activity upon the planet”.

13.04.2022: Talk at the University of Hertfordshire, Architecture Society

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop was invited by the Architecture Society at the University of Hertfordshire, School of Architecture to present on the topic of ‘Betterment by Design’ provoking, why should we make ‘care’ the foundations and driver of our design process and how can we make post-disaster cities, organisations, and people better by design? How can we transform from a local to national and global designer in the 21st century and what it means to lead a cross-cultural design project that centres around ethical and sustainable development in a remote part of the world?

23.03.2022: Talk at the Cambridge Arts Network Conference 2022

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop was invited by the Cambridge Arts Network to discuss how are we shaping the future for all and can design determine what will inclusivity look like in the future? at Cambridge's C.A.N Conference 2022 'A Place of Creativity: creative & cultural response to a changed landscape' - questioning, Is the Future Inclusive? and exploring how design can make accessibility and inclusivity a more innate element of our future.

06.02.2022: Talk at the Iranian Architecture Centre

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop was invited by the Iranian Architecture Centre to discuss design education and practice from a cross-cultural perspective, focussing on the importance of redesigning present academic and professional structures and processes to suit different socio-economic, cultural, contextual, and environmental needs, and the need for designing a learning-centred school that integrates all facets of human life in its broadest sense; to test accepted ideas, and to probe future visions.

25.06.2021: Member of the Board of Advisors - Digital Influx

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has joined the board of Digital Influx to strengthen their understanding of design, technology, and education, and bringing new thinking as well as broadening the company's horizons, its markets and future drivers of local and global growth.

Founded in 2018, Digital Influx aims to create an empathetic global design community where children and innovation can thrive through diversity & inclusion, and has been working with kids & teens from across the UK, US, India, and Japan to broaden, build, and future proof their digital and critical skillset, whilst teaching them the impact innovation and design can have on their community, city, and the world.

14.05.2021: Creative Leadership Now! Workshop

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been invited to deliver a workshop on Creative Leadership as part of The Culture Capital Exchange.

The workshop will explore questions around our evolving leadership challenges, such as: What is good leadership in Higher Education and the Arts? How has leadership changed post Covid and how can we adapt? What are the other big issues that intersect with creative leadership and its development? How can we develop leaders of the future? What skills do we need?

24.03.2021: World Humanitarian Forum 2021, London - The Global Reset

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been invited as a speaker at the World Humanitarian Forum—The Global Reset Dialogue: Re-Defining Humanitarianism.

World Humanitarian Forum (WHF) is the largest and most inclusive nonpartisan forum in humanitarian aid and international development. Idrees will be speaking on the topic of "Urbanisation, Cities, and Future Planning Through Design" discussing how design can reduce disaster risk and increase resilience in cities whilst driving economic, social, and environmental sustainability for the benefit of humans, nature, and businesses?

15.01.2021: Deputy Head of Cambridge School of Art

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been appointed as Associate Professor and Deputy Head of Cambridge School of Art by Anglia Ruskin University.

“I’m truly honoured for having the opportunity to shape the future of CSA during this ‘Decade Of Action’ and adding to its 160-year history of inspiring creativity. Looking forward to working with CSA’s incredibly talented staff and brilliant students as well as the public and private sectors globally towards solving big problems, developing and delivering pedagogy & research beyond existing models, methods, imagination and creation, and transforming outdated social, environmental, economic, and political systems through cutting-edge art and design education and practice at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

I’m also looking forward to swapping London for beautiful Cambridge and basing X-Crop within this growing creative hotspot and its outstanding academic, technological, scientific, arts, and design organisations.” — Idrees Rasouli

10.12.2020: Institute for Post Disaster Recovery

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has published an article in the Crisis Response Journal, a global information resource and a well-known journal, outlining his ambitions and why he is setting up the Institute for Post Disaster Recovery (IPDR) in their December 2020 issue CRJ 15.4.

16.11.2020: Design for Safety (Grand Challenge 2020) at the Royal College of Art

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been appointed as a Visiting Lecturer for the School of Design at the Royal College of Art. Idrees will be working as part of the Grand Challenge team alongside prominent academics and industry leaders to teach design to postgraduate students and explore potential care systems and future health services, as well as new tools and systems to build resilience and help people prepare for a new and uncertain world.

The Grand Challenge will bring together RCA design disciplines involving Design Products, Fashion, Global Innovation Design, Innovation Design Engineering, Service Design and Textiles.

09.10.2020: The World CEO Rankings 2020 Awards (Nominee)

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop has been nominated for The World CEO Rankings Awards by The World CEO Rankings Board in the following category for 2020:

* World CEO of the Year

“This is incredible for X-Crop and an honour to be nominated” — Idrees Rasouli

15.09.2020: Rebuilding Better

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop received presentations from students at the Institute for Innovative Global Education, Kansai University, Japan — on applying design knowledge to uncover, conceive and develop the most beneficial response to post-disaster problems and opportunities.

This was the culmination of knowledge exchange carried out by X-Crop, which identified some key insights for design intervention across the Far Eastern and South Eastern societies in this during/post-COVID-19 era, with a focus on United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals 1, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17.

18.08.2020: Introducing X-Crop’s 14 Better by Design Goals (BDGs)

We have adopted our own 'Goals' as a global call to design action — to end systemic failures in disaster preparedness, response and recovery, and make every city, organisation and human ‘better’ (more healthy, prepared, safe, and fulfilled).

17.08.2020: Talk on Inequality and Social Mobility in Design and the Built Environment

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop will be speaking on the current issues AND opportunities surrounding inequality and social mobility in design and the built environment — sharing perspectives from academia and practice. This event is part of a new online series from Vestre, which highlights the most important urban matters and has the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals at its heart.

03.08.2020: Lecture at Kansai University, Japan (Institute for Innovative Global Education)

Idrees Rasouli, Founder and Creative Director of X-Crop gave lecture on [Design for Social Regeneration After Mass Disaster] to students from Kansai University as part of the Institute for Innovative Global Education’s lecture series. The lecture, which took place virtually, featured key learnings from Kamaishi — discussing responses to mass disaster by the local government, residents and international organisations, and key findings on what is really needed in preparing and recovering from disasters.