New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS): India will celebrate its innovations in design in art, architecture, fashion, interiors and graphics with a nine-day design festival, "India Design Forum", in the capital March 2-10.

Conceived by the Coimbatore Centre for Contemporary Arts (CoCA) and led by founders Rajshree Pathy and Aishwarya Pathy, the forum will open creative dialogues, showcases and collaborative events woven around design and arts.

Founder of CoCA, Rajshree Pathy in a statement said the India Design Forum has two components.

"The first is the Design Trail - a week-long schedule of cutting edge design exhibitions and curated events in venues across New Delhi, open to the public - and the Design Forum - a private programme featuring two days of talks by design experts from around India and the rest of the world. The India Design Forum will bring global design thought leaders together in India to enable strategic alliances, encourage dialogue between academia and industry and facilitate cross design cultural thinking and application," Pathy said.

The "Design Trail" (March 2-8) includes a vintage car rally, a curated city design walk, exhibitions, film screenings and workshops at leading venues like India Gate, Aman Hotel, Palette Art Gallery, Stainless Gallery, Hauz Khas Village's design studios and Good Earth.

The Design Forum (March 9-10), will feature 40 speakers and leading experts from multiple design disciplines. The speakers will examine how designs inform the "world and change our lives, every day."

Some of the key speakers include celebrated industrial designer Karim Rashid, trendsetter, curator and publisher Lidewij Edelkoort, entrepreneur Sam Pitroda, design instructor Tim Marshall, designer Satyendra Pakhale, Milan-based editor of Domus magazine Joseph Grima, Designboom founder Birgit Lohmann, award-winning design critic Justin McGuirk, and editor of Creative Review magazine Patrick Burgoyne.

Two special programmes "Visualising Marathon 2012" (March 2-3) and "Trend Union Seminar in India - Design and Fashion Forecasting" will help university students take on complex social and real world issues through data visualisation in collaboration with leading designers and host leading trend forecaster, Lidewij Edelkoort, in a seminar on the future trends in design in arts and fashion.