Our Story

KLEST Lab was founded with a simple but urgent question:

How can design help us not only adapt to change, but shape better futures together?

Based on 32+ years of collective experience in academia, industries such as architecture, jewellery design, ship-breaking, oil & gas and urban design, our founders created KLEST!

KLEST which stands for —Kindle · Learn · Evolve · Start— is a space to challenge the limits of traditional consulting and education.

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Kindle - Every transformation begins with a spark. By cultivating a mindset of curiosity, we open ourselves to new possibilities and lay the foundation for change.

Learn - Curiosity, when paired with the right tools, knowledge, and skills, evolves into research and discovery. This stage is also about building capacity, upskilling, and creating the conditions for meaningful growth.

Evolve - Insights emerge when research is applied to practice. This process of integration—turning knowledge into action—fuels innovation and resilience. It is here that true transformation takes shape.

Start - With curiosity sparked, knowledge gained, and insights evolved, we are ready to begin. The start is not just the end of a cycle, but the launch of something new—an initiative, a strategy, a future.

The Philosophy

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Our Vision

KLEST Lab's vision is to be a catalyst for future-readiness by kindling curiosity, nurturing learning, enabling evolution, and sparking new beginnings.

We do this through design research and strategy consulting and upskilling and capacity building through flagship training programs that ensure foresight and future-readiness.

Our Founders

Khushboo Jogani

A systems thinker, strategist, and educator with over 22 years of global experience across design, academia, sustainable innovation, and business transformation. Known for integrating design foresight, systems thinking, and circular economy principles into leadership, strategy, and pedagogy. Khushboo has worked with institutions, corporates, and grassroots ecosystems to reframe problems, build resilient models, and enable future-ready leaders. Currently a Professor of Practice (UGC), at KLEST she building a collective at the intersection of design, foresight, and innovation. Her career spans luxury, manufacturing, MSMEs, and higher education, making her uniquely positioned to translate research into action, foresight into strategy, and pedagogy into transformation.

Lakshmi S

Lakshmi is a design educator, researcher, and practitioner whose work bridges foresight, inclusion, pedagogy, and socio-spatial equity.

Lakshmi has a decade of experience having worked as an architect, designer, researcher and faculty member in both academia and industry. She has presented her design and research work at 14 international conferences since 2017, including Cumulus 2024 (Budapest), ITD24 (Utrecht University), SMUS Thailand (Chulalongkorn University), TU Delft’s Spatial Justice in Practice, and RCA’s Include 22 Conference. Her research has appeared in six peer-reviewed publications, spanning a Springer book chapter, a journal article in Cities People Places, and proceedings from global design education forums.

Lakshmi has also contributed to diversity and inclusion initiatives as a panelist, mentor, and trainer, anchoring her practice in research-led foresight and equity-driven transformation.