Anab Jain Wins LDF 2026 Design Innovation Medal as Superflux Co-Founder Champions Speculative Design

Key facts

• Anab Jain, co-founder of Superflux, has been awarded the London Design Festival's Design Innovation Medal for 2026.
• Superflux was started in 2009 by Anab Jain and her life and creative partner Jon Ardern.
• Jain proposed "more-than-human-centred design" at the 2018 Interaction Design Association (IxDA) conference in Lyon.
• The Ecological Intelligence Agency project was included in last year's More Than Human exhibition at the Design Museum.
• In the Ecological Intelligence Agency, a large language model analyses data about Essex's River Roding and is asked to speak for the river.
• Jain studied film at Ahmedabad's National Institute of Design and gained her master's at the Royal College of Art in London.
• In 2008, Jain worked on machine intelligence at the Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge.
• Jain published the book Designing Questions this year and leads the Design Investigations course at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
• LDF 2026 takes place at various locations around London from 12 to 20 September.
• Jain said: "In the short term, I think there's not much to be optimistic about, in all honesty."