In her works, Visual artist Akanksha Deo Sharma prioritizes form, function, quality, sustainability, and affordability. The first Indian designer to join the Swedish furniture behemoth IKEA, Akanksha’s journey involved breaking the conventional molds of expectations and career choices – to pursue her aptitude for expressing ideas. Today, armed with an adept understanding of Indian textile history, handicrafts, and construction techniques she creates minimal, clean, and playful products. They embark on an egalitarian sensibility balancing the needs and advantages of both people and the world. Despite working with a Swedish giant, Akanksha is frequently driven by her Indian roots and endeavors to celebrate them in her works. Her most well-known project was for IKEA's FÖRÄNDRING collection which debuted in India, Germany, Sweden, Poland, and Spain. It employed rice straws—a notoriously polluted byproduct of harvesting in India—as raw materials and won the Elle Decor India Best Designer Award. She was also enlisted under Forbes 30 under 30 in 2020 alongside some of the most trailblazing changemakers and landed campaigns from brands like Raw Mango, and Ikai. Akanksha’s works are a testament to her unbridled zeal for mindful designs and challenging the status quo. They have contributed to solutions ranging from skill development and empowerment of women to utilizing sustainable materials for new products.