1The Challenge
What was the challenge?
EY's Global Delivery Services team needed an engagement that worked at scale across multiple cities — consistent in quality, adaptable to an office environment, and meaningful for a professional audience that brings high expectations to everything they do. With 70 participants per location and sessions running across different sites within days of each other, the programme needed to land with the same energy and impact in Pune as it would in Kolkata. The challenge was designing something that felt tailored and alive, not templated and rolled out.
2Our Solution
What solution did we design?
The Thought Bulb paired two activities that complemented each other beautifully. Speed Networking opened the session — a fast-paced, structured format breaking participants out of their usual circles and getting them genuinely talking to people they'd never had a real conversation with. Million Pixels Challenge then channelled that energy into collective creation: teams produced individual pixel segments of a larger image that only revealed itself when every piece came together — a powerful metaphor for how EY's teams actually operate. The combination gave the programme a clear arc: connect, then create.
3How We Did It
How was the programme delivered?
At EY's Panchshil Business Park office in Viman Nagar, Pune, 70 participants came together for a session that started with Speed Networking — moving quickly, keeping energy high, ensuring every person walked away having had a real exchange with someone new. By the end of the networking round, the room had a warmth and openness that carried naturally into the next activity. The Million Pixels Challenge brought teams around a creative, collaborative task — each group working on their segment without knowing exactly how it would connect to everyone else's. The reveal, when all pieces came together into a single cohesive image, was the kind of moment that makes a programme memorable. The same programme ran in Kolkata two days later.
4Key Outcomes
What were the results?
The two-activity format delivered on every level — Speed Networking broke down silos quickly and authentically, and the Million Pixels Challenge gave participants a tangible, collective output they could point to and say: we made that together. For a professional services firm like EY, where high-performing people can sometimes be hard to impress, the programme's ability to generate genuine energy and connection was the real measure of success. Across both Pune and Kolkata, 140 participants in total walked away from the same programme feeling more connected to their colleagues than when they walked in. 70 participants. Two cities. One programme that brought the best out of both rooms.
