Jury
Shekhar Badve is the Co-founder and Director- Strategy and Marketing of Lokus Design Pvt. Limited.
He has a rich experience of 15+ years in Design Innovation and Strategic Design. Currently he leads a Strategy and Brand Consulting Company. This long rich experience consists of Cross Functional Design, Packaging Innovation and Brand Management, Insights Research and Communication Design.
His innovation initiatives and vast experience of managing assignments include strategic guidance, developing foresights, and applying design thinking for multifaceted communication and design challenges for highly competitive industries. He thrives on creating mesmerizing work with the goal of being highly successful for his clients. Having this experience under his belt he had the honour of working with some the best global and domestic brands.
As a Director; Strategy and Marketing- he is responsible for Lokus Design’s fast-growing operations, design consulting business, key account and reputation Management.
Passionate to inspire organizations to innovate, transform and grow using design, the tool for competitive advantage helps him go the extra mile – stretch and think out of the box.
A Balasubramaniam is a qualified industrial designer and is an early graduate of NID, Ahmedabad. He has his own design studio: January Design that works in the cusp of design and innovation. A design thinker, he applies design thinking to build new institutions and steering businesses onto new directions. He has also been involved in setting up design institutions in the private sector like IILM School of Design and Fordee Institute of Design. He also teaches occasionally at all the major design academies in India including NID, NIFT, IICD, SPA and has been a jury member and evaluator in all these institutions.
His blog - http://designdesh.wordpress.com addresses the design issues that concern India. He also writes in Economic Times, Times of India, POOL and other design publications.
Dr Amaresh Chakrabarti is a professor at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. Prof Chakrabarti has BE in Mechanical Engineering from University of Calcutta, ME in Mechanical Systems Design from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and PhD in Engineering Design from University of Cambridge UK.
His synthesis software FuncSION won the commendation award at the ‘Design Application of the Year’ category of the 1994 UK Morgans-Grampian Manufacturing Industry Achievements Award Competition. After completing his PhD, Dr Chakrabarti led for ten years the design synthesis team at the Engineering Design Centre (EDC) – an EPSRC Centre for Excellence in Engineering Design Research at the Department of Engineering of University of Cambridge, before joining IISc.
Prof. Chakrabarti founded IDeASLab – the first laboratory in India for research into design creativity, sustainability and product innovation. Professor Chakrabarti is a Member of the CII National Committee on Design, India. He is an Area Editor for Research in Engineering Design Journal (Springer), Regional Editor Asia for Journal of Remanufacturing (Springer), Associate Editor for AI in EDAM Journal (Cambridge University Press), and Advisory Editor for seven other international journals including Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy (Springer), Journal of Creativity and Innovation (Taylor & Francis), and Journal of Engineering Design (Taylor & Francis).
He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Design Society, UK, Co-Chair for its Special Interest Group (SIG) on Design Creativity, and a Member of the Advisory Committee for its SIG on Computational Design Synthesis. Prof. Chakrabarti initiated the first series of research conference on design in India as Programme Chair for ICoRD. He has also been programme chair for 22nd CIRP Design 2012 conference, Co-Chair for AI in Design and Design Computing and Cognition Conferences and for the 1st International Conference on Design Creativity 2010, and a member of numerous Programme committees including for ICED, Design and IASDR Conferences.
He has authored/edited 7 books, over 230 papers in international journals, conferences and book-chapters, and has 7 patents and 2 software copyrights granted/pending. With colleagues at the CPDM, IISc, Prof Chakrabarti has been instrumental in initiating the first research programme in design in India, and co-founded Virtual Reality Laboratory (VR-Lab) at IISc for exploring the use of virtual reality for product development. With Lucienne Blessing and Ken Wallace, Prof Chakrabarti developed DRM – the most widely used design research methodology in the world. His research interests include design synthesis, creativity, collaborative design, eco-design, knowledge management, design for variety, and design research methodology.
Prof. Chakrabarti has been elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the Institution of Engineering Designers (IED), UK. Established in 1945 and Incorporated by Royal Charter in 2012, IED is the only peer body in the UK representing engineering and product design. Honorary Fellowship is the highest honour bestowed by the Institution. In its 67 years of history, Honorary Fellowship has been given to twenty-four individuals only; Prof Chakrabarti is the first person based outside Europe or North America to have received this honour.
Dr. B. K. Chakravarthy is a professor at the Industrial Design
Centre (IDC), IIT
Bombay. After his Post Graduate Degree
in Design from IIT Bombay, he undertook active research in the
area of new product innovation and obtained a PhD at IIT Delhi
while being one of the core faculty members of the design
programme there.
He specializes in the area of innovation by design, which encompasses new product innovation process and methodology. His aim is to create a new breed of designers who can come up with innovative products focusing on humanizing technology. He has been instrumental in bringing in Industry projects to classroom. His consultancy assignments span with national and international companies like Whirlpool, Electrolux, L&T, Godrej, Hero Motors, Jindal, Onida, Modi‐Xerox, MIDCO Ltd., Bajaj, etc. Some of his most notable products are the Z‐Line petrol pump designed for L & T and the Post Box for India Post which have been design success stories in India.
Owing to B. K. Chakravarthy’s close association with both industry and academia, he actively researches in the field of Design Strategy, Humanizing Technology, Disruptive New Product Innovation and Collaborative Innovation Methodologies.
To network and disseminate expertise to industry through live projects, he has setup the Shenoy Innovation Studio at IDC, IIT Bombay with the aim of “Humanizing Technology”.
Praveen Nahar is a Associate Senior Faculty member in Industrial Design at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, India. He is currently heading Design Consultancy Services at NID. He is core faculty member in Product Design discipline, mentoring Transportation & Automobile Design Programmes at NID and heading Design Vision Centre.
He has wide areas of interest, including Systems Thinking in Design, Design in the Public Domain, Rapid Product Development, Sustainable Design/Green Design, Appropriate Technology etc. He has been involved in various research projects and consultancy at both the micro and strategic level in various domains of industry. Some of the prominent ones are with AMUL and Indian Railways.
In recent years he has been actively involved with academic projects with students concerning Systems Thinking and Design, which involves projects with complex issues in health care, communities and mobility.
He also handled collaborations/research with Microsoft, Nokia, Hyundai, Pininfarina and many other national/international institutions and industries etc. He studied Production Engineering at the undergraduate level, Industrial Design at the master's level from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) New Delhi, and postgraduate courses in Sustainable Design from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. He has lectured and conducted design workshops and seminars in the area of Systems Thinking in Design and sustainable design across the world. He is also an India liaison for the O2 Ecological Design Global Network. Praveen has over 15 years of experience in design teaching, consultancy and research. Prior to NID, he was a lecturer in industrial design at IIT Bombay and a research associate in Transportation Research at IIT Delhi.
Sumer Singh is an Assistant professor in Industrial Design at Instrument Design and development centre at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He has been working in academics since 2003 and has worked at Product Design Programme, MS Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Maeer’s MIT Institute of Design, Pune. He has guided around thirty Post Graduate Projects, and has worked extensively for Industry academic association through academic and consultancy projects. He has interest in the area of innovative products, automobile styling, and sustainable design. Sumer is associated with the Dutch design Fraternity as a member of Dutch Visitors Programme. Sumer also has a strong inclination towards research in design. He is presently associated with American Scientific publishers, Journal Of Mechatronics as an editorial board member.
Balkrishna Mahajan is the Director of Ticket Design Pvt. Ltd. He is an Industrial Design graduate from National Institute of Design.
In 1990 he quit architecture after studying for a year at Pune and moved to Ahmedabad to pursue a design education at the premier National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. After his graduation he worked with Phil Corporation, Goa designing photographic equipment and cameras for Phil as well as Polaroid. He had the opportunity to work with MIT Media Lab, USA team to create a series of wearable wireless products that featured in the TIME magazine as the top twenty products of the future.
In order to explore a diversity of work he turned design entrepreneur along with Nishma Pandit to setup Ticket Design, a design and innovation company based in Pune in early 2000 Created and led design teams to create innovative, value added business solutions through meaningful product design for startups, small, medium and large enterprises.
He has been serving as a Director of Ticket Design,
successfully leading strategic product design development for
various Indian and multinational companies over the last 12 +
years. Currently he leads Design Strategy and Business
Development at Ticket.
With a belief that design thinking and design sensitivity is crucial for economic prosperity in most development sectors, he tried to be actively involved in promoting design awareness and in the process trained more than 800 professionals for innovation and design thinking. He also engages as a jury member and advisor with various design institutes.
He has many accolades to his credit. Major amongst them is IDSA Industrial Designers Society of America, Packaging Award, Finalist 2011, Indiastar National Packaging Design Award 2010, Future Group Business World NID Design Brilliance Award 2008, International Appliance Design Silver Award USA 2007, Outstanding Contribution to Innovation - Whirlpool 2007, Business World NID Design Excellence Award 2006, International Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year (IYDEY) Award 2007 India Top 5 Shortlist.
He is the president of Association of Designers of India, Pune Chapter, 2012 and founder Member of Pune Design Festival, Member- IDSA Industrial Designers Society of America.
Chandrashekhar Wyawahare is the Director of Futuring Design Pvt. Ltd. He did is Masters in Design from IDC, IIT Bombay after completing his Architecture Bachelor’s from SPSMBH'S College of Architecture, Kolhapur.
Starting his career with VIP Industries Ltd, Nasik he worked for Neumeister Design, Munich, Germany, was a Partner at Idesign and now is the Director of Futuring Design Pvt. Ltd. his specialties include Form, Styling, Creativity management, Form Research Program leading Design Education. He has won the Red Dot design award 2009 Honorable mention, IDSA 2009 Bronze and Businessworld NID Design Award 2006.
Prakash Khanzode is the Chief Designer at Onio Design Pvt. Ltd. After completing his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from VJTI, Mumbai he pursued PG Diploma from National Institute of Design.
His specialties are Idea + technology Productisation,
Innovation and Design Management and Innovative strategy for
responding to business economics He has been an
Innovation Enabler a Partner who helps brands and industries
innovate with research, innovation strategy and design
for creating category leader products, Developing new
products and services and upgrading the existing product lines
or targeting new markets
He is a serial innovator,
innovation entrepreneur and a business mentor for inventors.
Credited for more than 400 innovations and products for
International Brands, SMEs and Start-up ventures, in domains of
Mobility, Consumer Electronics, Military Equipments, Healthcare
and Social Innovation his company Onio Design has been a
regular award winner for various designs and innovations such
as - 2008- NID-BW Design Excellence Award for Hospital Bed
Innovation, 2001- Best Design Award- Parametric Tech. for
Consumer Electronic Product, 1996- Best Design Award : Second
Position in GE Lighting Design Competition
Sunil Sudhakaran is the founder director of Icarus Design Pvt. Ltd. A B.Tech is Mechanical engineering from TKM College of Engineering, Kerala University he possesses a PG Diploma in Product Design from National Institute of Design.
He began his career as a Design Consultant to Nuchem Group of Companies, Faridabad and went on to found Icarus Design, Bangalore in the year 1993. He is an Industrial Designer / Product Designer / Invention Developer able to contribute to all phases of product development from concept to design implementation, 3D CAD/CAID, design strategy, program management, and manufacturing liaison.
He possess broad experience in creating innovative, functional, and aesthetically appropriate products for a wide variety of industry sectors ranging from consumer, to high technology medical devices. He is a regular speaker at many industry and academic forums of repute.
Abhijit Bansod, a National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad postgraduate, has been part of the new age design movement in India. After decade long experience with Titan Design Studio, he founded Studio ABD in 2008 to create an open platform to discover new facets of contemporary Indian Design.
Abhijit believes in celebrating creativity that combines fragments of Indian tradition with cutting-edge technology, and fuses cultural motifs and new age thinking. They conjure up sophisticated products that resonate with India’s rich past. Propelled by humour, craft, rituals, people, situations and heritage of India, he creates products that speak a unique language- an Indian design vocabulary.
Dedicated to creating a whole and sustainable design experience for the users, Studio ABD focuses on fine-tuning details and expressing design all the way from product to packaging. Studio ABD’s portfolio includes designing consumer products, packaging, branding, spaces and luxury experiences through lifestyle products. Studio ABDs work has won more than twenty national and international design awards including the Young Creative Entrepreneur (YCE) 2011 by British Council UK, RED DOT DESIGN AWARD 2010, Germany and Designer of the year Award, India in 2008.
B Bhaumik is a Mechanical Engineer followed by Post Graduate in Industrial Design from Industrial Design Center, IIT, Mumbai in 1972. He belongs to one of the first batches of Industrial Designers in India. He has experience in the field of automotive styling, design, engineering and implementation spanning 40 years. He pioneered Automotive Styling at OEMs in India.
He has worked with a number of OE manufacturers, namely TELCO (now Tata Motors), Bajaj Auto, Kinetic Engineering and Mahindra & Mahindra.
His work includes styling, engineering and implementation of a range of Tata Trucks (Tata1516, Tata1210), Tatamobile Series of Vehicles, Bajaj Spirit, Bajaj Legend, Bajaj Saphire, Bajaj Chetak 4S, Mahindra Scorpio, Mahindra Xylo, Mahindra Genio, Mahindra Maxximo, etc.
His latest assignment has been piloting the Mahindra XUV5oo Project right from conceptualization to successful implementation.
At MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA LTD, he retired as Senior Vice President & Head of Product Development, Auto Division, on 31st March 2012. He was responsible for Styling, Engineering and implementation of all new as well as current vehicles in the Automotive Sector of M&M.
Narendra Ghate is a Chief Designer at Tata Elxsi. He has interest in economics, design thinking and strategy. He has a solid mooring in mechanical engineering followed by Product design education from IDC, IIT Bombay. He has an added business flavor with an Executive MBA from IIM Bangalore.
He started career in Product design with stints at Unilever Design, Seymour Powel and Fitch in UK. Moved to Automotive styling with Stints in GM (Detroit), Ford (Germany), PATAC (China), Nissan (Japan). Shifted focus to Branding, Graphics and Retail. All the above assignments were part of the long continuing career in Tata Elxsi. One of the founding members of the ID (Industrial Design) division of Tata Elxsi. ID@Tata Elxsi with over 250 staff (more than 70 Designers) is one of the largest design agencies in India with operations in the US, Europe and Japan. His current role focuses on Innovation Portfolio, Marketing and General Management.
He has conducted Innovation workshops for Key customers in US, UK and India. He has given talks and held workshops in various design schools in India. He has been a Jury member of IF awards and Tata Innovista. Settled in Bangalore with wife Dhanashri and 7 year old son Aarush.
Ashish is a graduate in Industrial Design from the National
Institute of Design, Ahmadabad, India.
He started his
design entrepreneurship, 23 years ago, by co-founding one of
India pioneering design practices. Today he continues at
Elephant Strategy + Design, an innovative multi-disciplinary
design practice, ranked amongst the top 3 design consultancies
in India by Brand Equity, Economic Times.
Ashish leads the Product & Retail Innovation group at
Elephant but believes that design must not be narrowed into
disciplines. He is known for his design work on evaporative
air coolers, kitchen appliances, Medical diagnostic equipment
and the award winning mechanical charger. He and his team at
Elephant Design believe that the true merit of a project lies
in its business success.
Ashish regularly conducts
workshops on E4G business tool, Product Innovation Process and
is a co creator of the design tool “ Psycho Experience
Process ”. He is actively involved in supporting and
promoting the Association of Designers of India.
A graduate of India’s premier design institute, National Institute of Design (NID), Mr. Gokhale and his firm Design Directions Pvt Ltd founded in 1988 by him and his better half - Falguni - also a graduate of NID Ahmedabad - combines design, technology, aesthetics and relevant materials to create a major impact on industrial, medical, electronic and consumer products. Design Direction's focus is on brand strategy, industrial design, visual communication and user interface design. Satish Gokhale is a recipient of several local and international awards.
Mr. Gokhale has been a jury member on several design award committees and is a member of the India Design Council. He is on the education committee for MIT School of Design – Pune, India. He has been invited to speak at many National & International Design conferences. He is a member of the India Design Council and also a member of CII committee on design.
Through his work, Mr. Gokhale has been able to raise a great level of awareness towards design in hard-core engineering sectors and prove to them by sheer market success, the importance and benefits of industrial design. He has till date, successfully designed and launched over 650 products in the Indian and international markets for a host of clients, ranging from the small scale sector to the heavy industry sector.
Studied architecture from BKPS College of Architecture, Pune, in 1971 and further completed postgraduate studies in furniture design – from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.
Shrikant Nivasarkar is a principle architect of design consultancy organization “Nivasarkar Consultants”, established in Pune in 1978. He has overseen the growth of the practice from small & medium scale residential design to larger scale commercial, institutional and industrial projects.
Shrikant has a nation wide reputation as a designer closely connect to his roots. The result is a design that has a sense of place and highly experiential in nature. In 2009 he was invited to participate in a specially curated exhibition at Helsinki “ called Ecologycal Chair”, amongst 20 top designers around the world.
Apart from an extensive career spanning more than three decades, Shrikant is associated with various educational and professional associations in different capacities. He has been a member of the governing council of national institute of design between 2009-2011.
Currently he is a member of the governing council of College of Architecture- Trivandrum, Rachana Sansad- Mumbai, Member of the Board of Studies of School of Interior Design-CEPT University, member of the academic council of MIT School of Design, Pune and College of Architecture-Navarachana University- Vadodara. He is also a chairman of ad hoc board of studies of design of Pune University.
He has traveled widely around the world and lectured at various design forums and educational institutes. He has also been invited on various national and international competitions and awards as a member of the jury.
In the past he has been first Indian president of International Federation of Interior Architects (IFI) – a global apex body of the profession of interior design- during 2007-2009, of which he was earlier the executive board member during 2001-1007, and also been executive board member of international design alliance (2007-2009), President of Indian Institute of Interior Designers (IIID)- (2004-2006). Currently he is an invited member of India Design Council and the President of Pune Construction Engineering Research Foundation.
Suresh Sethi is currently the Vice President and Director Asia, Global Consumer Design, Whirlpool Corporation. He is a Product Designer and has been working for 30 years designing products in consumer electronics and home appliances. His work has been produced in many countries and his designs have had successful re-runs in various parts of the world.
He has many facets, apart from doing mass produced product design he has design custom-built luxury yachts and has worked with Organic Architect and Indian Master Craftsmen for many years. His works have been published in leading international books and design magazines, such as DOMUS, MODO, Progetto Grafico. Suresh was appointed by Government of India as Member of the Advisory Committee of Urban Heritage Conservation, Mumbai, in 1992 and he was honored to be appointed to the ICSID roster of Design advisors in 1999.
Suresh has been a visiting professor and has led many workshops and seminars at the leading Design Schools in India and abroad. He was a tenured professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Industrial Design Centre, Mumbai, India. He later joined Nanyang Technological University as Associate Professor in the School of Art, Design and Media, where he held the position of the Director of NTU-Domus Academy Program and the Acting Chair of the School.
Subramaniam Sundar is an alumnus from the National Institute of Design (industrial design discipline, 1984). He was a founding partner and CEO of Tessaract Design, a multidisciplinary design consulting firm established in 1986, and has designed consumer products, exhibitions, modular structures, furniture and retail fixturing systems. He is the co-founder and managing director of Dovetail Furniture (www.dovetail.in), a company that “integrates design happiness with serious manufacturing”, a founder promoter of Idiom Design & Consulting, a multidisciplinary consulting firm, and the president of the Association of Designers of India (ADI).
Sundar’s professional career has seen an involvement, exposure and collaboration with many disciplines: - toolmakers, craftsmen, interior contractors, structural fabricators, wood and metal processing technicians. His entrepreneurial ventures have seen different types of learnings and partnerships – with brand strategists, visual communicators, HR strategists, venture fund managers, financial partners. His concerns about creating an ethical way of working has seen him involved in different forums – the India Design Council, ADI and SFMAI.
Sundar’s interests include organisation building, design methods, manufacturing. He is based in Bangalore.
Currently Sundar divides his time between running Dovetail which employs 175 people and is on a 2 acre campus with a design studio, plant & machinery for wood and metal processing – and in pursuing his other interests in furthering design through the designers association and the India Design Council. While he appreciates design as an aesthetic evolution that goes beyond the functional aspect, he is more grounded to design that is practically feasible to a larger reach and is also concerned in the translation of a good idea into a usable product that makes economic sense.
Anuj Prasad, 47, is an alumnus of NID. After completing his B.Tech in Production Engineering and working for 5 years in Manufacturing and Design Engineering, in the industry, he decided to move on to pursue his creative career at NID. He completed his Masters in Industrial Design in 1993 and thereafter worked with HCL for 3 years. In 1996 he started the ID division of Desmania.
Desmania is now a leading multi disciplinary design company in the country, offering professional design services across the industry segments. With its core expertise in product, packaging, graphic and retail design, Desmania now offers Strategic Design Solutions that give measured business success to the clients. Desmania is the recipient NID-BW Design Excellence award and several Indiastar awards for FMCG Packaging . It has been rated as a top design company in India by Businessweek (US). Desmania has diversified in the area of Toy and Automotive Design, with a large integrated design studio in NCR Delhi, with a unique clay modeling facility for full scale cars models.
Anuj has been a leading voice of Design in the country. He has been a member of CII’s National Committee of Design for the last 3 years. Anuj has also been an advisor to the GOI on implementing the Design Scheme for the MSMEs. He has been a speaker at various design forums in India and is a highly respected professional in the field.
Desmania has full services offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Gurgaon. It has partnered with Italian, German and Korean companies to offer high quality, end to end design solutions.