Ranjan has led and facilitated innovation initiatives in a large number of organizations across countries. Organisations like Apple, Areva, APC, Bausch & Lomb, Bayer, Cable & Wireless, Glaxo SmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Honeywell, Microsoft, Mahindra Auto, Max New York Life, Novartis, Pepsico, Perfetti, Tata, Unilever and Whirlpool.

He has created innovation methodologies, frameworks and tools. Some of which are: the innovation evaluation architecture (used in the Forbes Applied Innovation Awards and Innovation for India Awards) and the 3C Spot-Fund-Nurture model used by NABARD in the area of Rural Innovation

As an innovation speaker, Ranjan is sought for his unique ability to pick unobvious insights, 'connect unusual dots' and present a compelling message in his characteristic spontaneous style. He delivers high-energy and insightful innovation keynotes, methodology sessions and also chairs conferences.

He has spoken at diverse forums like the European Conference on Creativity and Innovation - Warsaw and Copenhagen, Front End of Innovation - Amsterdam, American Creativity Association Conference - Singapore, Strategic Innovation Forum - Barcelona, The India Innovation Summit, National Brand Summit - AIMA, Asia HRD Congress, TEDx, The TiE World Summit, Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) and Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai (IIT)

Prior to his work in innovation, Ranjan spent a decade in advertising and marketing with organizations like J Walter Thompson (JWT), Lintas and Bharti. He is based in Bangalore, India

Mahendra holds Master’s Degree in Product Design from IIT Bombay and has over 26 years industry experience in leading product design and strategic research & development in various industries including Consumer Products, Industrial Systems and Healthcare.

His current responsibilities at GE Healthcare include creating affordable healthcare products and solutions for global healthcare needs, driving end-to-end user experience and generating strategic intellectual property. Mahendra has filed over 30 patents & defensive IP publications at GE.

Mahendra is also an experienced facilitator of Design Thinking Workshops, a certified trainer for corporate training programs on Innovative Problem Solving & Design for Six Sigma at GE’s John F Welch Technology Center, Bangalore.

Pravinsinh K.Solanki is a Furniture Designer and an NID alumnus. He has worked on various high profile interior, event and furniture design projects having fifteen years of rich and varied work experience. Solanki has worked in Italy for six years, designing & executing boutiques and retail store interiors around the world. He has expertise in setting up wood manufacturing, sourcing, production, execution, and cost-cutting.

He has a special interest in bamboo furniture and he Heads the Bamboo Initiative department at NID, Ahmedabad. His bamboo product designs are in World Bamboo Museum, Damyung, South Korea. He conducts skill development and Bamboo awareness workshops across India and other countries.

Solanki Heads the Furniture & Interior Department. He teaches Construction & Fabrication, Space Planning, Retail Store Design, Design Detailing, and Design Management. He also looks after Restoring the classic prototypes at NID which are designed by world class designers.

He is Founder of "Scrap Design Innovation". His interest in Nature, Conservation of Resources, Sustainability, reuse and Love towards society made him to work aggressively on this area. He has done various workshops in India and Germany.

Ravi Gururaj is a serial entrepreneur with 5 ventures and 2 public exits, an angel investor, a mentor to numerous entrepreneurs, technology executive, and ecosystem evangelist. As the Founder & CEO of QikPod.com, he is building innovative last mile logistics solutions for the eCommerce industry.

QikPod closed a $9m first funding in February 2016 which was led by Flipkart, Accel Partners, Foxconn, Delhivery and leading angel investors. Ravi is an active angel investor with a portfolio of 25+ innovative companies across the SaaS, consumer web, cloud infrastructure, mobile app, and big data /analytics segments.

Over his 25 year career, Ravi has held wide ranging roles including promoting an STPI unit exporting software components out of India, product management at Intel, served as Managing Director of the Trilogy Software's India engineering center, and founded multiple successful software product ventures two of which were acquired by public NASDAQ listed US technology companies.

Ravi is a member of the NASSCOM Executive Council, chairs the NASSCOM Product Council and co-­‐hosts the NASSCOM Product Conclave. He is Charter Member of TiE Bangalore where he launched the Cloud SIG, is Co-­‐Chair/Founder of the Penn & Wharton Club of Bangalore, and is Co-­‐Founder & Co-­‐Chair of HBS Alumni Angels India chapter.

VMLogix, which Ravi founded in 2004 was venture funded by Bain Capital Ventures and acquired by Citrix in 2010. At Citrix, Ravi served as Vice President Products in the Cloud Platforms group, was a member of the global Citrix CTO Office, represented the Citrix Startup Accelerator and was on the India R&D leadership team.

Ravi received his MBA with high distinction as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School. He graduated with honors as Benjamin Franklin Scholar from the University of Pennsylvania in the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology receiving a B.S.E. in Computer Science & Engineering from the Moore School and a B.Sc. in Finance from the Wharton School. He was also a research scholar at the University of Edinburgh and schooled at La Martiniere for Boys in Kolkata.

Shashank Mehta is a principal faculty of Industrial Design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Currently, he is the Activity Chairperson of the Institute's Faculty Development Programme. He is also the member of NID's Policy and Planning Committee.

Shashank is also the project head of the Design Clinic Scheme for MSMEs, a unique and ambitious design intervention scheme for the country's large MSME sector. Supported by the Ministry of MSMEs, Government of India, with the total project outlay of Rs. 73.4 crore the scheme targets to reach out to 200 MSME clusters through organization of Design Sensitization Seminars, Design Awareness Programmes and Design Projects.

A qualified mechanical engineer and product designer, Shashank has also added to his professional expertise by working as an engineer, designer and production in-charge with small and large scale industries and the craft and social sectors as well. He has worked on several projects, ranging from consumer products, medical equipment, furniture & Interiors, public utility, to grassroots innovations. Shashank has worked with the industries as designer, design consultant and also as consultant retainer. All this, coupled with sharp business acumen, he acquired that much needed holistic understanding of integrating user aspirations with industry constraints and demands, thus introducing viable design solutions.

Over the years Shashank has taught at the Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels, spanning various design disciplines. He has spearheaded the introduction of new course modules, that are in sync with the rapidly changing demands and aspirations of the industry and economy in general. Shashank has extensively worked in the area of technology and design fusion, sustainability and indigenous innovations. He has authored various articles and research papers and has widely lectured on these subjects. He was involved in conceptualising the first e-learning module on package design and also helped set up the country's first Design Business Incubator at NID. Shashank anchored international workshops with the specific focus on 'design for development' for the participants from various developing countries. In 2005, Shashank organized and co-anchored the first of its kind International conference on Design education in Asia - Design Education: Tradition and Modernity, DETM05. Besides being actively involved in imparting design education at NID, Shashank has held several important administrative positions at the Institute. He also serves as the member of various advisory committees and review committees for various international conferences.

Mr. Sushant Jena is the Vice President of Design and Development at T.I. Cycles of India, a unit of Tube Investments of India Ltd. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Post-Graduation in Industrial Design from the National Institute of Design - Ahmedabad. Before Joining TI Cycles he has worked at Whirlpool Corporation as the design head for India Studio, National Institute of Design as Consulting Designer and AT Design Company Japan as a Designer.

He has a varied professional experience ranging from leading design team for an MNC to education & consulting in the field of appliances, automobile, education and entertainment. He has rich experience in leading design for Product as well as Brand Design strategy through strong embedded processes.His designs have won a lot of international awards like Good Design, Sparks Design, IF Design, Product of the Year, etc.Several of his designs arepatented for design innovations.

Other than Core area of design he has a lot of experience in processes development for business, he is a mentor for innovation and business processes. He is an invited speaker at Universities, conferences & events on the subject of Design. He has also conducted several workshops for Schools and Universities on varied subjects ranging from social relevance to Design practices.

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.

VipulVinzuda is Course coordinatorof Postgraduate ‘Transportation & Automobile Design’ program at NID. A mechanical engineer from the NITK, Surathkal, Vipul enrolled into NID in 2004, for the Faculty Development Programin Industrial Design and kept his passion for ‘design education’ as his career focus and professional interest. In 2008, he earned a Master’s degree in ‘Design and Transport’ from Coventry University, UK.

His core interest areas include 3D Digital modeling-prototyping, Trendstudies, Design research and Human factors. He also guides students in design projects such as Non-motorized transport and vehicle design since he joined NID as a full time faculty in 2009.

For a last decade, along with senior faculty members, Vipul has been instrumental in establishing the Transportation and Automobile Design Discipline in NID, collaborating withvarious automotive industries and institutes.

Ranjan has led and facilitated innovation initiatives in a large number of organizations across countries. Organisations like Apple, Areva, APC, Bausch & Lomb, Bayer, Cable & Wireless, Glaxo SmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Honeywell, Microsoft, Mahindra Auto, Max New York Life, Novartis, Pepsico, Perfetti, Tata, Unilever and Whirlpool.

He has created innovation methodologies, frameworks and tools. Some of which are: the innovation evaluation architecture (used in the Forbes Applied Innovation Awards and Innovation for India Awards) and the 3C Spot-Fund-Nurture model used by NABARD in the area of Rural Innovation

As an innovation speaker, Ranjan is sought for his unique ability to pick unobvious insights, 'connect unusual dots' and present a compelling message in his characteristic spontaneous style. He delivers high-energy and insightful innovation keynotes, methodology sessions and also chairs conferences.

He has spoken at diverse forums like the European Conference on Creativity and Innovation - Warsaw and Copenhagen, Front End of Innovation - Amsterdam, American Creativity Association Conference - Singapore, Strategic Innovation Forum - Barcelona, The India Innovation Summit, National Brand Summit - AIMA, Asia HRD Congress, TEDx, The TiE World Summit, Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) and Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai (IIT)

Prior to his work in innovation, Ranjan spent a decade in advertising and marketing with organizations like J Walter Thompson (JWT), Lintas and Bharti. He is based in Bangalore, India

Gabriela Christen was born in 1961 and grew up in Lucerne, Switzerland. After studies in art history, French literature and philosophy in Basle, Paris, Vienna, Zuerich and Berne she worked as project manager and curator at the Swiss National Museum. From 1994 to 1996 she was director of the museums of the canton of Nidwalden. Since 1996 Gabriela Christen worked as cultural editor at Swiss Radio DRS; from 1999 to 2002 she was deputy editorial director of the culture department. From 1999 to 2009 Gabriela Christen gave lectures at the department of Art & Media at Zuerich University of the Arts, furthermore she was a member of the executive team from 2002 to 2007. Since 2009 she was deputy head of the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film at Zuerich University of the Arts. She has been deanof the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – School of Art and Design since March 2010.

The Lucerne School of Art and Design is the oldest college of art, design and film in German-speaking Switzerland. Backed by almost 140 years of tradition, it moves forward into the future with confidence. It offers a vivid and challenging environment that inspires research and teaching – one in which the 850 students can hone their practical skills and acquire a qualified portfolio that will prepare them for a successful career entry into the cultural and creative sector. Lucerne School of Art and Design offers 11 Bachelor Degrees and 3 Masters in Design, Art and Film.

In the research department our the skills in art, design and film are used in combination with academic methods to develop creative and innovative solutions that are both locally relevant and internationally significant. Lucerne School is the leading house in design research in Switzerland.

Takuya Kawagoi is currently the Head of Sony Design Center Asia (Singapore).

Since he assumed the role in 2012, Kawagoi has been instrumental in leading the team to achieve its vision of discovering core Asian values and conveying world-class designs that celebrate the diversity of Asia. He also holds the role of motivating the team and reinforcing local operations with optimized creative processes. Additionally, Kawagoi holds a vital role making the Design Centre Asia a multipurpose ‘Innovation Hub’ for Sony’s strategic directions.

Kawagoi joined Sony in 1991 as a designer for the Tokyo Creative Center. He was appointed Senior Designer at Design Center Europe in 1997 before assuming the role of Art Director at the Tokyo Creative Center in 2000. Two years later, Kawagoi was appointed to spearhead the Global Brand Enhancement team at Sony Ericsson in the United Kingdom, where he developed the iconic Sony Ericsson logo. Before his move to Singapore, Kawagoi was the Director of the Design Center Europe.

Kawagoi has over 20 years of experience in the development of brand communication and is knowledgeable in the aspects of packaging products to reach their potential in various markets. Further branding for the iconic Sony Ericsson logo, BRAVIA TV and Alpha digital SLR camera range campaigns have all played major roles in Kawagoi’s design career at Sony.

Kawagoi graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Faculty of Design, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan.

Born in 1968 in Yokohama. Got employed by Mitsukoshi Department Store in 1990, after graduating from Keio University, the Faculty of Literature. After the career at the ladies accessory department shop floor, appointed as buyer of imported food and accessories from UK and contributed to establish brand business. Managed whole process of branding, merchandising as a buyer.

In 2010, joined Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (currently Japan Institute of Design Promotion) as an international promotion manager and has executed several Japanese design promotions in various countries such as India, Taiwan, China, Korea, Thailand and Singapore. In 2015, also graduated from Musashino Art University, the Department of Arts Policy and Management.

Having acquired a degree in engineering in 1986, V. Ravishankar enrolled into NID for a PG Diploma in Product Design. Twenty years later, he once again joined the institute as a faculty member in the Design for Retail Experience discipline.

At NID, Ravishankar offers courses in Design Basics, Design Methodology, Digital Product Design, Universal Design Module, Retail Store Design, and Visual Merchandising. He leads the NID Universal Design (UD) Initiative and set up a Universal Design studio, a Joint Competence Center in collaboration with University of Applied Sciences, Germany with the objective of generating content and formulating the curriculum for Universal Design in design education and research into Universal Design in India.

He has worked in the areas of object and space for over 18 years in domains such as IT Mobile Technology Voice Interfaces, Product Design, Retail Design and Visual Merchandising, Package Design for consumer products, and Design and Training in the indigenous craft sector. During his tenure from 2002-07, as the Empanelled Designer with the Office of Development Commissioner, Handicrafts, Government of India, he conducted Design and Development workshops for over 300 artisans across India. He has worked as a consultant to BPL Ltd., BPL Innovision, Reliance Web World and Infosys Technologies Ltd. and worked for SPIC Group, Chennai, Levi Strauss India, HMT Watches Ltd., Rain Design, Hyderabad and Oriole Design, New Delhi.

Ravishankar is a co-author in the formulation of the Universal Design India Principles. He was awarded the NID-Business World Design Excellence Award in 2006.

Mahendra chauhan is currently heading the watch design team for brand Titan.He is a Product Designer from NID Ahmedabad and architect from NIT Raipur. He has been working fror more than 14 years designing consumer durable and life style products. His work has been produced in many countries and he has won many presigious national and international award in product design. More recently he has been awarded red dot design award for designing world's slimmest watch for Titan 'edge'.

His works have been published in leading international books and design websites.His work is displayed at red dot design museum in essen and singapore.He had also won rado design excellence award and design boom award for innovative product concepts.Apart from designing lifestyle products, he has designed interiors, residences and bicycles for BSA and hercules brand.He also talk at the CII Design Summit, and other conferences & Seminars on Design Thinking.

Mahendra is playing a very strategic role in defining Titan'S watch design stratgey by leading and managing complete watch portfolio of brand Titan, nebula, raga, Zoop and xylys.He spearheads the team with a very positive attitude and belives that design diffrention can only happen if we understand the consumers. He Belives, ''design begins with sensitivity , curiosity and passion. To excel in any field one needs to be passionate about it; sensitive to the end users and curious about the new things''.

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.

Sonia Manchanda is the cofounder and Principal Designer of Idiom, an integrated design practice, and creative chief and cofounder of DREAM:IN, a global initiative and venture that has been recognized as one of 6 global gamechangers by Metropolis magazine and received CII Design Excellence award for website design, besides being the winner in overall category for Interaction Design.

Sonia has been invited to showcase DREAM:IN at Curitiba, Brazil, at Designing for Billions at Parsons NY, at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven and several other prestigious forums.

Sonia is a design thinker and practitioner, deeply involved with developing businesses, brands and experiences. Besides developing talent and actively spreading design as a way of thinking and doing things. She is a graduate of National Institute of design, Ahmedabad and has trained in visual communication, design, filmmaking and photography.

DREAM:IN proposes a shift in focus of design from needs to dreams and has partners and practitioners amongst Universities, design academicians and students, thought and business leaders and has been replicated in Brazil and China. Most recently, finding a place for itself in Bruce Nussbaum's new book, Creative Intelligence.

Idiom has worked extensively in emerging sectors like education, retail and healthcare, closely with Indian entrepreneurs and also on global assignments. Besides developing many resilient businesses and brands, Sonia and Idiom have championed one of India's first Public Private Partnership movements for change in a global Indian city and the design and look of the 19th Commonwealth Games.

Raman is a graduate of National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, India (AEP -PD '96) with 20+ years of strong design, technical & business experience with an impressive track record of enriching hands-on experience in the field of Design Research, Interaction Design, User Experience Design, Industrial Design, Design Management, & Creative process management in a wide range of organizations including CA Technologies (formerly Computer Associates) SIEMENS, NOKIA, Human Factors International, Network Programs in International and multicultural environments in US, Europe, China and India.

Out of passion as UX evangelist, he initiated "USID" (Universal, Sustainable, Innovative Design for social change -www.usidfoundation.org) a forum of Design professionals to evangelize the design and its value to business profitability and socio-economic development in 2006. Since then he has been regularly organizing India's first ever 3 days design conference and many other events including as "Design Challenges" and "USID Gurukul- a collaborative and immersive learning experience" workshop.

A strong believer that the deep dive into the user context and environment is the key to creating any successful products that are useful, usable, accessible, engaging, innovative, universal and profitable. His research interest include - Tangible Interfaces, Mobile computing, Persuasive Design, Human Interaction Technologies, Social Computing, Enterprize2.0 & Healthcare.

Raman is currently a co-founder of USER Lab Asia (www.userlabasia.com), a design & innovation consulting and also a visiting faculty at Design programme of IIT Kanpur.

Suresh is the Vice President, Whirlpool Design, Asia and member of global design management team. In this role he leads total design portfolio for Food Stream Solutions, Fabric Care, Air, Water and Cooking. He spends equal time in China and India where the Whirlpool Asian Design offices are located. . Suresh Sethi has built a unique and extensive track record in design, innovation and brand leadership. He works consistently to align creative process with business, and for him key to innovation lies in consumer brand experience.

Suresh believes that beauty creates desire and designers are critical in the creative economy

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) India, Satish 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 is a recipient of several local and international awards. Just to name one- he is the recipient of the Design of the Decade Award for a low cost water filter designed for the Tata Group, instituted by the Industrial Designers Society of America.

Satish has been a jury member on several design award committees - local and overseas. He is a founder member of the Association of Designers of India (ADI and is a past member of the India Design Council (IDC). He is also a member of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) committee on design. He is currently the Chairman of the design committee at the Mahratta Chamber of Industries of Commerce and Agriculture. He has been invited to speak at many National & International Design conferences.

Through his work, Satish 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.

Some of Satish's products are sold in over 40 countries. He holds many patents and design registrations, most of which have been licensed.

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 the member of India Design Council and the President of Pune Construction Engineering Research Foundation.

Anjan heads CII's works in the areas of knowledge that consists of Science & Technology, Industrial R&D, Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, Design, Higher Education including Industry-Academia Partnerships, Emerging technology areas and Defence and Aerospace towards building strong innovation ecosystem in the country.

Has over twenty nine years of experience working in industry, government and CII, in the areas of Technology Development, Technology Assessment, Technology Transfer, International Technology collaborations, Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, R&D Fund management, Project Engineering & Management, Consulting Engineering Services and Public-Private-Partnership Projects with Government and Academia / R&D Institutions.

Before joining CII, Anjan worked with CMC Limited, Mumbai; Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi; Hindustan Motors Limited, Kolkata.

Has been responsible for technology development and commercialization of Municipal Solid Waste processing technology in India.

Works in collaboration with Industry, Government, Academia, International agencies with an objective to facilitate Indian Industry's increased focus in Innovation, R&D, design and generation of Intellectual Property.

Led creation and operationalisation of a few successful Public-Private-Partnership based Institutionalized Delivery Mechanisms.

Provided advisory services to many industries in technology areas. Consultant to World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). National Expert of UNIDO. Member in various Govt committees.

Anjan has Post Graduate (M. Tech.) degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.

Masahiro Inoue was born in 1956, and graduated from the Department of Industrial Design of Chiba University in 1979. From 1979 he started professional career at Toshiba Design Center as a product designer of home appliances and heavy apparatus.

After studied product design and finished master course at Domus Academy in Milan, Italy between 1987 and 1988, he came back to Toshiba Design Center as a product designer of social infrastructure.

He got a lot of Good Design Awards during 1983 to 1991. And from 1991 he worked for Toshiba Lifestyle institute as a researcher and a manager, analyzed customer's needs and future lifestyle and created vision statements for business unit.

In 1996 he moved to Singapore for design localization in Asian countries. As a general manager of Toshiba Singapore Design Center, he was in charge of consumer electronics products design like TV and VCR for Asian market.

From 2001 to 2005, he conducted marketing team in Toshiba America Consumer Products, LCC. in New Jersey, Unite States as a design director for 4 years.

After coming back to Toshiba Design Center in Tokyo, he was in charge of the design strategy of Toshiba Design as a group manager in 2005, and design management group as a senior manager from 2008.

Between 2010 and 2012, he conducted Toshiba Design Center as a general manager. He totally managed the design of Toshiba products and services for global market and got a lot of design awards including Good Design Gold Award in 2011.

He hold lectures and workshops on the design thinking for FTI (The Federation of Thai Industry) in Bangkok, on the design management course at Kyoto Institute of Technology and Shonan Institute of Technology in Japan during that period.

Since 2013 he has started a new career as a professor of architecture and design department at Nagoya Institute of Technology. He has been teaching the product design and the design management in the graduate school of engineering and taught the design thinking at Zhejiang University in China too.

Abhijit studied at National Institute of Design, as a product designer is passionately focused on design for health+Wellbeing. His deep belief in Health+Innovations® that help products operate at a higher level as the most effective way to provide care and relief to patients across the globe has led him to innovate and design for over 10 years which transcends over various fields in Design. The design consultancy operates with a multidisciplinary strategic-creative group of designers, Strategist and engineers, supported by a variety of specialists.

Neodes, his design studio in Pune, India, is the recipient of the prestigious Medical Design Excellence GOLD award recently. His work has been cited in a range of prestigious journals such as Medical Device Design at Crossroads, MD + DI. He is actively involved in design promotion via design education as a visiting faculty, jury member for projects and as a project mentor at various design and engineering schools across India.

His mantra: Healthy Innovation is Healthy Business.

Ajay Tank is currently a Senior Design Consultant at Usha Shriram Enterprises and also runs his independent Design Studio offering design services to other clients.

He has almost 20 years of experience in design of Consumer Durables such as Home Appliances, Water Purifiers, Fans and Kitchen products.

After completing his Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engg. , he did his post graduation from National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad in Product Design in 1994. Since then, he has designed several products for Usha Shriram which have been successfully launched in the Indian market and have also been exported to many countries. Products designed by him have become benchmarks in the appliance industry. He has designed the first table top storage water purifier for the Indian market in technical collaboration with a German company, which won the Golden Peacock award for "Most Innovative Product" in 1999.

Ajay has interest in other fields of design such as furniture design, space design and automobile design. He has always worked on promoting use of design in the corporate sector.

Alok Ghonsikar is Group Manager – Product Design, C&I Lighting, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting Group.Alok is a Mechanical Engineer and a Post graduate in Product Design from India’s premier Design institute, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.Alok started his career with Thermax, Pune. Later, he worked with Studio Korjan, Ahmedabad as Industrial designer, designing Home appliances; and subsequently, with Kenstar as Manager -Product design, engaged in designing Kitchen Appliances.

Alok joined Wipro Lighting in 2000, and went on to Head the Product Design function in 2003. Alok has been instrumental in establishing Wipro lighting as a trendsetter in Lighting industry through Innovation and Design.Alok believes in blending technology, materials and processes to churn out new designs and implements ‘User-centered’ design approach to make products user friendly. Alok has effectively used Six Sigma in Product Design and Process.Alok has designed several category defining lighting systems for modern workspaces, industry, retail, street and urban lighting. He specializes in designing energy saving LED luminaires.Under his leadership, Wipro Lighting has earned several accolades in Product Design like the coveted Design Excellence Award by Business World – National Institute of Design, Design for Asia Award by Hong Kong Design Center and India Design Mark 2013 by India Design Council along with Good Design Awards, Japan.

Wipro Lighting also holds several Design Registrations to its name and has recently launched ‘Green by Design’ products anticipating the need of the moment.Alok has been on jury panel for India Design Mark 2013, Institute of Design, Pune.

Alok has participated in several Workshops like International Workshop on Ecological Product Design conducted by Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft e.V., Cologne, GermanyResearch Papers

Research paper ‘Design Changes of the Road Environment’ as a mode of Behaviour Modification for prevention of Road Crashes at a local level: An Analysis was published at Second World conference on Injury Control, Atlanta, USA.

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.

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.

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.

He is now working with Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd as Advisor, and is engaged in the area of Capability Development for Engineers engaged in Product Development.

Mr. Bhaumik has been involved with education of Industrial Design in India for over 30 years and has been in the Styling Committee of CII since its inception. He is also a member of first India Design Council.

Chetan Sorab is currently the head of design for home electronic products at LG Electronics India Pvt. ltd. He is an industrial designer with 13 years of rich industry experience in automotive and electronic industries. He graduated in mechanical engineering and went on to do his post graduation in Product Design from the prestigious National Institute of Design.

He has been consistently delivering successful products under the LG brand with strategic inputs in new product development and design innovation. He is also a jury member and faculty for some of the leading design schools in India. His interests are in strategic design and design for emerging markets.He has won many national and international awards, some of the accolades to his credit are Opus-Award, Elle Decor International Award, Red Dot award and Seoul International Award.

PAUL SANDIP, an electrical engineer / post-graduate of Product design from the National Institute of Design, (NID) Ahmedabad, is the founder of PAUL STUDIO, India.

He is known for his simplicity with which he beautifully combine latent needs of consumers with appropriate technology to create highly differentiated products to fuel business growth. Paul specializes in Product Innovation through Consumer Insight & Strategy, Creative Engineering, Styling and Colour/Material Trends. He has designed over 100 products in the last 10 years, many of which have become Iconic Best Sellers. The objects designed ranged from Electrical Accessories, Home Appliances, Lighting, Furniture, Kitchenware, Tableware, Children/Baby products, Toys, Stationary, Bath accessories to Footwear.

Paul had also been actively involved in New Product Developments with LG Electronics, India & Seoul for nine years where he worked on several experimental as well as Indian insights driven projects, which had both global as well as local appeal and business sense.

Winner of Red Dot Award (twice!), Young Talent at Elle Decor International Award and numerous other domestic / international awards his work has been extensively published and exhibited internationally including the Triennale Museum in Milan, Ambiente Fair in Frankfurt, Red Dot Award Show in Singapore, Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong, Lite-On Awards Show in Taiwan, Design Korea Exhibition/Design Olympiad in Seoul and Alliance Francaise in Delhi.

He was Honoured as a DESIGNPRENEUR by Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Narendra Modi in 2004 as well as awarded with Business World Design Excellence Award for his Disposable Toilet Mug for Indian Railways. The Mug was a finalist at INDEX Award in Denmark and now held in the permanent collections of the Danish Design Museum in Copenhagen, as an example of Design to improve life!

Prakash is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from VJTI Mumbai and a Product Designer from NID He heads Onio team for Product design and Product innovation assignments at Onio. He leads complex product innovation projects using proprietary methods of Creative Engineering and Technology Productization. He is primarily active in the areas of Consumer Appliances, Automotive & Hi-Tech applications of design. He has been instrumental in winning several awards for Onio, through the products he designed.

He has developed a network of product development partners and suppliers across India. He speaks on several forums related to innovation in SMEs, Design Engineering & User centered development. He also mentors many inventors and startups on Product Innovation.

He is a founder member of Association of Designers of India.

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.

Ravi Mokashi Punekar is Professor at the Department of Design, IIT Guwahati.After completing a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Karnataka University, Dharwad, he went on to complete his Masters in Industrial Design from IDC, IIT Bombay and PhD in Design from IIT Guwahati.

After an early stint working as Product Designer in industry, he joined the National Institute of Design in 1986 and went on to head the Faculty of Industrial Design. In the year 2001, he left NID, to actively contribute in setting up the Department of Design at IIT Guwahati. In the span of these 28 years of his experience he has been actively engaged in Design education, Design Research and Product Design and Development activities. His fields of interest include Design pedagogy, Form Studies, Product Design and Development, Design Methods, Studies in Material Culture and Society, Design and Sustainability and Design Management.

In addition he has held senior administrative positions at IIT Guwahati as Associate Dean (Student Affairs') 2002-05; and Head of the Department of Design 2005-09.

Always a keen sportsman, he continues to enjoy a good game of cricket and table tennis, and makes up for lack of extended play due to health restriction, by his alternate interest in listening to Hindustani music.

Design professional with proven leadership mettle in Industrial Design with reputed organizations. 14+ years of rich hands on experience in product and packaging design, visual communication design, branding, Product portfolio management, brand visual architecture, graphic design and strategic design with a portfolio of high profile projects for India's leading brands. Having Experience of establishing full-fledged design studio and building strong team of design & engineering professionals to deliver best-in-class design solutions to key accounts in Mumbai. Proactive, creative, committed professional with an outstanding career of delivering superior results through effective communication, coordination, relationship building, strategizing, planning and execution.

As founder & director of Designlipi Projects Private Ltd, he initiated the 1st Professional Design House based out of Kolkata in entire eastern part of India offering services in Strategic Design, Branding & Communication, Product Design, Packaging Design and Design for Retail Experiences. Presently having a team of 6 and clients like ITC, Exide, Godrej Appliance, Godrej Locks, Godrej Construction, Godrej Natures Basket, Godrej PRIMA, Eveready Industries Ltd., Punjab Sind Dairy, Lightkraft etc. Won IDESIGN Award 2012 for designing innovative mosquito repellant device & applied for 1 patent in 2013 and having several design registrations.

Vasant Dewaji graduated from the national institute of design in 1992, after completing his engineering. He has worked for over 20 years in area of consumer design in the product and retail space across categories like travel goods and accessories, elevators, watches, white goods and bicycles.
He currently manages design and development at VIP Industries Ltd. He also takes out time each year to teach at design schools in India.

V. Ega is the Associate Vice President and Design Head at Godrej Interio. He has a M. Tech in Production (Mechanical Engineering) from I.I.T Mumbai and a B. Tech (Mechanical Engineering) from Sri Venkateshwara University, Tirupati.

His experience of 20 years in engineering design, technology adoption and product design at Godrej Interio has helped the brand in networking and collaboration of people from various functions to constantly evolve and develop furniture as a complete experience design.
He enjoys managing, motivating and building passionate environments for industrial designers to create products that can shape the future of this business. He has shaped the design team at Godrej Interio to develop contemporary furniture as lifestyle products for the relevant target customers.

A mechanical engineer and a PG product design graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Vivek was highly inspired by his mentors to look at design differently as a tool to resolve issues of any complexity. Continuing with internship at Onio Design and Reva Electric Car Company he learnt the art of evaluating and selling design.

Soon, he chose to start his own business and today, runs a product design consultancy by his name in Mumbai. The vision of his company is, delivering design services to MSME sector industries. The base, for this consultancy stands strongly on an attitude to create meaningful change which will create a difference.

This fundamental proved correct when Vivek scored an honourable mention in the most coveted Red Dot Award – Product Design, 2012, for a very simple product – A Gas Sandwich Toaster. He firmly believes in imparting knowledge to the people he works with, to sensitize the audience and together give rise to a revolution that can bring about a change by design.