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Short Bio: Prof. Dr. Robert Pulley is also an award-winning furniture designer-maker with extensive professional experience in higher education. He was subject leader for three dimensional design at Ravensbourne; Head of School: Craft and Design, UCA Farnham; Dean of art and design at Falmouth College of Arts; and Principal at West Dean, a postgraduate college of the University of Sussex. Pulley is a visiting faculty at the Royal Colleg of Arts (RCA) where he teaches research students and innovation design students. Pulley completed a PhD in Innovation Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art in 2019. His research focused upon the role of creative practice in primary education. He is a of Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Member of Advisory Board, Craft Research (since 2010).

Title: Theatre of the Imagination: Blueprint Exchange

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Short Bio: Prof. Dr. Jyotsna Tiwari is a Profeesor of Art History and Aesthetics at NCERT, New Delhi. She oined the NCERT in 2001 as faculty, Art Education and been working in the Department of Education in Arts & Aesthetics which had been formed in 2005. As a faculty member in NCERT, had been involved in the major activities of research, development, training and extension for better implementation of arts education in schools.

Title: Thoughts on Art, Design and Learning in Schools

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Short Bio: Arvind Gupta is an Indian toy inventor and expert in science. He got the civilian award "Padma Shree" on the eve of Republic Day, 2018. A graduate from IIT Kanpur (1975 batch), Arvind Kumar Gupta took a year's study leave from TELCO (in 1978) to work with the grassroots village science teaching programme for children in the tribal district of Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh called Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme. While there, he developed many useful low-cost teaching/science teaching aids using locally available materials. The possibilities of using ordinary things for doing science and recycling modern junk into joyous products appealed immensely to children. Arvind Gupta's first book, Matchstick Models and other Science Experiments, was translated into 12 Indian languages by various Popular Science groups and sold more than half a million copies. Gupta has conducted workshops in over 2000 schools and has won many national and international awards. Gupta's website holds instructions, including short video clips on YouTube, in a number of languages, for making hundreds of improvised toys, which he makes available freely without copyright restrictions. His popular TED Talk: Turning Trash into Toys for learning gives an insight into his work and philosophy. This talk was among the 10 best TED talks compiled by Sir Ken Robinson and Sugata Mitra's 5 favorite education talks.

Title: Toys from Trash

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Short Bio: Vivek Monteiro is a member of executive committee of the All India People's Science Network and worked on a number of science-related issues which have become important on the national agenda. He obtained his B. Sc. in Physics and Maths from the University of Bombay after his college in Xavier's College, Bombay (1966-68) and Dhempe College, Goa (1964-66). He obtained his Ph.D. from the State University of New York in 1974 after his masters in physics from the California Institute of Technology (1968-70). He is the founder and principal advisor to Navnirmiti, a self-reliant social enterprise working for universalization of quality education for all. Navnirmiti has a special focus on math and science education. Navnirmiti makes continuous innovations in educational tools, toys, puzzles, hardware, software. They conceptualised the Universalization of Active Mathematics (UAM) and Universalization of Active Science (UAS) and with twenty years' efforts they have advanced them to a stage that the UAS and UAM methods are accepted in many states for science and mathematics education. Dr. Vivek Monteiro, of Nav Nrimiti, has received the “Homi Bhabha Award for Science Education, 2016”, instituted by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for his contributions in science education. He is also presently the Secretary,of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) Maharashtra State Committee.

Title: Toy Inventor in Science Education

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Short Bio: Jason Yip is an assistant professor at the Information School and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Human-Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington. His research examines how technologies can support parents and children learning together. He is a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation Cyberlearning project on designing social media technologies to support neighborhoods learning science together. He is the director of KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational group of children (ages 7 – 11) and researchers co-designing new technologies and learning activities for children, with children. Dr. Yip is the principal investigator of a Google Faculty Research Award project that examines how Latino children search and broker online information for their English-language learning parents. He is a senior research fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. He holds a B.A. (2001) in chemistry and M.S.Ed (2002) in science and math education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. (2014) in curriculum and instruction from the University of Maryland.

Title: Lessons learned from equal and equitable design partnerships with children and adults.

Abstract: Prior studies have focused on child interactions in participatory design (PD) with adults and children. In this talk, I unpack what constitutes an “equal partnership” in PD between adults and children. On the basis of prior literature, my team created a new framework that examines the complementary roles between children and adults. From this analysis of a year-long co-design group, my team determined that design partnerships are composed of four dimensions that span from unbalanced to balanced interactions: facilitation, relationship building, design-by-doing, and elaborating together. Finally, to demonstrate its utility, I present two cases of using design partnerships with children. The first case shows how we can teach design-studio classes with graduate students with children. The second case demonstrates how to improvise co-design partnership with children online during COVID-19. Overall, I present lessons from this work into interaction design, HCI education, and the future of co-design

Short Bio: Prof. Dr. Allison Druin is an American computer scientist who studies human–computer interaction, and digital libraries, particularly focusing on children's use of educational technology. Druin has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design from the Rhode Island School of Design (1985). She earned a master's degree in 1987 from the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and completed a Ph.D. in 1997 at the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. Her dissertation was A Multidisciplinary Education for Designing Interactive Applications: The MEDIA Program, and was supervised by Priscilla Norton. She joined the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park as a research assistant professor in 1998, and became a regular-rank faculty member in 1999. From 2006 to 2011 she directed the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the university, from 2010 to 2012 she was Associate Dean for Research, from 2011 to 2013 she was ADVANCE Professor, and from 2013 to 2015 she was chief futurist for the university. She took a leave from Maryland to work for two years as Special Advisor for National Digital Strategy to the US National Park Service, before joining the Pratt Institute as Associate Provost in 2017.

Title: Concluding Session + Closing Keynote

28 Jan 2021, Sessions 1B: Keynote 1 & 2 Focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3B: Keynote 3 & 4 Focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3C: Concluding Sessions Focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Dr. Ajanta Sen has a Ph.D. in Development Planning from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), Mumbai, India.

• As a co-director, she is involved in conception and supervision in developing an AAC application called Jellow Communicator for those learning to speak or those having difficulty with speech.
• She directs a networking technology project entitled ‘Solar Project’ about cross-cultural collaborative learning environments for children and a joint initiative between schools and design institutes in India and UK. The project has won over a hundred awards to date.
• She is also the founder of Design in India (www.designinindia.net), India’s comprehensive resource site for design..
• As a Research scientist at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, she was involved with an innovation lab experimenting with uses of Social Media, called ‘The Centre of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC)’, a collaborative initiative between IIT Bombay and the Universities from Singapore - NUS and NTU. COSMIC aims to empower communities, through social media innovations that improve the way they live, work and play
• Some of her noteworthy (and ongoing) projects are with the MicroSoft Corporation and MicroSoft Research, Redmond, USA and in Hyderabad, India, Motorola India Research, Bangalore, Yahoo Research, Sunnyvale, USA, Google India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), India, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), India, the Khadim's Group, India , the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, among others.

28 Jan 2021, Sessions 1A: Parallel Session 1 School for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Rupa Narayan Agarwal is trained as an architect from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and in Industrial Design from IDC, IIT Bombay. She completed her PhD from IDC School of Design. Her training on one hand has given her grounding in the traditional principles of design and confidence to foray into the exciting new areas of design on the other. Her research interests are- Design theory, design methodology, design ontology, sustainability and Design history. She isProfessor at National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai campus. She hasbeen in the core committees of visioning a multidisciplinary masters programme based on design research. She has held several senior positions at NIFT-Chairperson of the Fashion Communication and Design Space Department, Campus Academic Coordinator of the Mumbai campus. She is currently Head of the craft cluster activities of all 16 campuses of NIFT.

29 Jan 2021, Sessions 2A: Parallel Session 7 School for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: "Dr. Santosh Kshirsagar is a Design Educator and Calligrapher from Mumbai, India. With more than 2 decades of teaching experience , he is the current Dean at Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art. In 2019, he completed his PhD on Handwritting Acquisition in Devanagari script from IDC, IIT Bombay. He teaches Calligraphy (especially in Devanagari script), Typography and Visual Communication Design. He has conducted several workshops in India and abroad and has given illustrated talks on Indian Calligraphy in Germany, Belgium, London and Japan. His Calligraphic works have been exhibited in Japan with Prof. Mori Kooun, Australia and USA. He has presented his research papers at ICTVC (Cyprus), ATYPAI (Dublin, Ireland), International Graphonomics Society Conference (Japan). He has also designed Typefaces for Microsoft (Window XP) in Gujrati & Oriya scripts. He is an academic consultant to government organisations and private institutions in India. He is on the advisory board of Typography Day from 2009. He is one of the Co-Founder of Aksharaya, a non-profit organisation dedicated to creating awareness about Indian scripts."

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3A: Parallel Session 12 School for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Ravi Mokashi Punekar is a Product Designer and Professor at the Department of Design, IIT Guwahati, where he is currently teaching in their three academic Design programs for the last 20 years. After an early stint in industry, he joined the Faculty of Industrial Design at the National Institute of Design in 1986 and was teaching in the Product Design discipline of the Faculty of Industrial Design. He is actively involved in Design Research and Product Design and Development activities. In addition he has held responsible administrative positions at IIT Guwahati as Associate Dean (Student Affairs') 2002-05; Head of the Department of Design 2005-09, Chairman, Faculty of Industrial Design, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 1993-'98 and on the board of academic studies for three leading institutions.

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3C: Parallel Session 14 School for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Girish Dalvi is an inter-disciplinary faculty of Design at the Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT Bombay. He teaches subjects in the area of Visual Design, Interaction Design and Design research. His research interests in the domain of Visual design are: Devanagari Typography (History, Type design methodologies, Theoretical Modeling, Classification, and Type-Culture); within the field of Interaction design his research interests are: Culture sensitive Interactions, Input mechanisms for Indic scripts and Design for Behaviour Change. As a design researcher his work deals with applying Statistical and Mathematical modeling techniques for designers. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, a Master’s degree in Design and a Ph.D. from IIT Bombay. His doctoral research dealt with the theoretical modeling of Devanagari typefaces. As a type designer he has co-created several typefaces for Indian scripts, prominent amongst these is the open-sourced Mukta multi-script family, and Jaini.

28 Jan 2021, Sessions 1A: Parallel Session 3 Special Needs for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Dr. Vaishali Kohle is an Assiciat Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. She runs the entre for Disability Studies and Action at the Institute and has been responsible for conducting conferences related toDisability, Accessibility, Inclusion and Well - Being

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3C: Parallel Session 15 Special Needs for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Jyoti Mohite is an Assiciate Professor at the Audiology & Speech Therapy Department, TNMC Nair Hospital, Mumbai. Her area of interest include Adult Neurogenic language disorders, Childhood language disorders, Fluency disorders and Forensic Audiology

28 Jan 2021, Sessions 1C: Parallel Session 4 Products for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Dr. Deepak John Mathew is a design professor and the head of the design department at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. He has designed and developed the dual postgraduate programme in Photography Design at IIT Hyderabad. Deepak has curated a number of exhibitions at National Institute of Design (NID), including those featuring the works of the famous photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Anne Maniglier, and Raghu Rai and has also contributed to various publications of NID. He is also leading and setting up a design Innovation centre at IIT Hyderabad and is researching on Digital Preservation of Indian Monuments and Design Education for Schools. Professor Deepak is also working on immersive technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality to create interactive 3D photography for preservation of Heritage Monuments. He is a regular contributor and columnist to magazines like Indian Architecture & Builder and Better Photography. He is a renowned figure as a panel member, visiting faculty, lecturer, external evaluator, mentor, and advisor to various universities and institutes all over the world.

29 Jan 2021, Sessions 2C: Parallel Session 10 Products for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. A K Das is professor and former Head in the Department of Design, IIT Guwahati. Prof. Prof. A K Das is Member of various Expert Committees for DST, CSIR, Central Silk Board, National Innovation Foundation, RuTAG etc. and consultant for Number of Projects and Consultancies for private, public and defense organizations. He is also chairman of Regional Silk Research Advisory Committee for North Eastern Region and member in the Governing board of different Educational Institutions. His main thrust area at present is Design Innovation and bringing innovations to market to benefit masses. Prof. A K Das has been working for inclusive development of the North Eastern Region for many years and recent assignment is another step in this direction.

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3A: Parallel Session 13 Product for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Peer Sathikh is presently Associate Professor and Associate Chair (Academic) at the School of Art Design and Media (ADM). He is the Director of the Centre for Asian Art and Design at ADM, a REP Fellow, a selected group of academics who teach students of NTU's Renaissance Engineering Programme. He is a Visiting Professor at the Industrial Design Centre, IITBombay and an Adjunct Professor at the VIT University, Vellore, India. He teaches product design, User Experience in Design and Islamic Art and Design at ADM, and Renaissance Design at REP. He conducts an annual masters level specialist workshop on Transportation and Mobility at IITBombay. He obtained a M.Des in industrial design from the Royal College of Art (RCA), London and a M.Des in product design from Industrial Design Centre, IITBombay. He also has a BE (Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering.

28 Jan 2021, Sessions 1A: Parallel Session 2 Interaction Design for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Anirudha Joshi is from the interaction design stream in the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. He works in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design. He teaches HCI and related topics in IIT Bombay and in academic institutions all over India. He was one of the first teachers to introduce usability and ethnographic user studies methods in India. Professor Anirudha is involved in designing interactive products for emergent users in developing economies, with a significant focus on Indian users. He has done user studies, interaction design, and usability evaluations for diverse domains including healthcare, literacy, Indian language text input, banking, education, industrial equipment, and FMCG packaging. His work has been for users in urban and rural India and on a variety of platforms including desktops, the web, mobile phones, ATMs, and custom hardware. Since 2007, Professor Anirudha represents India on IFIP TC13 (the technical committee on Human-Computer Interaction of the International Federation for Information Processing). He is a member of the TC13 working group 13.2 on Methodologies for User-Centred Systems Design, and working group 13.8 on Interaction Design for International Development. In 2015, he was awarded the the IFIP Outstanding Service award for contributions to IFIP and the informatics community. Professeor Anirudha has a BTech (1989) in Electrical Engineering, an MDes (1992), in Visual Communication from the Industrial Design Centre, and a PhD (2011) in Computer Science and Engineering, from IIT Bombay.

29 Jan 2021, Sessions 2A: Parallel Session 8 Interaction Design for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam, is currently the head of Information Design Lab @ IDC, IIT Bombay which uses theory-based design & analytical methods to discover and validate insights from data and translate them into systems, methods & frameworks that help in mindfully created human-information interactions. Previously he was the Deputy Director of SP Design School, Singapore for about 15 years. Prior to that, he held positions in Kirloskar Multimedia Pvt. Ltd & CMC Ltd. He completed his Masters in Visual Communication from IIT Bombay & Bachelors in Architecture from R.E.C Trichy (Now NIT, Trichy).

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3A: Demo Session 2 Interaction Design for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Vivek Kant is currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the Industrial Design Centre (IDC School of Design), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He is cross-trained in both systems design engineering and cognitive/behavioral sciences. His research interests are interaction design in complex systems, human factors, systems design, human computer interaction, sociotechnical systems, history and philosophy of design and engineering.

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3C: Parallel Session 16 Media for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Shilpa Ranade is an Indian designer, animator, illustrator, filmmaker and academician. She has been faculty at the Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay since 2001. She pursued Bachelor of Fine Art (Applied) Specialisation in Illustration and Video Sir. J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Bombay. 1987, and has a Master of Design (Visual Communication) Specialisation in Advanced Illustration and Video Industrial Design Centre, I.I.T., Bombay. 1989 along with M.Phil in Animation Thesis on 'Indigenous Images and Narratives for Socially Relevant Animation' Royal College of Art, London. 1985. In 2001, she returned to the Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay and was responsible for setting up the centre's first degree program in animation. Its first batch graduated in 2006. Her filmography includes Mani's Dying, 1995 Royal College of Art, The Harvest, 1995 Rolyal College of Art, The Childhood of Krishna, 1997 Wales - Channel 4, London, Naja Goes To School, 1999 Channel 4, London. For Mani's Dying she was awarded the Critics Award, Bombay International Short Film Festival, 1996. In 2013, she directed her first feature-length animation film Goopi Gawaiya Bagha Bajaiya for the Children's Film Society of India. Her film has premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and has been screened at Busan Korea, MAMI India, DIFF Dubai and NYICFF New York among others. She has directed animated short films for Channel 4, UK and her films have been screened all over the world, winning accolades in some of the most prestigious film festivals. She is a founding member of Damroo, a project dedicated to creating content for children. She has also illustrated numerous books for children for leading publishers in the country such as Scholastic, Eklavya, Pratham and Karadi Tales.

28 Jan 2021, Sessions 1C: Parallel Session 6 Environment for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Presently, working as an Associate Professor and the Coordinator of MVD program at IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay, India. He obtained Ph.D. in Design from Instrument Design and Development Center, IIT Delhi in the area of Design Forecasting. He worked on design projects for marquees in the industry that include Honda R&D, Hero Global Design, Hi-Tech Robotic Systemz Ltd., SETI Labs Berkley, Aprilia Motors Italy, Bombardier Canada and most of the leading automotive and consumer brands of India. Have been instrumental in design of over 18 techno-commercially successful launched products at a pan India level. Have won many International and National level design awards. Took keen interest in teaching design and has been mentoring students from many leading institutions such as IIT Delhi, IIT Roorkee, SPA Delhi, Lady Irving College, IILM, Pearl Academy among others.

29 Jan 2021, Sessions 2A: Parallel Session 9 Media for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. GV Sreekumar is faculty member at the IDC school of Design at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. His areas of research and study include Visual Design, Typography, Publication Design, Magazine Design and Information Graphics. He has worked with The Indian Express (Madurai) group, Art Director for Gentleman and Biznet, The Independent and The Metropolis on Saturday and Bombay Times, a part of The Times of India group as Graphic Designer. Also contributed for various publications from Times Group including Femina, Illustrated Weekly & Sunday Times. He also worked on various projects which includes Magazine Design for Chandamama (The English Version), Society, Savvy, CHIP, Digit, Overdrive, Banking Frontiers, & CTO Forum. He completed his BFA, Applied Arts from M.S. University, Vadodara, and MDes (Visual Comm.) from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

"28 Jan 2021, Sessions 1C: Parallel Session 5 Development for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Alka Hingorani is an architecture and art historian, with interests in art and identity, storytelling as academic practice, and pedagogy at the cusp of classroom teaching and technology. She is an Associate Professor at the IDC school of Design at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. She completed her PhD in History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley, and her areas of research include, Film, Photography and Story-telling along with their adaptations across media, Architecture and design, Aesthetics, Art Criticism and Appreciation along with Visual Narratives.

29 Jan 2021, Sessions 2C: Demo Session 1 Media for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Avinash Shende is an Associate Professor at the IDC school of Design at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Prior to this he was an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. His areas of research include, Poetic Synthesis, Product Integrated Photovoltaic, Product, Furniture & Lighting Design, Bamboo Craft and Creativity.

29 Jan 2021, Sessions 2C: Parallel Session 11 Development for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Dr. Prasad Bokil is a Mechanical engineer and Communication designer with Masters and PhD in communication design from IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. He teaches courses in typography and graphic design at undergraduate as well as postgraduate level. Prior to IIT Bombay, he was teaching at Department of Design, IIT Guwahati for five years. His research interests are visual language, visual narratives and game design. He is currently working towards ‘design for wellbeing’

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3A: Poster Session 1 Focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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And All Workshops


Short Bio: Prof. Ravi Poovaiah is Emeritus Fellow and a senior faculty memebr at IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. His research interests are in areas related to Visual Language, Information Visualisation, Visual Narratives, Interaction Devices, Collaborative Learning Environments and Designing Play-Learn Environments for Children. He has backgrounds in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras, Product Design and Graphic Design from IIT Bombay and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, USA. He is involved with building open access digital resources related to ‘Design Learning’, 'Folk Tales', 'Designing for Children', 'Design of Way-finding Systems' and 'Design in India' with access to networked collaborative information. In this regard, he has been co-ordinating along with NID and IIT Guwahati, a Ministry of Human Resources sponsored project named ‘e-kalpa’ to build an open access digital learning environment for design in India. He is also the co-director of a research project on experimenting with Social Media called ‘The Centre of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC)’, a collaborative initiative between IIT Bombay and the Universities from Singapore - NUS and NTU. COSMIC aims to empower communities, through social media innovations that improve the way they live, work and play. Professor Poovaiah has worked on projects with major industry leaders such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google India, Motorola India, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Electronics Limited, Siemens India, among others.

30 Jan 2021, Sessions 3C: Demo Session 3 Products for children with focus on ‘Play + Learn’
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Short Bio: Prof. Arun Mascarenhas is currently an Assistant Professor in Design at IDC, IIT Bombay. His principal areas of expertise are Fine Arts and History of Arts, having specialization in Drawing and Contemporary Sculpture. His teaching interest includes Communication Design, Illustrations, Form and Aesthetics, Fundamentals of Creative Education, and Pedagogy. He worked as a Visiting Faculty in the Department of Sculpture, College of Art, New Delhi, before taking to practicing teaching fulltime. He has served in different capacities at Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Nation Institute of Fashion Technology Kannur, IIT Hyderabad, before joining IIT Bombay in 2018. Arun has been part of several public and private projects funded by State and Central Governments. He worked for internationally renowned artists and projects and has commissioned many Art, Design Projects as Independent Practitioner. He organized a national seminar on craft intervention (NSCI-2018) at NIFT Kannur Campus in 2018. Conducted workshops for Artisans, Coordinated several events and workshops for students of Art and Design.

Short Bio: Prof Nishant Sharma is currently a Professor of Mobility & Vehicle Design (MVD) in IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. As a professor, he teaches postgraduate level courses, supervises Master of Design & PhD students, leads funded research/consultancy projects from government, private companies & non-government organisations and perform various institute level & department level administrative roles. Before joining academics, he had a successful career as a vehicle designer in automobile OEMs (Indian and MNCs). NIshant was responsible for creative design and CAS for two wheelers, cars, vehicle accessories and components. In industry, he had a rare opportunity to lead the cross cultural and cross border design team at early stage of his career. With intellectual rigour, vision, knowledge and ability to mentor teams rooted in his professional experience, he moved to academics. He had the privilege of pioneering vehicle design education in India by developing philosophy and writing complete curriculum of India’s first specialised Transportation & Automobile Design program at reputed National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He was then instrumental in setting up Mobility and Vehicle Design program at India’s best technology institute-IIT Bombay. This post graduate program in its tenth year upholds some unique values viz. designing mobility devices for social context, designing for disability, automobile styling, innovations, technology & mobility, future of mobility etc.

Short Bio: Dr. Sachin Datt is the head of visual communication program at Sushant School of Design, Gurgaon. He completed his phd from Industrial Design Centre, IDC, IIT Bombay and post doctoral studies from Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (TIFR, Mumbai). He has worked in the area of science popularisation through visual storytelling. He is teaching in graduate and Phd programs and studying the role of ‘affective domain’ in design education.