director’s welcome address & review monday, 9th january 2017 … · 2017-01-09 ·...

Director’s Welcome Address & Review

Monday, 9th January 2017

Convocation Welcome Address & Review 2017

Shri Pradyumna VyasDirectorNational Institute of Design

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Director’s Welcome Address & Review37th Annual Convocation of National Institute of Design

Monday, 9th January 2017

Good evening everybody. I welcome you all to the 37th Convocation at the National Institute of Design.

Today, we are privileged to have with us the esteemed Dr. Ramachandra Guha noted historian and biographer, as our distinguished Chief Guest this evening. Dr. Guha has written several books, which include The Unquiet Woods, A Corner of a Foreign Field, India after Gandhi, and Gandhi Before India. A recipient of the Padma Bhushan, Dr. Guha has also been conferred the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the UK Cricket Society’s Literary Prize, the Ramnath Goenka Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award, and the Fukuoka Prize.

I would like to thank Dr. Guha, for accepting our invitation and gracing this ceremony.

A warm welcome to Dr. Naushad Forbes—Chairman, NID Governing Council, esteemed members of the Governing Council, faculty colleagues, this year’s graduates, their parents, distinguished guests, friends from the media, students of NID, and the staff members present here.

From across various disciplines, 338 students receive their degrees today in recognition of their dedication and academic endeavours.

Today’s convocation ceremony is a milestone achievement in the lives of all you graduates and it also marks your initiation into a new life altogether. Experiences and opportunities will come your way and each of these will help your flower as an individual and shape your lives.

Looking at this enthusiastic group of graduates, filled with hope and ambitions for the future, I feel that I must touch upon the theme of this year’s Young Designers publication. Its theme—‘Songs of a Tree’ is a celebration of NID’s pioneering educational initiatives. The tree stands as a metaphor of our traditions, knowledge, and wisdom. NID has been like a tree which nurtures and spreads its branches to become a tree of design knowledge that will nurture NID’s design philosophy.

This was indeed a very memorable academic year as the institute took up major initiatives in various areas. The Professional Education Programmes at NID is headed by Shri Shashank Mehta, who seeks to make design education more contextual to contemporary concerns.

Convocation Welcome Address & Review 2017 4

• It was a matter of great pride and honour for the institute when Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi opened the ‘India Design Show’ jointly organised by NID, India Design Council, CII at the ‘Make in India Week’ in Mumbai. With him, it was also a privilege to welcome Mr. Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden; Mr. Juha Sipilä, Prime Minister of Finland, and Mr. Piotr Glinski, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Poland. They were accompanied by Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce & Industry (Independent Charge), Government of India; Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and Shri Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, and other dignitaries.

• NID received the ‘India-UK Excellence Award for Collaborations in Higher Education’ in recognition of innovative partnership for collaborative research between National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London, which is working on ‘Design Thinking for Prison Industries: Exchanging Design Tools, Methods and Processes with Prisons in London and Ahmedabad to Build Inmate Resilience’. This project was supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and conducted at HMP Thameside Prison in London and Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad. This project is headed by Shri Praveen Nahar.

• NID was awarded the ‘Certificate of Appreciation’ by the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), for designing of Yoga Apparel for International Yoga Day - 2016. This certificate was given by Hon’ble Vice President of India Shri M. Hamid Ansari, in presence of Hon’ble Shri Shriprad Yesso Naik, Union Minister for State (Independent Charge) for Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), and other dignitaries during the ‘International Conference on Yoga for Body & Beyond’ held in New Delhi

• NID was invited to participate in INNOPROM at Ekaterinburg, Russia and to also participate in the Global Industrial Design conference. NID put up a display of ‘Design in India’ at INNOPROM, which is one of the largest trade fairs held annually in Russia. This year, India was the partner country.

• NID Kurukshetra was inaugurated in the transit campus at Umri. The academic programme has already commenced at this campus. Academic programmes are underway at NID Vijayawada since last year and NID Ahmedabad is has been entrusted with the responsibility of setting up of new NIDs which are coming up across the country. NID Ahmedabad will continue to guide these new NIDs till such time that the management, academics, and day to day functioning of the new institutes are streamlined.

• I am happy to announce that this year, the application forms for admissions to Bachelor of Design (B.Des.) and Master of Design (M.Des.) at


Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, and Gandhinagar campuses as well as Graduate Diploma Programme in Design (GDPD) at NID Vijayawada and Kurukshetra were received through a fully online system including payment of application fees.

• The Design Aptitude Test (Prelims) was conducted on 8th January 2017 in 36 test centres in 23 cities across India. This task was enabled through the Admissions Cell headed by Shri Tarun Deep Girdher.

NID’s contributions have been getting widespread global acclaim. Several noteworthy dignitaries of national and international stature visited the campus this year:• Shri Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy &

Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India;• Mr. Jordan Reeves, Consul General of Canada and Ms. Ritika Nandkeoylar,

Consul - Political/Economic & Public Affairs;• Lt. Gen. K.J .Singh, PVSMAVSM & Army Commander, Western Command;• H.E. Sir Dominic Asquith, British High Commissioner to India;• Mr David Akov, Consul General of Israel;• H.E. Alexandre Ziegler, Ambassador of France;• Dr. Martin Wälde, Director, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai;• Mr. Jan Campbell-Westlind, Consul & Deputy Head of Mission, Consulate

General of Sweden, Mumbai;• Sir Alan Gemmell OBE, Director, British Council, India;• Mr. Bertrand de Hartingh, Counsellor for Cooperation and Cultural Affairs,

French Institute in India.

This year also our students won several awards and gained global recognition won by students in their respective areas of design innovation. This truly adds to our spirit of achievement.• Vinnie Ann Bose’s Animation film, ‘What is Your Brown Number’, won the

Asia Gold Award at TBS Digicon6 2016 in Tokyo, Japan as well as Audience Award at The SENE Film, Music & Arts Festival is held in Providence, Rhode Island.

• Animation film, ‘Dado’ by Donna Partha won the Netizen Choice at the Bucheon International Animation Festival 2016, South Korea

• Rohit Asokan’s animation film, ‘Like A Parrot’, won Jury’s Special Prize at the 20th edition of Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival (SICAF).

• Ashish Anand received Special Mention at the World Bamboo Day Design Awards 2016, in Bengaluru.

• Swapnil Desai won the award for Best Design at The Orient Electric Design Awards, New Delhi.

• Nupur Priya, Student of the Year Award at the EDIDA India Awards.• Pritam Singh and Vishnu P. Ramesh won this year’s WOW Design

Challenge, New Zealand in the category of Creative Excellence section.• Freny Antony, Anand E.S., Aman Chaudhary, and Swapnil Desai were

selected in Top 10 for SIAM Automotive Design Challenge 2017 which


has the theme: Autonomous transportation - rebirth of auto industry 2030• Rohan Arora, Aakash Anand, Maya Subramanian won the TATA’s

Pioneer Makerthon- Wearables Challenge, held at IIT Guwahati.• In the Honeywell Eureka Design Challenge, Amit Sharma and Manuj

Tewari won the first prize. NID students won the second and third prizes too at this event.

• Under the “Earn While You Learn Scheme”, students from across all disciplines have availed the opportunity of working on significant live projects taking place across departments here.

The International Programmes department is headed by Shri Praveen Nahar. As part of international collaborations, 4 new collaborative agreements were signed:• School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Hong

Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), People’s Republic of China;• University of the Arts, London, UK;• Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Leipzig, Germany• Geneva School of Art and Design, Switzerland

NID has been actively engaged in research and academic initiatives and has also shared knowledge and resources with collaborative institutions. This year, several faculty members visited institutes overseas, 84 students from NID went on exchange programmes overseas, and 24 students from overseas institutes came to NID as exchange students. Several faculty from partner institutes came to NID as Visiting Faculty or as participants of International Open Electives or other workshops.

• Ms. Swasti Singh Ghai attended the training activity at Glasgow School of Art under NID’s International Exchange Programme.

• Shri Praveen Nahar and Shri Mayank Loonker attended the Mozilla Festival Retreat at Berlin, Germany.

• Shri V. Sakthivel attended the Society of History of Technology, UK (SHOT) Annual Meeting and conference in Singapore.

• Shri Rishi Singhal visited the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, Germany to attend the biannual photography festival and also participated in classes and seminars in order to chart out a plan to foster collaboration with NID

• Ms. Aarti Srivastava visited Japan along with two students of Textile Design as a part of Industrial Training with Asahi Kasei in Osaka, Japan.

• Shri Sekhar Mukherjee was invited as International Jury Member and Speaker at Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF) 2016, Seoul, South Korea.

• Under International Faculty exchange programme, Ms. Aneesha Sharma visited Glasgow School of Art, Scotland.

• Shri Praveen Nahar participated in the Dissemination event to showcase the results of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Project between Central Saint Martin’s University and NID titled ‘Design Thinking


for Prison Industries: Exchanging Design Tools, Methods and Process with Prisons in London and Ahmedabad to Build Inmate Resilience’.

NID hosted prominent events with national and international partners to sensitise the participants from various professional, organizational, and institutional backgrounds to the contribution of design in translating innovative ideas into a market success.

• National Institute of Design and Craft+Design+Society organised ‘Working Hand-in-Hand’, a craft based event at NID. It celebrated the collaboration between design and crafts. It hosted a craft symposium and textile exhibition. The symposium aimed to bring together and foster dialogues between various stakeholders, including artisan communities, designers, and industry representatives. The discussions invited practitioners and facilitators of textiles to discuss crafts, design, and research methods. The textile exhibition showcased and provided historical information on lost textile crafts.

• NID PG Campus, Gandhinagar hosted an international event ‘Global Hackathon’ curated by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, UK and supported by Philips and Cisco. The contest involved solving a challenge within 48 hours. Industry experts from Philips and Cisco and NID faculty mentored the teams with the virtual support from Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

• National Institute of Design, in collaboration with Kala Raksha Vidyalaya, had organised ‘Visiting Traditions for Tomorrow - Showcasing Contemporary Apparel Using Traditional Techniques’, which was an innovative fashion show of works co-created by final year students of NID and graduating students of Kala Raksha Vidyalaya, Kutch. The event was held at the PG Campus, Gandhinagar.

• The 3rd Edition of ‘Alpavirama: Asian Short and Documentary Film Festival’, headed by Shri Arun Gupta, was organised by National Institute of Design. Entries were received from 8 countries apart from India. The festival honoured Prof. Yogesh Mathur (Retired Professor and Former Head of Film Editing Department at the Film & Television Institute of India, Pune) with the ‘Prof. Satish Bahadur Lifetime Achievement Award for a Film Teacher from South Asia’.

• NID and the Consulate General of Sweden in Mumbai organised a Swedish exhibition ‘Design for Dignity’ which showcased products designed to improve the quality of life for differently-abled people. Produced by the Swedish Institute, the exhibition encompassed products highlighting the importance and benefits of being inclusive when developing products for the future. On this occasion, a photo exhibition entitled ‘AccessAbility’ based on the everyday life stories of differently-abled Swedish and Indian individuals was put on display. These images told a story of their dreams, hopes, sorrows, love, family, daily life, work, and spare time.


• ‘Nakashima at NID’, an exhibition of furniture designed by the celebrated Japanese-American designer George Nakashima was organised at NID. His daughter, Mira Nakashima, his son Kevin Nakashima, Jonathan Yarnall, and Kosuke Nagami also attended this event. NID’s unique collection of furniture designed by George Nakashima including classic designs such as the Grass-seated chair, the Mira chair, and the unique Kornblut chair and cabinet that symbolise the coming together of Japanese and Indian sensibilities were on display. A symposium called ‘Discovering Nakashima was also organised. It featured talks and panel discussions about Nakashima’s life, works, and the ethos, spirit, and philosophy he stood for. The project core-team was headed by Ms. Tanishka Kachru and included Shri Pravinsinh Solanki and Shri Jonak Das.

• As part of the India UK Tech Summit, the India UK Design Summit was held in New Delhi where Mr. Jo Johnson, UK’s Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation was present and released the ‘The Future of Design Education in India’ report, in the presence of Baroness Usha Prashar, Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees, British Council. A presentation on the future of design education was also made.

• At NID, research has always been central to the academic and professional design practices. The Research & Publications department is headed by Shri Vijai Singh Katiyar.

• NID is ready to launch its PhD Programme in Design this year. The programme will be offered in two categories: full-time and part-time. ‘Research by Design’ is going to be the core in pedagogy as well as a practice-driven inquiry. While many examples of practice-led research exist across the world, NID’s PhD Programme in Design is going to be a first and unique in its approach in India. The admissions process for the PhD programme will commence from February 2017.

• An MoU has been worked out between NID and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Hochschule Luzern Design & Kunst), Switzerland for a PhD level international collaboration, which would include a consortium of some internationally renowned institutions. International mobility for PhD students and faculty supervisors will be facilitated through this MoU. The initiative will help in benchmarking the quality of NID’s PhD programme at international level.

NID Publications is headed by Shri Tarun Deep Girdher.• We are pleased to announce that through the ‘NID Press’ imprint, the third

edition of Design and Environment: A Primer, by H. Kumar Vyas has been published this year.

• Work is in progress on bringing out two conference proceedings—Towards Global Histories of Design: Post Colonial Perspectives edited by Ms. Tanishka Kachru and Ms. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan; and Insight 2015:


Scholastic Papers from the International Design Research Symposium edited by Ms. Nijoo Dubey and Shri V. Ravishankar. These publications will be available shortly.

NID, through its Integrated Design Services (IDS) department, headed by Shri Subir Das, undertakes design projects for the public and private sectors and thereby, plays a key role in the development and promotion of design and contributes to the growth of diverse sectors of economy.• Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated an

exhibition called, ‘Uniting India: Sardar Patel’ at National Science Centre, New Delhi on 31st October 2016 , which was celebrated as the Rashtriya Ekta Divas. Commissioned by Ministry of Culture, Government of India, on inspiration from the Hon’ble Prime Minister, this exhibition is an outcome of an unique collaboration between India’s premier institutions - National Institute of Design (concept, interpretation planning and design and project headed at NID by Shri Mayank Loonker); National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata (for curation, exhibit & digital technology development and execution) and National Archives of India, Delhi (facilitator for archival documents), over a period of one-and-half years under the mentorship of a Special Advisory Committee. This exhibition presents the story of the political integration of princely states into India and the role of Sardar Patel, in an innovative way through a variety of state-of-the-art digital experiences.

• Shri V. Ravishankar successfully completed the project on ‘Design of School Bag’ for the Madhya Pradesh Text Book Corporation, Bhopal. The school bag for Standard 1 students of Madhya Pradesh is light weight, easy to carry, is all- weather friendly and is waterproof.

• Ms. Tridha Gajjar designed the logo for the Forum of Regulator, New Delhi whose aim is to nurture the growth of independent regulation and empowerment of all having a stake in the electricity sector in India.

• An NID team led by faculty Shri Vipul Vinzuda, worked on 5-compartments to enhance Ergonomics & Aesthetics for INS Chennai. NID provided design consultancy to Mazagaon Dockyard Limited (MDL), Mumbai and worked in close coordination with the MDL team on this project. The faculty also anchored a five-day workshop on ‘Design & Ergonomics for Warship Building’ for the Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai.

• Shri Vijai Singh Katiyar has envisioned a detailed roadmap and feasibility for setting up a contextual institution for craft design and entrepreneurship education for the Government of Uttar Pradesh. The State Government has accepted the document in totality and the Uttar Pradesh Institute of Design (UPID) has begun with its activities in Lucknow since July 2016 with handholding support from NID for implementation of the recommendations.


• Shri Vikram Singh Parmar designed the logo for Dial 100 for Uttar Pradesh Police, Lucknow which was launched by Hon’ble Chief Minister Shri Akhilesh Yadav.

• Logo of the ‘Cell for the IPR Promotion and Management’ (CIPAM) was designed by Ms. Tridha Gajjar based on the country’s slogan for its national IPR policy focusing on innovation and creativity. This logo was launched by Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce & Industry (Independent Charge), Government of India.

• Ms. Neelima Hasija heads the Industry & Online Programmes department (I&OP) at NID. The department conducts design sensitisation and awareness workshops, seminars, and activities to provide competitive advantage through design.

• Till date, 12 workshops and more than 276 participants from 10 institutes and 51 organizations have participated in the workshop and training programmes. These were anchored by various NID faculty members. These programmes are conducted either in-house or outstation locations depending on the request of the specific clients. I&OP also conducted 10 summer workshops to create design awareness and sensitisation and in all, 210 participants attended the workshops.

• NID has taken up asynchronous teaching trends to introduce an online design education programme. This programme involves the digital and technologically enabled teaching techniques in order to create learning opportunities for those who are otherwise unable to participate in full time training modules. The department launched NODE, India’s first online design education programme. The first course called, ‘Design Fundamentals’, which includes 6 tutorials and 46 video sessions has been launched and has received encouraging response from the learners.

NID’s Outreach Programmes, headed by Ms. Shimul Mehta Vyas brings the institute’s experience and training facilities to the service of those outside its regular education and client service activities. It works closely with the craft sector in the country.• NID is proud to be selected as one of the Knowledge Partners for USSTAD,

a major project launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister (through the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Govt. of India) for the benefit of minority communities – Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis, and Jains who are engaged in the practice of traditional crafts. As Knowledge Partner, NID would contribute its knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the established objectives under USTTAD. The project will be implemented by the institute’s Outreach Programmes wherein it will work extensively in 25 traditional craft clusters spread across the country. In the first phase of the project, work has been initiated in the Black Pottery cluster of Manipur, Glass Flame Work of Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, Screw-pine weaving of Kerala, Stone Craft of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, and Papier Mache of Kashmir.


• Other design intervention initiatives undertaken by Outreach Programmes include:

• Design-led workshop for the copper artisans, the Tamtas of Uttarakhand; • Workshop on innovative techniques in developing bamboo products

the hospitality sector for Madhya Pradesh State Bamboo Mission; • Product development and diversification workshop for the sabai and

siali grass weavers of Mayurbanj district, Odisha.

The Design Clinic Scheme for MSMEs at NID is an initiative of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Scale enterprises and is currently headed by Shri Jitendra Singh Rajput and is mentored by Shri Shashank Mehta. The scheme has achieved greater recognition in creating design awareness and sensitisation and it continues to facilitate several students’ projects. • With the successful implementation of the 1st phase of the Design Clinic

Scheme, the office of DC MSME has entrusted NID with the implementation of the up scaled 2nd phase of the Scheme which envisages an outlay of Rs.149 crores.

• As part of the launching of the up scaled scheme, the first National Workshop for the stake holder of the scheme was conducted last month and the up scaled scheme was launched by Shri Kalraj Mishra, Hon’ble Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The related events included an exhibition, showcase and release of Guidelines of the Scheme.

• In the scaled up scheme, the budget outlays have been revised to Rs.5 lakhs (75% reimbursable) for Design Clinic Workshops and financial assistance to Micro Units have been revised to 75% of Rs.15 lakhs for individual units and Rs.25lacs for group micro units. Financial assistance for small and medium units has been revised to 60% of Rs.25 lakhs for individual units and Rs.40 lakhs for group design projects. A major impact on design intervention to micro, small, and medium industries is expected through enhanced outlays for various activities and programmes.

• Beneficiaries of the Design Clinic Scheme are also being encouraged to enrol for India Design Mark by the India Design Council. Many MSMEs have come forward for this initiative which will help them to participate in Good Design Mark Awards of Japan.

The Placements Cell is headed by Ms. Sujitha Nair and Ms. Nijoo Dubey at the NID Ahmedabad and Bengaluru campuses. Industry Interface 2016 focused on full time recruitment and graduation project (final semester internship). More than 100 companies were present and 15 companies conducted off campus interviews through online interaction/skype during all the three days from various segments of the economy including FMCG, Automotive, Textile, Apparel, Games, IT sector, lifestyle, Education, Jewellery, Baggage, Electronics, advertising, TV & Entertainment, studios, Fashion houses, furniture, start-ups, etc. There was a significant increase of more than 50% in new companies visiting the campus compared to last year.


The Railway Design Centre, Intellectual Property Rights Cell, and the National Design Business Incubator (NDBI) at NID are headed by Shri Vikram Singh Parmar.• In May 2016, NDBI enrolled five new start-ups in the domain of accessibility,

smart prosthetics, mobile health, and handicraft. All the start-ups have been supported by the NDBI seed fund. One of the start-ups, Taparch Pvt. Ltd was shortlisted in the top 500 start-ups of 2016 globally, and top 40 rising start-up companies of the Gujarat during the Vibrant Gujarat Start-up summit 2016.

• NDBI was also approved as a nodal agency by Industries Commissioner, Govt. of Gujarat. As a nodal agency, NDBI will be responsible for disbursing start-up funds / grants under the Start-up India and Stand-up India Schemes.

• In 2016, 46 design registrations were granted by controller General of Patents, and Trade Marks; 40 additional designs are already in submission. One registered design was sold to a start-up for potential commercialization. All the registered designs will soon be showcased on the website, and invite potential industries/entrepreneurs to commercially explore these designs. This year onwards, the IPR cell will focus on obtaining patents from professional and students’ projects.

• This year, the Railway Design Centre completed four major projects for the Indian Railways:

• Climbing arrangement for middle and upper berths in reserved coaches was prototyped and checked.

• Colour Scheme exterior and interior both for 200 km/h rake of the new trains was finalized.

• Way finding system for railway station have been conceptualized and discussed with Railway board.

• Short Animation on discouraging people from crossing the railway track were completed and presented to railway board.

By taking three to four detailed projects every year, with various research topics, projects initiated by faculty, student/classroom and workshops, the centre will continue to provide commuter-friendly and innovative solutions to the Indian Railways.

NID’s Research & Development Campus, Bengaluru, which is headed by Bibhudutta Baral, seeks to harness the creative design spirit and sharpen NID’s design acumen nurtured over the five decades of design education. • ‘Go Green with Bamboo – Zero Co2’ was organised by NID Centre for

Bamboo Initiatives. It was inaugurated on the 18th September 2016, which is also celebrated as the ‘World Bamboo Day’. It was inaugurated in presence of Mr. Michel Abadie, President, World Bamboo Organisation; Dr. Ajoy Bhattacharya, M.D., National Green Highway Mission; Mr. Kamesh Salam, Director, South Asia Bamboo Foundation; Mr. BB Singh, Director, MP State Bamboo Mission; Mr. Surendra Kumar, Director, Institute of Wood Science and Technology (IWST) and other dignitaries. Exhibition, workshops, live demo of bamboo shoot process etc. were held as a part of the celebrations apart from the talks by various bamboo experts.


• Around 45 persons including students from design institutes including NID, École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD), Paris, Kerala State Institute of Design (KSID), Acharya School of Design, etc. as well as several artisans participated in the international workshop. The focus of the workshop was to design bamboo products and promote green and sustainable living.

• An MoU between NID and University of Geneva was signed on 4th October 2016, in the view of future classroom collaboration and students exchange in Digital Game Design discipline.

• Marion Bareil, from Geneva University of Art and Design (Haute École d’art et de design Genève) conducted a workshop on Serious Games with Digital Game Design students.

• Deloitte along with NASSCOM published a white paper on Serious Games/Applied Games in NASSCOM Game Developers Conference (NGDC) conference in Hyderabad, wherein NID faculty Shri Shakti Banerjee was invited to give inputs on the subject of Serious Games in the Academia section.

• The R&D campus infrastructure has been upgraded to accommodate the requirements for two new programmes which were launched in 2015 i.e. Digital Game Design and Universal Design.

• The Digital Hampi Project is headed by Ms. Mamata Rao and the project has been successfully completed. Right now, efforts are being made to make the resources available online in well-designed digital format. On the basis of the Hampi project’s success, new project works may be offered to NID R&D Campus.

• Shri Bibhudutta Baral has been heading the E-Kalpa project. The ongoing E-Kalpa project will be funded till 2019. It has successfully documented 650 crafts from all over India and the target is to add 450 craft documentation or more by 2019. All these resources are available online in www.Dsource.in portal. The project documents Indian handicrafts, heritages, arts and cultural monuments, and performing arts of India. The crafts-related contents are available in 17 different languages in the web portal and on varied digital platforms such as desktop, mobile phone, tablet etc.

• Later this month, National Institute of Design and National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) are organising the ‘International Conference on Creativity and Cognition in Art and Design’ (ICCCAD 2017). ICCCAD aims to bring together “Practitioners of Creativity “from various fields of Arts and Design and “Researchers of Creativity” from varied disciplines of cognitive and neurosciences and humanities together on a common platform. This conference is an attempt to start a conversation between both these divergent groups to deliberate on aspects of creativity.

Noteworthy activities took place at the NID’s Post-Graduate Campus, Gandhinagar, which is headed by Ms. Krishna Patel.• The Innovation Centre for Natural Fibre (ICNF) is headed by Prof.

Pradhyumansinh Jhala. Jute shopping bags and lifestyle accessories designed by Innovation Centre for Natural Fibre (ICNF) were launched by


the then Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Textiles (Independent Charge) Shri Santosh Gangwar during National Seminar on Jute Diversified Products at Kolkata. Later, NID organized the “Symposium on Jute Redesigned” for transfer of more than 200 jute shopping bag and lifestyle accessory know-how to the jute industry at IJIRA, Kolkata on 23rd Sept. 2016. The bags were showcased at Giftex, Tokyo in July 2016 and it generated commercial interest from 30 Japanese companies.

Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland signed an MoU with NID for a collaborative project on the Design of Bio-inspired Textiles with Natural Fibres (DesNat) between LUASA and ICNF.

• Apparel Design students, as a part of a live classroom project, designed uniforms/workwear for personnel at Hitachi and focused on core ergonomic perspectives. The designs are to be implemented as a uniform for Hitachi personnel in its companies all across India.

• Two designs from students’ classroom projects have been reworked and new designs have been developed by Ms. Krishna Patel for the project ‘Design Yoga Wear & Yoga Mat’ with Ministry of AYUSH, New Delhi, Government of India. As mentioned earlier, the ministry has awarded NID a Certificate of Appreciation.

• Apparel Design faculty members, Ms. Krishna Patel, Shri Amit Sinha , and Shri V. Sakthivel participated in the conference on ‘Creating Handloom 2.0 – Realizing the Potential of the Indian Handloom Industry’ held in New Delhi organised by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) & DC (Handlooms). Shri Amit Sinha and Shri V. Sakthivel presented a paper on the relevance of handlooms and design education. The conference was attended by the active stakeholders from handloom as well as textile and apparel industry. Eminent personalities and designers such as Hon’ble Minister of Textiles Smt. Smriti Irani, designers David Abraham, Rajesh Pratap, Ritu Beri, Rahul Mishra, and Suket Dhir participated in the discussions.

• In June 2016, Shri Rishi Singhal was invited by the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst - Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig for a talk and for reviewing a student’s work. The prestigious institute is one of the oldest art academies in Germany.

• Photography Design students were part of a joint workshop with students of the Tokyo University of the Arts under the guidance of Prof. Risaku Suzuki, Head, Intermedia Arts at the institute. A joint exhibition at the PG Campus Gandhinagar, and a catalogue called, Far Away, So Close, was published as an outcome of the workshop.

• The ‘LAD Meet 2016’ was organised in the PG Campus Gandhinagar. The Meet marks the 15th year of the Lifestyle Accessory Design (LAD) discipline since its inception in 2002. The core objective of the event was to bring LAD students, alumni, and faculty on a common platform for exchanging ideas, sharing experiences, reconnecting and networking, and brainstorming on ways to take LAD to the next level.

• In Car Design News (CDN), global design school league table published in June featured NID on the 8th position. Car Design News is an online


news, picture and information service for the international automotive design community. NID is the only Indian design institute featured in this listing along with those institutes which have been offering a programme in Automobile Design for the last several years. In shorter span of a decade, NID’s Transportation & Automobile Design (TAD) programme has achieved another global recognition.

• I am happy to inform that the Design Gallery at the PG Campus, in Gandhinagar is ready and as part of the collaboration with Tasveer Gallery, four important exhibitions were held this year: Maharanis: Women of Royal India, Tasveer Journal, Mahesh Shantaram: African Portraits, and Waswo X Waswo: Photowallah.

Various activities of the India Design Council are co-ordinated by NID Ahmedabad.• ‘Make In India = Good Design = India Design Mark’, was a joint

initiative of the India Design Council , National Institute of Design, and the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Government. It was organised at New Delhi. The keynote address by Chief Guest Shri Ramesh Abhishek (Secretary - Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India) was followed by special addresses by Dr. Naushad Forbes (Chairman - Governing Council, National Institute of Design & President - Confederation of Indian Industry), Prof Pradyumna Vyas (Member Secretary - India Design Council and Director - National Institute of Design), and Shri Rajiv Aggarwal (Joint Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India). On this occasion, ‘The India Design Mark Catalogue 2015’ and ‘The India Design Mark Catalogue 2016’ and an NID publication compiling the projects done for Government of India was also released.

• The ‘India Design Mark’ exhibition was organized for the second consecutive year at Tokyo, Japan under the aegis of the Good Design Awards exhibition. The exhibition, which was coordinated by Shri Hrridaysh Deshpande of India Design Council, received a tremendous response and created a lot of interest about design in India.

• The ‘Good Design Seminar’ was conducted by the India Design Council and Japan Institute of Design Promotion to expand the understanding of design and communicate the role that it plays in creating a sustainable competitive advantage for business. The purpose of this seminar was to communicate the role of design in creating innovation and building sustainable competitive advantage for companies. It was also a platform to disseminate information about India Design Mark a good design selection system run by the India Design Council in cooperation with Good Design Awards, Japan.

Dear friends, today’s convocation ceremony also includes the Graduate Show that displays the innovative and creative works of this year’s graduates.


I invite each one of you to view this show.

Dear graduates, you are all waiting on the threshold of an exciting and new stage of your lives. I wish that each one of you has an extremely rewarding and fulfilling career. The need of the hour is to create sustainable design options and support them with a value-centric design approach.

It is remarkable indeed that an education in design has come to attain its much deserved true recognition, and as a field of study, it is now at par with technology and management. NID’s status as an Institute of National Importance has only added to this sense of achievement and progress.

An education at the National Institute of Design equips you with a sharpened understanding of your social responsibilities and it will transform you into more empathetic human beings. Today, technology has been progressing very rapidly, and this is the most opportune moment for all of you to make an impact and strive to humanise technology. You must ensure that technology is used in a more responsible, sustainable, and inclusive manner and that it must uphold ethics and social harmony.

In The India Report, Charles and Ray Eames have mentioned, “In order to even approach the quality and values of a traditional society, a conscious effort must be made to relate every factor that might possibly have an effect.” And I invite you all to spare a thought for this sentiment and strive to bring traditional knowledge existing across various spheres of Indian culture into the mainstream through innovative design practices.

It is my most sincere hope and wish that each one of you graduating today will address the challenges of sustainable environment, social inclusion, aging, social safety, healthcare, and indigenous technology and also come up with solutions to address the same. Professional ethics and integrity, co-creation, and participatory research should come to define your future endeavours in the field of design.

Dear graduates, you have spent some of the most remarkable years of educational life on this campus and soon you will be leaving with lots of hope and determination to give wings to your aspirations. NID’s long tradition of excellence and the strong value systems will help you grow as designers and as individuals too. I wish you all the very best for a bright and successful future.

May God bless you all.

Pradyumna VyasDirector, National Institute of Design

director’s welcome address & review monday, 9th january 2017 … · 2017-01-09 ·...

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