Aneesha Sharma is former HoD and Associate Professor at IIT Delhi. Prof. Aneesha completed bachelor’s in applied arts from J.J. Institute of Applied Arts, Mumbai and master’s and doctorate from IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. She has worked with the National Institute of Design (NID), where she headed the discipline of Information Design. Her academic interests are in the areas of user experience design, system and service design, information design and data visualization and communication design. During her recent tenure as HoD at IIT Delhi, she successfully coordinated the execution of the four-year B.Des. program, which was started in 2022. She has worked with multiple designs institutes across India, where she effectively developed and executed curriculums for various programs. Prof. Aneesha’s research interests include deep creative and aesthetic experiences in various domains like visual art, design and architecture, phenomenology, cognition of creative insight, and culture and education. She successfully organized two conferences- NID-NIMHANS collaborative international conference-ICCCAD 2017 and NID-IGNCA collaborative national conference-CDC2017. In her design practice, Aneesha has worked on major projects in the areas of user experience design, strategic branding, and graphic design with various industry partners.Ravi Poovaiah is Emeritus Fellow, a senior faculty member, and ex-HoD at IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. His educational background include a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from IIT Madras, master’s in product design from IIT Bombay, and graphic design from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, USA. He has been closely associated with IDC School of Design at IIT Bombay in advising over various academic matters with regard to curriculum, etc. Some of his academic initiatives include initiating, formulating, and founding the following programs: co-formulating the M. Des. program in Communication Design (1984), major modifications in the Master of Design curriculum to make it flexible and cross-disciplinary, introducing the streams of interaction design, animation design, and a doctoral program in design during his tenure as Head, formulating and coordinating a comprehensive integrated B. Des. + Dual Degree B. Des. + M. Des. program, and its unique entrance examination UCEED (Undergraduate Common Entrance for Design, which started in 2015). Over a span of forty-five years since his graduation as a designer, Prof. Poovaiah has worked on projects with major industry leaders, such as Siemens India, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google India, Motorola India, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Electronics Limited, among others. Finally, his heart truly lies in creating design awareness through education via a series of White Paper initiatives through IDC at IITB. He is a recipient of the UNICEF Innovation Award + Grant for ‘Jellow Communicator’ 2017-2019 and Professor S.P. Sukhatme Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2019. He also chairs national-level committees that look into initiatives that introduce design thinking and innovation in school curriculum from grades 6 to 12 which is being implemented in CBSE schools.
