IDC Seminar by Professor Amaresh Chakrabarti
You are cordially invited to a seminar by Professor Amaresh Chakrabarti. Register your interest here.
Abstract
A design is a plan for a system, its implementation and utilisation for attaining goals that are intended to change "current situations into preferred ones". Designing involves developing both the goals and the plans for attaining them. In this sense, all human beings are designers. but not all are necessarily good at designing. A study was undertaken, into the lives and work of 12 outstanding engineers and innovators that spanned from antiquity to the modern times, to seek common, major influences on their success. A major, persistent thread across these lives was found to be design-driven motivation that fuelled their life-long creativity and learning. The talk focuses on the relevance of this influence as well as the other influences as goals and enablers for creating the engineers of the future: how can we inculcate strong motivation in life-long learning? The talk will provide an overview of a Masters in Design and a PhD programme that have been running successfully at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for the last 20 years. Based on the personal experience of the speaker in teaching at this programme, as well as his experience of teaching and researching into design at the Engineering Department of University of Cambridge, UK, a number of recommendations are made on the desired structure and content for a design and innovation-centred engineering education and research programme. Technologies such as a rural washing machine that runs will substantially water and no electricity, a vaccine carrier that maintains and tracks temperature, and a prosthetic arm that bring amputees back to workforce at a fraction of cost, will be used as examples.
About the Speaker
Amaresh Chakrabarti is professor and Chairman, Centre for Product Design & Manufacturing, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He has BE (Mech Engg, IIEST Shibpur, India), ME (Mech Design, IISc) and PhD (Engg Design, Univ of Cambridge UK). After PhD, he led for 10 years the Design Synthesis group at EPSRC Centre for Excellence Engg Design Centre at Univ. of Cambridge. His interests are in synthesis, creativity, sustainability, and informatics. He authored/edited 13 books, over 270 peer-reviewed articles, and has 10 patents granted/pending. He co-authored DRM, a methodology used widely as framework for doing design research. He is an Associate Editor for AI EDAM and Design Science Journal (both Cambridge University Press), Area Editor, Research in Engg Design (Springer), Regional Editor, J for Remanufacturing (Springer), and Advisory Editor for 7 International Journals incl. J of Engg D (Taylor & Francis), Clean Tech & Env. Policy (Springer), and Int J Design Creativity & Innovation (Taylor & Francis). Prof Chakrabarti has been on the Advisory Board of Design Society where he is currently elected to its Board of Management, member of CII National Committee on Design India, and member of Jury for India Design Mark, India Design Council. He founded IDeASLab – the first design observatory in India for research into design creativity, sustainability and innovation, and co-initiated India's first 'Smart Factory' Lab. He is the Programme chair for Intl Conf series on Research into Design (ICoRD), 22nd CIRP Design Conf (CIRP Design 2012), 3rd Intl Conf on Design Creativity (3rd ICDC 2015) and vice-Chair for AI in Design and Design Computing & Cognition Conf series. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineering Designers, the peer society under the UK Royal Charter in engineering design, and recived TUM Ambassador Award from TU Munich Germany. 11 of his papers won top paper awards in international conferences. He is Editor-in-Chief Elect (2017) for AI EDAM Journal (CUP).