The first Designing Design Education in India conference was held 13-15
March 2013 at the Hyatt Hotel, Pune India as an initiative of the recently
convened Indian Design Council. Participants at the conference comprised a
large group of experts in Design education from throughout India along with
a smaller number of interested academics from other countries. Visually,
there seemed to be around 250 participants.

Design education in India has a relatively short history, and compared to
the size of India's population, there appear to be relatively few design
schools and these link back to an even smaller number of original design
education initiatives. Design education institutes seem to be mostly private
with well developed externally moderated curricula. 

The format of the conference combined an extensive program of carefully
chosen keynote speakers from academia and industry each providing deep
insights into the past and current developments of design education and
industry design practices in India. Between gaps in the keynotes there  were
parallel sessions of   academic papers describing different facets of
current and future educational and industry design practice in India and
overseas . In addition there was an evening colloquium from the UK Open
University describing the ways the OU teach design remotely. On the
concluding afternoon, there were formal co-creation sessions aimed at
distilling and aggregating participants' educational and industrial
expertise to identify the most salient dimensions of a design curriculum for
India.  The whole combination ran smoothly and to time in spite of tight
linking between the different elements. Congratulations to the organisers on
this.   The above combination of event types was exactly in-line with the
aims of the conference as the initial step to guide the future of design
education in India.

The strengths of the  Indian design education  and industry ecosystems
seemed to  be:  a) Quality thinking and expertise in  developing and
delivering curricula and organising design educational institutions; b) the
automotive  design sector;  c) an unusually strong traditional craft
sector; d) robust and expert product design and IT sectors;  e) easy and
relaxed  industrial interaction between engineering design  and other areas
of design; and, f)  strong business, entrepreneurship and design linkages in
education. Areas of concern were relatively few:  a)  once in industry,
newly graduated designers in some areas were taking up to 3 years to bring
up to speed; b)  how to manage the forecasted rapid development of design
schools; and c) concern about how best to use design to address the
urban-rural divide.

The conference management was exemplary with thanks due to the Indian Design
Council under Prof. Pradyumna Vyas also of NID, and the conference
management team headed by Prof Hrridaysh Despande. The format worked well.
Conference timing ran smoothly. All equipment worked well. Food was
wonderful, and the location in Pune at the Hyatt Hotel next to the IT
cluster and close to the city centre was a great venue offering interesting
insights into Indian street life for those new to India.

Outputs from the conference include: videos of presentations which will soon
be available on the web (www.ddei.in ), a publication of the proceedings,
and the recommendations for an Indian design curriculum from the Co-Creator
sessions.

I believe this is the first of a regular program of international Indian
Design conferences organised by the Indian Design Council (IDC). This first
conference was managed smoothly in a polished manner, surprising in view of
the relatively short time between announcement and the conference itself.
Congratulations to Profs Vyas and Despande and their staff for all aspects
of the conference.  

Terry

===

Dr Terence Love FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI

Director,

Love Services Pty Ltd

PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks

Western Australia 6030

[log in to unmask]

www.loveservices.com.au

===

 

 



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