Director’s Welcome Address and Review34th Annual Convocation ofNational Institute of Design

Tuesday, 17th December 2013

Shri Pradyumna VyasDirectorNational Institute of Design

Good evening everybody. Welcome to the 34th Convocation of the National Institute of Design (NID). We are truly honoured to have with us, Dr. Devi Shetty, eminent philanthropist, cardiac surgeon and Chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya Group of Hospitals, as our distinguished Chief Guest this evening.

Thank you Dr. Shetty, for accepting our invitation.

A warm welcome to Shri Anand Mahindra—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.

I am indeed pleased to welcome all the new members of the NID Governing Council:Ms. Meenaxiben Patel, Dr. Naushad Forbes, Ms. Kusumjit Sidhu, and Shri Varesh Sinha.

A warm welcome also to Ms. Fredrika Ornbrant, Consul General of Sweden; Mr. Soon-in Lee, Former President of ICSID and President, Seoul Design Center, South Korea; Ms. Christine L. Bovis-Cnossen, Vice-President, Academic, OCAD University, Canada; Ms. Frances Potter from South Africa and participants of the Basketry Workshop from Ghana and Ethiopia; Mr. Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman and Managing Director of Kirloskar Brothers Ltd. and Ms. Pratima Kirloskar.

All the young designers graduating today will be conferred diplomas in acknowledgement of their academic endeavours and the dedication with which they continued to strive for their goals as students of this institution. This year, 300 students will graduate from various disciplines.

Of these 300 students, we have 83 students graduating from the four-year Graduate Diploma Programme in Design, 132 from the two-and-a-half year Postgraduate Diploma Programme in Design, and 82 from the two-year Postgraduate Diploma Programme in Design. Three students from earlier batches are also being conferred with diplomas today.

I extend my heartiest congratulations to all of you!

As the curtain falls on yet another year of remarkable educational achievements, today’s ceremony becomes the most opportune moment to reflect upon the accomplishments, events, and activities that unfolded across all the 3 campuses of NID during the last one year.

In 2013, the Union Cabinet announced that it had approved the declaration of the National Institute of Design (NID) by Parliament, by law as an ‘Institution of National Importance’. The status of ‘Institution of National Importance’ would authorise NID to award degrees to its students. This, in turn, can benefit students who wish to pursue post graduation in their chosen area of design studies. This will fulfil the need to professionalise, standardise, and internationally benchmark professional design education in India, so as to take full advantage of opportunities opening up for the design industry, both in domestic as well as in international markets.

Later, during the year, the Parliamentary Standing Committee visited the NID Main Campus in Ahmedabad and the NID PG Campus in Gandhinagar. The proposed NID Bill is expected to be put up in the Parliament.

There is an increasing interest in the activities of the institute as was evident from the visit of several dignitaries to the campus. Some of the noteworthy visitors to NID this year were:

• H.E. British High Commissioner Sir James Bevan, Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt, Chairperson, UK India Business Council and Former Member of Parliament in Leicester; Rob Lynes, Director, British Council (India)• Lunus von Castelmur, H.E. Ambassador of Switzerland and Werner E. Nievergelt, Consul General of Switzerland• Ambassador of France in India H.E. François Richier• H.E. Ambassador of Italy, Daniele Mancini and Carmelo Barbarello, Economic & Commercial Counsellor, Embassy of Italy in India• Michael Siebert, Consul General of Federal Republic of Germany• Fredrika Ornbrant, Consul General of Sweden • Daniel Wolvén, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Sweden• Cathy Berx, Hon’ble Governor of Antwerp, Belgium • Dr. E.M.S. Natchiappan, Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Government of India• Shri Shibu Baby John, Hon’ble Minister, Labour & Rehabilitation, Govt. of Kerala

During the year, NID students and faculty members won accolades for excelling in various areas of design applications and brought global recognition to the institute.

• The documentary, ‘A Pinch of Skin’ by Priya Goswami won the Special Mention at the 60th National Film Awards in the Non-Feature category.

• The project ‘The Right Usage of Chlorine Tablets’ by Rahul Sharma was awarded in the Best Packaging Project Category in the Behance Portfolio Review, Pune.

• Pradeep Kuman won the “Outstanding Contribution in the field of Architecture” for his work done with Century Ply. The award is given by ABID (Association of Architects, Builders, Interior Designers and Allied Business) at the exhibition ‘INTERIORS 2013’.

• The Best Film in the Indian Category at First Frame 2013 - the Fifth International Students’ Film Festival was awarded to films by two NID students— ‘Nadia’ by Taj Ali Naqvi and ‘Ati’ by Jaymin Modi

• NID students won 5 awards at the First National Students’ Film Awards, which was held at Film & Television Institute of India, Pune. The awards won were in the following categories: Best Art Direction: Rishi Kumar for ‘Amour V’; Best Acting: Khyati Trehan for ‘Amour V’; Best Director in Non-fiction category: Priya Goswami for ‘A Pinch of Skin’; Best Director in fiction category (under 10 minutes): Satchith Paulose for ‘The Itch’, and Special Mention Award: Anoop Sathyan for ‘A Dream Called America’.

• Akshan Ish and Shreya Chakravarty won the Best Cultural Design at Microsoft Design Expo 2013 at Redmond, Seattle under the guidance of Bibhudatta Baral and Rupesh Vyas.

• ‘Bhinti Maage’ (Behind the Wall), a diploma film by Vishwesh Kolwalkar, won the First Prize at the Dadasaheb Phalke Film City Short Film & Documentary Competition 2013, organised by the Department of Culture, Government of Maharashtra as part of celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema.

• At the 2013 PACE Competition, held at Pasadena, California, USA, the concept design of “Portable Assisted Mobility Device” was won by students Aniket Das, George Eliot, and Prayas Rokde under the guidance Ranjit Konkar, Balaji Rengarajan, and Vipul Vinzuda.

• NID was selected among 10 best design, technology, and business schools for the Schmidt MacArthur Postgraduate Fellowship in UK. Two postgraduate students Karthikeyan Gopinathan and Shashidhar Subramaniya were selected for postgraduate fellowship for the pilot year under the guidance of Praveen Nahar. NID is the only school from Asia, alongside institutions from US and Europe such as Berkley, Stanford, TUDelft, Imperial College, London Business School, Cranfield, and Yale to have received such as honour. NID has also been invited next year also.

• Load Carrier for Labour designed by Vikram Panchal is currently being exhibited in the Designscape’ Exhibition at Triennale Design Museum, Milan, Italy.

NID signed four new collaborative agreements were signed as part of international activities:

• Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, USA • Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art Et Design de Dijon, (ENSA Dijon) France • Hadassah Academic College, Israel • College of Planning and Design, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Faculty members and students from NID continued to travel abroad, and many faculty members and students came to NID, either as exchange students or participants in Open Electives or other workshops.

NID also continued to receive invitations to participate in international competitions, exhibitions, and conferences.

• Sandeep Raj K., winner of the Grand first prize of the poster competition ‘Did you Sense the Spirit of Gandhi in Tahrir Square’ organised by ‘IndiaAfrica a Shared Future’, was invited to attend the workshop at the Abla Museum at Fayoum near Cairo. On reciprocal basis, the winner from Egypt Amr Shalaan, visited NID for a week. This year, Ankita Sharma was one of the top 20 winners of the Poster Design Contest.

• Three students from NID R & D Campus, Bengaluru, Ameya Chikramane, Rasagy Sharma, and Hafsah Parkar were selected for a workshop at the Hyperwerk Institute of Post-industrial Design in Basel, Switzerland. The workshop centred on the design of new tools, materials, methods, and services that explored the scene of Indian Handicrafts in the context of Post-industrial design.

• An international Bamboo workshop has been initiated with ENSAD. A team of about 10 students led by senior faculty from ENSAD, visited the Bamboo Research Centre at NID at Bengaluru and jointly conducted a workshop with Susanth C.S., head of the Bamboo Research Centre, along with selected students from all the three campuses. The second and final part of the workshop was held in March 2013 in Paris and these students led by Amresh Panigrahi, visited ENSAD. Three products, which were the outcomes of this workshop, were exhibited at ENSAD Paris, during Designers Day in May 2013. The second edition of this workshop will be initiated next year.

• Zurich University of Arts (ZHDK), Zurich, Switzerland, organised the workshop called, ‘From Block Print to 3d Print’ at the International Design Summer School at Zurich. It focused on the transformation of the traditional crafts and manufacturing methods to the upcoming reality of digital design and production. And schools from Switzerland, India, and China were invited to this workshop and four students led by NID faculty Aarti Srivastava participated in the same.

• NID was once again invited for the Lille Design for Change, France to participate in the global competition to invite new designs and new uses in order to stimulate innovative ideas and new practices in the heart of Lille and NID faculty Praveen Nahar and student Prabhav Jain represented NID at the preliminary colloquium held in Lille to receive further information regarding the contest and what is at stake within each theme.

• NID was invited to join and exhibit works related to one of the 2 themes (Hello Future and festival) at the prestigious Tokyo Designers Week 2013-Asia Awards-School Exhibition. About 70 educational institutes were invited to participate from across the world and NID was the only school from India. This event was organised by Design Association, NPO, and supported by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Agency for Cultural Affairs, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

• Sekhar Mukherjee was invited to Anima’13 in Belgium as one of the Jury members, and to PISAF’13 in South Korea as guest speaker.

• As per the Japan India Comprehensive Cooperation on Creative Industries, the Overseas Human Resources and Industry Development Association, (HIDA) Japan, was entrusted by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to implement a training programme there. This training programme on Intellectual Property Rights for the Content Industry in India (ENNI) was organised at Tokyo in March. Led by Sekhar Mukherjee, 19 participants from the Indian animation industry participated in the workshop.

During the last one year, NID organised several important events that invited the presence of the national and international community to this institute:

• Under the leadership of Arun Gupta International Open Electives 2013 was held in January; the theme for the event was ‘Active Ageing: Bachpan After Pachpan (Thrive After Fifty Five)’.

• ‘Linking Sarkhej-Installations & Contemporary Art’, Exhibition Design students in collaboration with students of Photography Design, NID and American artist Sheila Klein presented a new dimension about Sarkhej Roza.

• A seminar titled National Sizing Standards for India was organised at NID by Vipul Vinzuda and Krishna Amin-Patel. Dr. Masaaki Mochimaru, Director of Digital Human Research Center, Center for Service Research, AIST, Japan was the key note speaker on this occasion.

• The annual conference of the Design History Society 2013 was based on the theme “Toward Global Histories of Design: Postcolonial Perspectives” was held at the NID Paldi campus, Ahmedabad. The conference was convened by Tanishka Kachru along with Suchitra Balasubhramanyan of Ambedkar University. The conference also included an exhibition on NID’s history and a workshop on Critical Thinking for students. Design historians and design practitioners from across the world attended this conference and gave impetus to research work on Indian design history. NID plans to publish the conference proceedings soon.

• The Exhibition Design discipline, headed by Tanishka Kachru, in collaboration with the National Council of Science Museums and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London conducted a Museum Design Sensitization Programme for training museum professionals in Kolkata this year. This training programme will now be offered across the country to professionals working in national and state museums.

• Under the leadership of Sekhar Mukherjee, Chitrakatha’13, the biennial International Students’ Animation Film Festival was held at NID this year. This was the fourth edition of the festival and Lucerne School of Art & Design, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences & Arts, Switzerland was invited as the guest school to the campus.

• ‘Architecture as an Open Process-Recent Works of Bijoy Jain, Studio Mumbai’, was an exhibition that was jointly organised by National Institute of Design; Embassy of Switzerland, New Delhi, and Studio Mumbai.

• Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (CEFIPRA), an autonomous body for bilateral scientific co-operation between India and France, in partnership with NID held an Indo-French Design Conclave cutting across disciplines in the design and engineering at New Delhi. The goal of this conclave was to explore the possibility of Indo-French collaborations in the interface of engineering and design through: a) Scientific Research b) Design and Technology Collaborative Research c) Student and Faculty Mobility d) Industrial (especially SMEs)Collaboration. This was a preceding event for the International Technology Summit, New Delhi where France was the partner country.

• Several photography exhibitions in collaboration with the organisation called, Tasveer, continued to be organised at NID at regular intervals.

During the year, NID took up several research initiatives through its Research & Publications department under the leadership of Jignesh Khakhar and Shilpa Das.

• A significant achievement for the Research & Publications department this year has been the publication of the long awaited commemorative book on NID called—50 Years of the National Institute of Design; this book that is an outcome of a team effort under the guidance of Shilpa Das. The book documents the 50-year historic journey of NID from 1961 to 2011 and its significant milestones.

• Failed Roman, a graphic novel on transliteration by honorary research fellow H. Kumar Vyas and NID alumnus Dhruva Rao was released during Chitrakatha’13. An interactive version of this novel has also been hosted on the NID website.

• Today, the department has also brought out the eighth issue of its research-centric publication called, The Trellis.

• All these three publications are available on sale today in the Research & Publications display.

• Several faculty members were invited to present papers in various prestigious forums across the world.

The Integrated Design Services (IDS) department at NID is headed by P. Ramakrishna Rao. This department supports NID faculty in their initiatives to contribute to the growth of diverse sectors of the economy.

• To celebrate 100 years of the Indian Science Congress (ISC), NID designed a special postage stamp. The stamp which was designed by Tridha Gajjar was released on January 3, 2013 by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, and was gifted to Hon’ble President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee.

NID has been designing identities for leading organisations in diverse sectors:

• The new logo for the National Book Trust (NBT) was designed by Tarun Deep Girdher; it was launched by the Hon’ble Union Minister for HRD, Dr. MM Palam Raju. Students of graphic design discipline designed the promotional campaign, including posters and social media for the NBT’s National Book Week held in November across the country. He also designed the logo for U.P. State Organic Certification Agency.

• The logo for High Speed Rail Corporation designed by Immanuel Suresh and Tarun Deep Girdher was officially unveiled during the launch of the organisation by Hon’ble Union Minister of Railways, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, during an international conference on high speed transportation in New Delhi.

• Chakradhar Saswade designed the symbol for Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and also symbol for its Golden Jubilee Year Celebration, which was inaugurated by Hon’ble Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh.

• Rupesh Vyas designed the new logo for the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He has also designed the logo for the Charity Commissioner, Gujarat.

• Recently, the Indian Railways Institute of Financial Management (IRIFM) was established and the logo for IRIFM was designed by Immanuel Suresh and Tarun Deep Girdher; the design was officially unveiled during the foundation stone laying ceremony of the institute in Secunderabad.

• Anil Sinha developed identities for IIM Kashipur and IIM Udaipur. He had also designed the logo for Gujarat Environment Management Institute (GEMI) and the Central University of Gujarat.

• The interior design of WDG4 Cab of Locomotive project for Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi for better ergonomics (work-space, visibility and display & controls), and overall cab interior/exterior aesthetics is being done by the design team headed by Balaji Rengarajan.

• Shashank Mehta has developed a cart that makes it convenient for fisherwomen to carry their catch of fish to markets, while easing out their load. NID developed the design on the basis of a proposal that aimed at solving health issues of fisherwomen; it was put forward by the Gujarat Government.

• During the year 2012–13, faculty members, through IDS have engaged more than 100 students in different projects under the Earn While You Learn Scheme and the Diploma Projects of several students were also sponsored by the department.

The Industry Programmes and Projects (IP&P) department headed by Anil Sinha, conductsseveral short-term and long-term training programmes for industry professionals, educators, practitioners, and learners from all over the country.

• More than 750 participants from 125 institutes and 145 organisations participated in the workshops and training programmes anchored by various NID faculty members. These programmes are conducted either in-house or outstation on as per the client’s request.

• A client-based off-campus workshop on “Design for Persuasion: Creating Dynamic, Multisensory Experiences for Customer Delight” for automobile engineers and the R & D Team of Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd., Chennai, was conducted at Chennai. There were 114 automobile engineers and officials who attended workshop, which was conducted by Krishnesh Mehta.

• The department held 10 summer workshops at NID Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar campuses with an aim to create design awareness and sensitisation among the students/ teachers / artisans / homemakers.

The Design Clinic Scheme at NID is headed by Shashank Mehta and the scheme is supported by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India.

• The scheme, in a major way, supports small and medium scale enterprises with design awareness and sensitization initiatives. The scheme stands out as a major tool for the benefit of Indian SMEs in the years ahead, and affords greater opportunities to the young designers.

• Under this scheme, 268 Design Awareness Seminars were successfully conducted, 161 Design Clinic Workshops have been completed or are in progress, 264 design project proposals have been registered with the scheme, out of which, 157 project proposals by a varied group of SMEs and professional designers have been approved, 37 projects have been successfully completed.

• Students undergoing their final year of studies in design and allied institutions across the country have taken the programme seriously and it is heartening to note that 79 student projects have been approved so far for finding design solutions for MSMEs in various regions.

• There has been increasing enthusiasm nationally from the SMEs, design community, and design institutions as many as 26 orientation programmes have been conducted for stakeholders in different states across the country.

• As part of the awareness programme, well designed products of the MSMEs have been showcased at Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Delhi, Patna, Kanpur, and Mizoram. As a part of celebrating good design, the scheme has a permanent display at the NID Ahmedabad Campus. Similar displays are being planned at Kolkata and Bengaluru in the near future.

• Beneficiaries of the Design Clinic Scheme are also being encouraged to enroll for the India Design Mark by the India Design Council. Many SMEs have come forward for this initiative. This would also help them to participate in the Good Design Mark Awards of Japan.

NID’s Outreach Programmes headed by Shimul Mehta Vyas and supported by Neelima Hasija continues to work closely with the craft sector in the country.

• The Khadi Mark logo designed by Immanuel Suresh for the Khadi & Village Industries Commission under the aegis of Outreach Programmes, was unveiled by the Hon’ble President of India Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi.

• A major project documenting textile traditions of North East India commenced at NID in 2010, and currently, it has moved into its second phase under which the field research and documentation will focus on the states of Sikkim, Mizoram, Tripura, and Manipur. As a part of the project, a national level symposium titled—Threads of Change: Textile Cultures of North East India will be organised by NID and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in January 2014 at IGNCA, New Delhi. The project is headed by Romanie Jaitly along with Krishna Amin-Patel, Aditi Ranjan, V. Sakthivel, and Aarti Srivastava, leading research in different states of the North East.

• After the successful completion of the Basketry project in Zimbabwe, which was sponsored by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India early this year, the Outreach Programmes have rolled out the project in Ghana and Ethiopia under the mentorship of Shimul Mehta Vyas and Neelima Hasija. The thrust of the programme was on skill upgradation and product diversification, with an aim to enable the basket weavers of both these countries to capture diverse regional and global markets.

• The two-week Training of Trainers’ programme and the week-long Craft Management programme offered at the NID campus earlier this month to 40 basket weavers and 10 craft managers from Ghana and Ethiopia respectively has built great synergy between the team of designers, weavers, and craft managers. The project is led by Krishna Amin-Patel in Ghana and Amresh Panigrahi in Ethiopia respectively. We are happy to have the participants of these programmes amongst us today.

• The Intellectual Property Rights Cell at NID, headed by Bhavin Kothari, is facilitating IP registrations for students’ designs. The cell also makes students aware of aspects related to Intellectual Property. From January to November 2013, six designs by students were sent for Design Registration by the IPR Cell and three more design registrations are being worked out. The IPR Cell has been circulating a bimonthly newsletter to spread awareness and keep the students updated with the recent IPR issues and challenges; the cell also responds to the queries raised by the students.

• This year, the Placement Week was successfully organised by Sujitha Nair and Nijoo Dubey. In all, more than 200 job offers were offered and more than 120 companies, both national and multinational participated in the event. Last year, a pay package of Rs. 38 lakhs p.a. was offered to 2 students and this was an international package, while this year, a package of Rs. 36 lakhs p.a. has been offered to 15 students and this is a domestic package offered till now.

The National Design Business Incubator (NDBI) is headed by Mahesh Krovvidi. The DST has sanctioned a second incubator at NID Bengaluru. NDBI is the third organisation to be sanctioned with a second incubator in the country out of 72 incubators supported by DST.

• Dhama Innovations Pvt. Ltd, an NDBI start-up by Kranthi Kiran Vistakula has received an export order of Rs. 360 crore from a US-based company. The company also won the AABI Torch Best Entrepreneur Award at Shanghai, China.

• Start-up companies at NDBI have filed 17 patents, the largest among the incubators in India, 1 design registration, 1 trade mark. US has granted one patent to Dhama Innovations Pvt Ltd.

Several important events were organised at the R&D Campus, Bengaluru, which is headed byBibhudutta Baral:

• Students from the R&D campus attended the Design Innovation and You (DIY) workshop organised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus. The theme for the workshop was ‘Engineering the Eye’ where engineers and designers had the opportunity to interact with doctors at the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad and identify problem areas in the field of eye care.

• The Nokia Confluence was held at the R&D Campus. This was an all India event and it highlighted various Nokia University collaborations.

• The research work done for the Digital Hampi Lab was selected for the Digital Heritage 2013 Conference held at Marseille, France. The paper presented focused on the reconstruction of the Virupaksha Bazaar Street of ancient Hampi and was presented by Mamata N. Rao.

• Students from the Design for Retail Experience (DRE) discipline had participated in the In-store Asia 2013 at Mumbai in February, where they designed and set up a display and spread awareness about design education at NID and the educational content of the DRE programme.

• NID’s Outreach Programmes, along with the Bamboo Research Centre headed by Susanth C.S. at NID Bengaluru had taken up a project with the Kerala State Bamboo Mission to conduct a training programme for master artisans from Kerala. This was successfully conducted at the R&D Campus and 19 master artisans from various clusters had participated in the workshop.

• The Bamboo Research Centre participated in the 10th Kerala Bamboo Fest in Kochi and made a presentation on bamboo furniture.

• Faculty in the R&D Campus are working on several research projects on topics ranging from Digital study of Culture, Crafts, Arts, Web-based Design Education, and Interface design.

• The e-Kalpa project headed by Bibhudutta Baral is being executed from the R&D campus and is an attempt to develop a large-scale web-based design education framework and also to develop a digital database/archive on Indian crafts.

• Two new floors have been constructed in order to expand the research and educational activities of the campus. Two new programmes will commence from 2015. With this development, the R&D campus will have a total of five postgraduate programmes, with Product Design focusing on Universal Design and Communication Design. The NID Rajajinagar centre has undergone complete renovation and is now fully operational with several ongoing research activities and NDBI projects.

Several major events took place at the PG Campus in Gandhinagar, which is headed byShri Akhil Succena:

• Shekhar Bhattacharjee was invited by Fördern durch Spielmittel e.V., Germany to participate in the 17th International Symposium, Workshop and Exhibition, on Toy Design & Inclusive Play in Nuremberg, Germany.

• The photography department headed by Deepak John Mathew received the UKIERI grant of GBP 16000 for the project: Intercontinental Drift, which enables students and faculty exchange and collaborative research.

• As a part of the DWIH New Delhi–Excellence on Tour organised by the German House for Research and Innovation and Embassy of Germany in India The Theatre of Real Life- Photography Workshop by Wolfgang Zurborn was held for NID students.

• Shitij Sood won the first place and Rajesh Sriram and Arvinda D.K. won the Special Mention award at the 7th SIAM Styling & Design conclave.

• Mohit Bhatia was awarded the Tierney Fellowship of 5000 USD.

Dear friends, today’s convocation ceremony would not have been possible without the support of all staff, faculty, and students of this institute; I take this opportunity to thank each one of them for their hard work and dedication. Today’s convocation ceremony also includes the Graduate Show that displays the innovative and creative works of this year’s graduates; I invite all of you to view the show. Also, I would like to invite you to the display of work done by artisans from Ghana and Ethiopia as part of an Outreach Programmes initiative at NID.

That social responsibility is integral to design becomes all the more pronounced when, with creative abilities, you can make crucial life-saving amenities available to masses even in the remotest areas of the country. Applying the principles of economies of scale is one such creative option that you must explore; this will ensure that the quality of services that you provide will always be of superlative nature. Dr. Shetty’s much-appreciated work is proof of such creative thinking and he is present before you as a role model, whose works you must emulate. Seen against a larger canvas, what you will have achieved is a democratization of good quality services, especially in areas such as healthcare, safety measures, and education.

It needs creative minds to discover that fewer resources can invigorate the determination and steadfastedness required to continue exploring new options, to fuel deliberations, and to map out your goals and even achieve the same. This is what is exactly what is echoed in these words of Albert Einstein—Three rules of work: Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. Dear students, you must never give up on empathy and concern for those around you. One of the fundamental aspects of design education itself is to inspire you to strive for the greater goals of humanity. I am indeed happy to note that you are getting good placements in some of the most nationally and internationally acclaimed enterprises, but you must also realize that you can explore equally good opportunities to practice inclusive development because, it is only when society gets inclusive, can the nation progress faster.

May God bless you.

Pradyumna Vyas,Director, National Institute of Design