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 Uday Athavankar is the Ramakrishna Bajaj Chair Professor and Emeritus Fellow of the Industrial Design Centre, at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) in Mumbai.
He studied architecture before switching over to industrial design in 1970. He studied industrial design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Uday Athavankar was formerly Head of the Industrial Design Centre, Dean of Planning, and a member of the Governing Council at the IIT Bombay.
For over 40 years, Uday Athavankar has been dividing his time between design education, design research and design-related consulting for companies. As a design consultant he has worked on a range of institutional and consumer products. His current projects deal with culture-specific localization of products and technologies for global companies entering the market in India and the Asia Pacific region with new products.
His recent product range includes robotic toys and thinking games for children, and he has also collaborated on the development of a personal locket that collects electrocardiographic (ECG) data, biometric authentication devices, and a variable frequency light table and night vision goggle design for people with low vision. Uday Athavankar was honored by the President of India for his design of a low-cost automated teller machine (ATM) for NCR, adapted specifically for the Indian context.
As a researcher for the past several years he is exploring the relationship between cognitive science, linguistics and design decision. Using cognitive theories as a framework, he has focused on areas like ‘product semantics’ and ‘object and culture relationship’. His current work also includes exploring the role of mental imagery, spatial intelligence and visual thinking in design problem solving.
Uday Athavankar is a member of the Holcim Awards jury 2011 in the region of Asia Pacific[last updated 11-Jan-11]
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