During our Immersion visit to Bangalore, we went to CMR Institute of Technology to meet Prof. Phani Kumar Pullela on 14th June 2017. There we interacted with Prof. and his PhD students.
Dr Phani Kumar Pullela, professor at the CMR Institute of Technology was awarded with “Biotech Product, Process Development and Commercialization Award for year-2017” by former President Pranab Mukherjee. His goal is to empower students to win awards, create products and start companies.
He organised a half day workshop on Design Thinking with his students and SIIP fellows. Design Thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful in tackling complex problems. The regular innovation process consists of 4 stages – ideate, define, design and develop. These stages have to be synced efficiently so as to foster innovation in an organization. On the other hand, design thinking process has 5 stages- empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
He briefly talked about sanitation, Bellandur lake problem and waste management. So far, we don’t have any solution to recycle waste tyres, double layer plastic and sanitary pads & diapers.
After workshop, we were divided into four groups and given four problems and asked to find out probable viable solutions to solve problem by applying design thinking tools. It was very good exercise.
Post session, we had nice lunch in CMRIT cafeteria with Prof. and his students.
About Author – Pramod Bhurji, BIRAC Social Innovation Immersion Programme Fellow at Venture Center, Pune