It’s that time of the year again when our bright, young and enthusiastic design graduates are ready to leave NID and pursue their ambition and dreams. Well-equipped with a fine pedagogy, industry experience and responsible mindset, these young designers are ready to serve the nation and the world with their design thinking talent, skill and training.

NID has always been one of the leading institutes, not just in the country but across the world, that has been extremely dynamic in staying aligned with the accelerating pace of technology and innovation, with the needs of development as context. Our curriculum ensures constant and embryonic access to global ideas, experience and knowledge.

From organizations that did not use design at all or used it just for styling or appearance, we see a drastic change where design is integrated into the research and development process and considered a key element of business functions. The transdisciplinary curriculum at NID ensures our graduates can face the challenges of the future and provide strategic interventions and solutions through the design thinking lens they’re trained to look through.

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank our faculty and students’ parents for their dedication, trust and efforts to ensure our graduates have a bright and promising future ahead. In 2019, I’d also like to place on record the Governing Council’s deep appreciation for Pradyumna Vyas, our retiring director, who has done such a wonderful job of leading the institute these last ten years.

I wish you all a bright future of great design.

As one of the premier design institutions in India, NID endeavors to enable holistic learning to develop every student’s full potential as a responsible global citizen. Beyond the achievement of professional design skills through academics, experiential learning, industrial exposure and diverse experiences, NID offers diverse and myriad opportunities for young graduates to pursue design careers in various fields. There is a huge scope for designers to tackle issues relevant to contemporaneous society, thereby raising the need for comprehensive and interdisciplinary training, which is at the heart of our curriculum.

With amazing advancements in technology, designers are designing and creating products that were neither seen nor even thought of before. More exciting times await us in the future, where truly bespoke products and systems could be invented that cater to needs at individual, societal, regional and international levels. Design is truly the next superpower of the future.

21st century design education has come a long way and yet has miles to go. From creating mere good forms to devising locally and globally relevant design strategies through inclusive thinking, there has been a paradigm shift from product-centric to human-centric design to life-centric design or ‘Design for Life’ across various domains. We are confident our design graduates will reimagine the future to achieving millennial development goals for a sustainable planet through key design interventions such as strategic foresight and human centered processes.

Designers today have a multitude of choices to contribute to nation building, while fulfilling personal, societal and global aspirations, keeping their ethics and values in place. I congratulate the design graduates, their families and all the faculty and staff on this momentous occasion of the 39th NID Convocation.

2019 is the year of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. Gandhi was a designer, who took up several problems and issues, developed appropriate and contextual solutions and implemented them successfully. The independence movement, a unique approach that inspired and united the people of India, was the result of his thoughts and actions. His empathetic understanding and human connect helped take the message of equality, inclusivity and social harmony to the grassroots. With the focus on improving quality of life, Gandhi dedicated his life for the holistic, inclusive and sustainable development of society.

By encouraging participative approach, design works as a catalyst to bring together various efforts towards positive outcomes. It helps create that much needed contextual, cultural and technological connect as well as the human-to-human connect. It helps encourage creative and societal interactions. Design thus, touches and transforms the quality of lives of the people and the stakeholders involved.

The 370 design graduates of 2019 undertook their degree projects with diverse sectors of Indian industries ranging from Agriculture, Information & Technology, Retail Space & Experience, Sustainability & Environment, Heritage & Culture, Defense Forces and Lifestyle, to name a few. Thereby, these young graduates helped take the message of design and NID’s unique design approach to the industries and the society and in the process proved their capabilities and confidence in them. I take this opportunity to congratulate my faculty colleagues for their immense contribution in shaping these young minds. With the education and experience thus gained, I am confident that these young designers will immensely contribute to nation building activities. I extend my best wishes for their future endeavors.