Lalit Kumar Das

Overview

Lalit Kumar Das pioneered Industrial Design education at IIT Delhi. He developed a program that is an excellent blend of design sensitivities and industrial propensities. Many of his pupils have won awards in national and international design contests and oversee design studios in India.

Lalit Das did his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur. Thereafter he did his Master of Technology in Design Engineering from IIT Delhi and then Master of Art in Industrial Design from the Royal College of Art, London.

Lalit is deeply interested in design and the inherent ability of humans to create. He has worked and designed products for the office, home and industry. He has designed for the differently enabled like children with cerebral palsy and others who are orthopedically handicapped. He is the founding editor of Design for All India newsletter. He has also designed educational and research equipment. He has worked with artisans and has conceptualized distant education for artisans under the banner of IGNOU. He is deeply interested in sustainable approach to design and a non-parochial nonpartisan framework for study of design. He has conducted ergonomic studies for the Design of the Operational Control Centre for Delhi Metro, Bangalore Metro and Hyderabad Metro, Western Dedicated Freight Corridor).

He has many publications to his credit. His doctoral students are in a variety of areas from emotion, sustainability, e-governance, image processing, frugal design, etc. He continues to supervise doctoral students at IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, DTU & NID. He has been developing the National Design Policy and is a member of the National Committee on Design and Artisan Development. He has widely travelled and has worked at the Industrial Design Centre, I.I.T. Bombay and at the Department of Fine Art, University of Manitoba, Canada.

Mr.Das has served as a jury for many national level design awards. He has been an Expert Member in the ‘Science & Society’ Program and Technopreneur Promotion Program (TePP) of Department of Science & Technology. In the past he also served as a local commissioner in two IPR related cases of the Delhi High Court. He was also a member of Program Advisory & Monitoring Committee member of the Government of India’s Design Clinic Scheme for MSME that provides financial & design support to MSME for development of new product design.

He has delivered TEDX talks on enabling innovation, and values that shape complex systems. He is deeply interested in Sustainable Design, Circular Economy and Emergent Systems.

He has been the guiding light in the setting of the Design Program at Delhi Technological University as an Honorary Faculty from 2018-2023. Currently, he is a distinguished Visiting Professor at IIT Bombay and a Guest Faculty at the Department of Design & Innovation, Jamia Millia Islamia University. He has been teaching at IIIT Jabalpur, School of Planning & Architecture, Lady Irwin College and IIT Delhi as a guest faculty.

Education

M.A.

M.A. Industrial Design (Royal College of Art, London)

M.Tech

M.Tech (IIT Delhi)

B.Tech

B.Tech (IIT Kanpur)

Research & Publications

2017

• “ICT for rural development: an inclusive framework for e-governance” C Malhotra, VM Chariar, LK Das International Journal of Indian Psychology, Volume 4, no.2, 2017

2015

• “A Validated Citizen-Centric Approach using Delphi Technique For Converging Indigenous Knowledge Systems using ICT” C Malhotra, VM Chariar, LK Das
• “Making ICT more Meaningful for Governance in the Rural Areas: Role of the Community” C Malhotra, VM Chariar, LK Das – E-Government Development and Diffusion: Inhibitors and facilitators of Digital Democracy
• “A Design Framework for Evolving a Citizen-Centric Information Society” C Malhotra – 2015

2014

• “A portable low-cost system framework for automated road distress assessment” H Lokeshwor, LK Das, N Akoijam – Indian Highways, 2014
• “Robust method for automated segmentation of frames with/without distress from road surface video clips” H Lokeshwor, LK Das, S Goel – Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol 140, Issue 1, 2014
• “Design Research Methods for Future Mapping” S Malhotra, LK Das, et al. International Association for the Development of the Information Society, 1 Dec. 2014

2013

• “Automated detection and measurement of cracks from monochrome video clips captured by road network survey vehicle” H Lokeshwor, LK Das, SK Sud – Indian Highways, 2013
• “An automated system for measuring pavement deflection basin parameters under dual tyres assembly of a vehicle” H Lokeshwor, GK Vu, DC Sharma – Indian Highways, 2013
• “Method for automated assessment of potholes, cracks and patches from road surface video clips” L Huidrom, LK Das, SK Sud – Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013 – Elsevier
• “Values centred design framework for sustainability” P.Sutapa- 2013
• “Managing emotion in design innovation” Amitoj Singh, CRC Press, 28 Aug. 2013, “Values centred design framework for substainability”

2012

• “Automated detection and measurement of potholes from road surface video clips” H Lokeshwor, LK Das, SK Sud – Highway Research Journal, 2012

2011

• “Eliciting Citizens’ Participation for Incorporating Contextual Factors in Rural e-Governance Initiatives” Malhotra, Charru, et al. ACIS 2011 Proceedings, 1 Jan. 2011,
• “Creative Lean Design Process” A Verma, L. K. Das, SA Erande – ICORD 11: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Research into Design Engineering, Banglore, India, 2011

2010

• “The Fuel Tank is the Most Delicious Part of a Motorbike: An Eye-tracking-based Investigation of Motorbike Styling Preferences in India.” A Singh, LK Das – Design Principles & Practice: An International Journal, 2010

2009

• “E-Government Development and Diffusion: Inhibitors and Facilitators of Digital Democracy: Inhibitors and Facilitators of Digital Democracy” GP Sahu – 2009
• “E-Government interoperability: frameworks for aligned development” P Gottschalk – IGI Global, Norway, 2009
• “ICT and Societal Concerns at the Grassroots: TARAhaat Experience in Rural Areas of Tikamgarh District of Madhya Pradesh in India” C Malhotra, VM Chariar, LK Das – E-Governance in Practice, 2009
• “Skills Re-Adaptation for Value Addition An Experiment with Khadi Designer Handbags” SP Mishra, U Gujar, LK Das, PR Chaudhari, S Mishra
• “Motorbike Styling for Sustainability” A Singh, LK Das – iasdr2009.or.kr
• “A Framework of Biker-Bike Personality Factors within the Social Culture of Biking in India” A Singh, LK Das – Proceedings of IASDR, 2009
• “Role of Emotions in the Design of Religious Rituals and Artefacts in Sikhism”
• “Investigating the Longevity and Widespread Emotional Attachment Associated with the World’s Largest Selling Motorbike” A Singh, LK Das
• “I Love Riding!”-Investigating the Bikers’ Emotive Needs within the Social Culture of Biking in India
• “An Emotive Perspective on the Head Light and Tail Light Design of Different Motorbike Brands in India” Amitoj Singh, L. K. Das Published 2009, Art, Business
• “Cognition, Intelligence, Creativity to Innovation” L. K. Das, K. L. Kumar – ICORD 09: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Research into Design, Bangalore, India, 2009

2008

• “A humanistic perspective on colour preference in purchase decisions of motorbikes in India” LK Das, A Singh – Design Principles and Practices 2008
• “A Framework for the Study of Design Achievements and Design Possibilities” LK Das – 4th Annual Issue – designforall.in
• “A framework for Delineating the Emotive Character of Motorbikes in India” A Singh, LK Das, Proceedings from the 6th Conference on Design & Emotion, 2008

2005

• “Culture as the designer” LK Das – Design Issues, 2005 – MIT Press

Ph.D. Supervised 

1. “Development of an emotion centred research framework for product styling: A case study on motorbikes in India ” Amitoj Singh, 2009
2. “Design of citizen centric e-Governance approach: a study of select ICT based rural initiatives” Charru Malhotra, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi catalog
3. “Method for Automated Assessment of Potholes, Cracks and Patches from Road Surface Video Clips” L. Huidrom, L. K. Das, and S. K. Sud, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 104, pp. 312–321, Dec. 2013
4. “Framework for forecasting design possibilities” Sugandh Malhotra, 2016
5. Values centred design framework for sustainability, 2013, IIT Delhi Author: Sutapa Pati Supervisor: Lalit Kumar Das, Vijay Charrier
6. Minimally Controlled Aerial Vehicles for Geographical Survey, 2014, Jamia Milia Islamia University Author: Dhiraj Gupta, Supervisor: Shahida Khatoon, JMIU,Lalit Kumar Das, IIT Delhi

Ph.D. Under Supervision

 Broad Areas: Frugal Design, Jewellery Design, Learning tools or Autistic Children, System Framework for evaluation of PHC, Visual Narratives in School Education

 Videos

 Enabling Innovation

 Values that shape complex systems

Bringing Purpose into Eduation

 Design, Innovation and Pandemic

TEDxPEC 2012

Darwin, Symbiosis and Pandemics