This semester I enrolled in the Innovative Design (ID) course at my college. Not just in the six semesters of college life, but never in my whole educational journey since kindergarten had I ever experienced a course of this nature. The course, taken by Dr Sachin Mandavgane of Chemical Engineering Department, significantly changed the way I looked at ordinary ‘problems’ (more about what exactly is a problem later) in my surroundings and a structured approach to solving the problem.
So what makes this course so unique you ask?
Well, imagine a course where there is no defined syllabus or reference material or rather a course where all and everything that you can imagine is within the scope of it. A course where you are told what will be asked in the exams word for word at the beginning of the semester and yet you find yourself struggling to articulate your answers.
The course is majorly divided into two parts –
- Classroom Teaching
- Practical Problem Solving
The classroom ‘teaching’ was of a nature that was hitherto unknown to me. It largely consisted of interactive sessions where we talked about things such as Innovations In Everyday Life, where we shared our experiences of the innovations we had experienced.
After the session on Traditional Innovative Practices and after the guest lecture by Dr Deshkar from Architecture department about creation and innovation, all of which were a part of the course, we realised that innovation does not necessarily mean discovering/inventing something new every time, we can always rediscover the ancient knowledge and try to implement it efficiently.
Another section of the course was on Biomimicry and how natural evolution has resulted in some peculiar organisms who survive in seemingly impossible situations or have developed certain mechanisms for feeding, self-defence, camouflage, etc. which can be mimicked to solve a lot of our current problems.
Perhaps the most important section of the course was about empathetic innovation which consisted of a guest lecture by the humble Mr N. Prasanth Nair, who has done some simple yet extremely effective innovations to simultaneously prevent food wastage and feed the hungry people of Kozhikode.
We viewed TED Talks, interacted with seniors who had taken the course last year and ironically learned the concept of unlearning. It wasn’t, however, just fun and games. We were taught about the scientific method of problem identification which consisted of narrowing the horizons of our problem to one small, solvable task. Sachin sir guided us about how to look at the problem from the point of view of the different stakeholders in the affected system and to look at the major parts of it such as capital, transportation, life cycle assessment etc.
The second, more important part of the course was the Practical Problem Solving phase.
We were divided into groups and each one of us had to through observation, literature surveys and field visits converge onto one problem in our surroundings which we would attempt to solve. This included handholding and deliberation sessions with the faculty and interviews with stakeholders and iterating on our solutions after incorporating the insights gained from them. All of which, by the way, is no child’s play!
For the first time in my life, I could see tangible proof of the course outcome, which was the prototype that we were working on. It was a learning experience which I am sure will directly help me in my professional as well as personal life. I would definitely recommend the course to anyone who wishes to learn Innovative Design or at least Thinking Innovatively
Chaitanya Ganu
chaitanyaganu97@gmail.com
Innovative Design, VNIT Batch of 2018 