Overview of Engagements
A selection of projects across education, social impact, strategy, research and innovation.
Building a culture of Design Thinking at University scale
make Design Thinking a mandatory university-wide experience that enables every student to cultivate a mindset for understanding people, reframing problems and creating new possibilities?
CMR University wanted to make Design Thinking a meaningful part of the educational experience across disciplines, not simply a standalone course, but a practice students and faculty could engage with throughout the university. I joined as Design Thinking Lead to build the curriculum, people, spaces and initiatives needed to make that vision possible.
Building the practice
Created India's first mandatory, university-wide Design Thinking curriculum, reaching 8,000+ students across disciplines and making human-centred design part of the core student experience.
Conceptualised and established a 7,000 sq. ft. Design Thinking Lab designed for interdisciplinary collaboration, making, prototyping and experimentation.
Recruited, trained and mentored a team of Design Thinking facilitators, creating the capacity to deliver and sustain the practice at scale.
Orchestrated and co-designed flagship initiatives: Design Thinking Day and CAUSE, a global open innovation challenge, creating opportunities for students to work on real-world challenges. CAUSE brought together 750+ teams, 3,000+ participants, 124 institutions and 13 countries, creating a platform for student-led innovation.
Created opportunities for students to apply human-centred design to societal challenges, moving Design Thinking from a classroom methodology into a way of approaching real problems.
Led the India Chapter launch of the GDTA (Global Design Thinking Alliance) at CMR University, bringing together industry, academia and students around the evolving role of Design Thinking in education and innovation.
Designing for a more connected, collaborative Toronto Region.
help a vast and diverse region see its collective potential, strengthen collaboration across municipalities, and communicate its value to the world?
As part of a nine-member interdisciplinary team at the Institute without Boundaries, I contributed to a year-long exploration of the Toronto Region, examining its economic clusters, stakeholders and interconnected systems. We translated these insights into strategies, tools and experiences designed to strengthen collaboration and communicate the region's value to the world.
Designing at a Regional Scale
Working across research, strategy, systems and experience design, we explored how design could help a complex region become more connected, collaborative and visible to the world.
Research & Insights
Making sense of a complex regional ecosystem
Regional Strategy
Creating a shared identity and vision
Collaboration Tools
Helping stakeholders move from conversation to collaboration
ThinkToronto
Designing the investor journey from discovery to decision
Designing for the Realities of the Classroom
start with the lived realities of children to understand what it takes for every child to receive an excellent education?
As a Teach For India Fellow, I taught 4th and 5th grade in a government school, working with children from economically disadvantaged communities. This experience led me to look beyond academic outcomes and explore how understanding children, their families and their communities could help create a more holistic educational experience.
Learning from the Classroom
As a Teach For India Fellow, I taught 4th and 5th grade in a corporation school in North Chennai, working predominantly with children from the local fishing community. I immersed myself in the wider ecosystem around the classroom, interacting with students, parents, teachers, the headmistress and the community, to develop a grassroots understanding of what it really takes to educate a child. This journey also became an important leadership development experience for me, as I learned to build relationships, navigate different perspectives, take ownership and work collaboratively towards change. It shaped how I understood the social, cultural and contextual realities that influence a child's learning experience, and continues to influence how I approach human-centred problem solving today.
More than a teaching experience, Teach For India became the origin story of my practice. It shaped a belief that continues to guide my work:
“Before we ask "How do we solve this?", we need to ask "Do we understand the right problem, and the people experiencing it?"”
Helping organisations find new possibilities
I help leaders and teams step back from familiar ways of working, reframe complex challenges and uncover new possibilities.
Raymond's Denim Division
A Design Thinking workshop with the senior leadership team of Raymond's Denim division, exploring how the business could respond to a changing industry and identify new opportunities.
Ajeenkya DY Patil University
A workshop with senior leaders at Ajeenkya DY Patil University, exploring emerging generations, changing expectations and what these shifts could mean for the future of education.
IIFL Samasta
Design Thinking workshops with mid-level managers at IIFL Samasta, helping teams develop a human-centred approach to understanding challenges, questioning assumptions and generating new possibilities.
Facing an ambiguous challenge in your institution or product?
Every project begins with a structured listening conversation. Let's discuss your team's context and outline what an intervention could look like.