I'm Shashank.

An engineer and an industrial designer,

I keenly follow the Universes of Tolkien, Lucas, Rowling and Bond. I find my solace in books and the Sahyadris.
 

I completed my Master of Design (Industrial Design) from one of India's premier design schools- Industrial Design Centre, IIT-Bombay. As an Industrial Designer, I was helping design X-ray surgery products at Siemens Healthcare, Goa, India from 2015 to 2017. I then worked for a passionate medical devices startup called Biosense from 2017 to 2018, tackling myriad problems that exist in providing point-of-care medical services across semi-urban and rural India. I then moved on to the IT behemoth Tata Consultancy Services, helping them re-imagine digital campuses and assessments of the future.

And then the world paused.

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Even as the privilege of working from home eased the pain of the pandemic relatively, I felt it necessary to get back to the real world outside where smaller companies were struggling to get back on track, the ones employing close to 60% of India's population [1]. I shifted base to Kolhapur, an industrial hub, working with Wings44, a firm specialising in design and manufacturing of sheet metal products with state-of-the art machinery having an interesting mix of rural+urban employees.

Having brought the company to a certain stage, I moved on to working for Philips Healthcare, returning to X-ray products, specifically C-arms. I now work on the verification and validation end of design, adding usability engineering activities to my product knowledge. The position allows me to interact with

physicians and technicians and understand their pain-points and user experience journeys. As luck would have it, I also found myself working on the industrial design for these products.

Design help is always given to friends who come knocking. I keep an eye on manufacturing and MSME sectors, and closely follow the entrepreneurship scene in India- be it consultancies or product-based companies. Having networked closely with firms from their stage 0 to their break-even point, from toolrooms to hip workspaces, has given me unique insights into design-driven businesses.

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A strong connect with rural India, especially the western coast of the Maharashtra province, results in me meeting people across the spectrum and understanding their needs and problems first-hand. I strongly believe that a designer's roots should be should be entrenched in culture- it helps set an honest perspective while tackling diverse problems. And even if design doesn't solve all their problems, sometimes just listening to people helps them smile.

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I also dabble in archaeology, medieval and colonial architecture, working under the guidance of giants, exploring in my blue Ford.

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If I'm out of contact, it might mean I'm away on a trek, documenting the past, seeing birds or simply reading a book. Or just watching TV!