NID to help IITs discover their 'Ranchos'

AHMEDABAD: There are hardly any 'Ranchos' — the popular character played by Aamir Khan in the Bollywood blockbuster '3 Idiots' — in engineering colleges who would innovate with technology and take it beyond the course structure. This lack of innovation and product development in the industry has prompted the apex design school in the country to do something about engineering education.
National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad has designed a course on product design engineering for various engineering colleges, including IITs at post graduate level to promote research and development among students while they are still in college.Faculty from NID on Saturday met directors and principals of the Indian Institutes of Technology to discuss this.
"Engineering graduates are ideal candidates for this programme. The over 2,000 AICTE approved engineering colleges have required facilities and expertise in terms of infrastructure, faculties, library resources, equipment, laboratories and workshops. An additional course in product design engineering can easily be introduced by sharing the existing resources," said Shashank Mehta, the senior faculty at NID who developed the course.
"The curriculum blends design theory with hands-on practice. Elements and theory of design, management, human factors engineering, science & liberal arts, advanced manufacturing, Information Technology (IT) and its applications, concurrent engineering and prototyping methods will be some of the core contents integrated within the curriculum," said Mehta.
Individual and group projects, seminars, workshops, exhibitions, live industry projects will form the core of the curriculum methodology. Internships, training, design audit and industry visits have also been integrated into the course.
NID has received a positive response from heads of engineering colleges. It has also offered to train the faculty members if any engineering colleges show interest in offering the course. "Any graduate of this course will have opportunities to pursue a career as product designer, creative engineer, design engineer and design project manager. The product design engineer will be an ideal candidate as project co-ordinator or even as entrepreneur," added Mehta.