‘NID has taken key steps to bring industry to campus’

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Gold the most preferred investment

: Change necessitates design; design interprets change. As director of the country’s premier design institute since 2000, Darlie Koshy has followed this principle to guide the operations of the National Institute of Design (NID) both at home and abroad. A doctorate in management from IIT Delhi, Koshy is considered the chief architect not only of Brand NID, but also of revolutionising the way design is perceived in the country. In a rare and candid interview with FE’s Jyotsna Bhatnagar, Koshy elaborates on a host of issues, including the status of design education in the country to design’s new role in shaping the country’s GDP. Excerpts:

When NID was conceived in 1958 and set up in 1961, design was confined to the realms of roti, kapada and makaan. How has it evolved since then?

India was a protected economy until the early ‘90s. Basic survival necessities were key issues and, therefore, design was more oriented towards crafts and to some extent small-scale industries. Today, with discretionary incomes rising, along with the forces of globalisation impacting tastes and preferences, the role of design and innovation have assumed far greater importance. Design has moved along from its focus on products and images of daily use or luxuries to services and experiences that impact on quality of life.

What has been the strategy and evolution of Brand NID?

When I took over as director of NID in June 2000, the institute was in rather bad shape. Today, we have world-class infrastructure for education and research. Another strategy was to introduce 17 broad sector specific postgraduate programmes. In addition, it was necessary to globally benchmark NID by streamlining the systems and processes through the ‘system of educational excellence in design’ and by entering into MoUs with more than 30 best-in-class institutions around the world.

It was also necessary to scale up the intake of students, which has gone from around 70 in 2000 to over 280 now, with a corresponding increase in throughput from 33 in 2001 to around 250 in recent years. Another strategic area was rebuilding the faculty cadre. From a Rs 5-6-crore organisation in 1990-2000, NID has become Rs 26-crore organisation in 2007-08, with a corpus of Rs 29 crore. This is the story of building Brand NID.

Specifically, how is NID serving the growth of industrial and other crucial sectors of the economy? Can you illustrate with significant achievements?