SHREYAS PRAKASH Impact Designer with a proven know-how to combine engineering and human centered design viewpoints to create socially impactful products and services.
EXPERIENCE Founder
dVerse Innovation Labs | 2020 - Present Healthcare based startup developing UV-C enabled hand-rails for sterilising elevators in high-rise buildings.
Founder
dHive Labs | 2019 - Present Educational program to engage student leaders towards social innovation through participatory design practices.
Rural Development Fellow
SBI Youth for India Fellow | 2017-2018 Established the world’s first children-led rural makerspace in Lobhi village, Maharashtra, India and trained 60+ children in social design
EDUCATION M.Sc Integrated Product Design Justus & Louis van Effen Scholar TU Delft | 2018 - 2020
B. Tech Instrumentation and Control Engineering Mitacs Globalink Scholar NIT Trichy, India | 2012-2016 1
entrepreneur
social innovator
DESIGN FOR SOCIAL GOOD
designer
engineer
researcher
educator
Having designed for toddlers, deafblind runners, alzheimer patients, children from tribal communities and even rural artisans, I’ve realised that design isn’t finished until SOMEONE IS USING IT.
PEOPLE FIRST.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Equarun
Remembrandt
Sterilo
dHive Labs
Silly Stompers
Solar EV Carport
Wundermind
EQUARUN
Current Situation
Vibrotactile assistive device for deafblind runners.
Difficult to communicate terrain
Can only pull the person and not push
Scenario Usher Syndrome, a form of deafblindness affects around 1000 people in the Netherlands. Owing to this, they find difficult to run in various terrains. Currently the runners use a cotton strap which cannot transmit definite information.
Cotton straps
Affects running posture
Design Goal To design a robust and intuitive device to support the deaf blind runner and the buddy in safe long distance running.
Role Lead Designer (Embodiment) PCB Design, User Testing 5
Counting down
The buddy indicates the runner for sharp turns in advance using the counting down haptics
Surface Change
Surface change while running in varying terrain indicated to the runner using the surface change haptics
Command button
Rotational grip
On the guiding side to indicate surface change
On the runner side 30 degrees rotation Keep running flexibility
Stretchable wrap Allowing the relaxation of runners hands.
Features
Stretchability Spring guided mechanism to reduce the homology of runners.
Flexibility Ball joint providing greater flexibility while running.
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PCB Design Schematics of the Arduino Nano and the DRV2605 haptic controller is used to make it compact and fit into one single unit. PCB Designed using DIP packaging for prototyping purposes to realise the functionality of the sports device.
Interaction Design Physical commands Run
Turn Left
Turn Right
Step up
Digital commands Step down
Stop
Counting down
Surface change
USING SCENARIO
Surface Change (command button) OPERATION
Surface change is a critical command used in advance to indicate terrain. Counting down is used to prepare the runner before making the final action: Left, Right, Step up and Down
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Design by Iteration
Working on this project has helped me mold my design philosophy. That there is no success or failure. Good design is just A/B testing a series of hypothesis.
Play Video
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DHIVE LABS Leadership program for children from marginalised communities through design thinking.
How can we create a movement of student leaders who create high impact solutions for social problems?
Scenario Children have limited opportunities to take active participation in real-life problem solving and hence community development. This leads to noninclusive education of children without any exploration of their creative
Design Goal To design the educational curriculum to orient children towards social innovation and design thinking
Role Founder/ Director of d.Hive Curriculum Design Growth, Outreach and Fundraising
Unconditioning
Critical Thinking
Through Children led Participatory Design
Design Thinking
Bamboo carrier
Grass Scythe
+ Social Design Curriculum
Pole Climber
Cycle Blender
Children led Makerspace
20+ Innovations 4 Schools 150+ Children 13
Play Video
SILLY STOMPERS Modular soft robotic playset for helping pre-schoolers aged 4 to 7 learn basics of robotics.
Scenario Only 35 percent of STEM graduates are women. The toys kids play with at a young age has an influence over their future professions. Toys are heavily gendered reinforcing traditional sterotypes.
Design goal To provide a gender-accessible, screen-free and open ended experience for pre-schoolers to learn robotics.
Role Graduation Thesis for Masters in Integrated Product Design, TU Delft User Testing Advanced Concept Design
Modular soft actuator blocks These soft actuator blocks can be used to make various body movements of the Silly Stomper. (functional prototype)
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Open ended Educative Screen free
Inflation action
Silly Stompers can perform wide range of motions by connecting various soft actuator blocks which can push, pull, bend and extend in various ways.
Integrating with LEGO blocks By means of LEGO connectors, it integrates easily with various LEGO building blocks helping in more open ended possibilities.
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REMEMBRANDT Iteration 2
Smart tactile apron that energises persons with dementia through reminiscence.
Tactile stimuli for gauging interaction
Scenario Sleep cycle disturbances are quite common for demented patients.
Iteration 1
More afternoon naps cause night-wandering which gets them disoriented and confused. Sedatives have prolonged side effects.
Visual stimuli for measuring responsiveness
Iteration 3 Combined stimuli of lights and touch
Design goal To design a familiar, and comforting Object with Intent to improve the sleep quality of the elderly by means of reminiscence.
Role Primary and Secondary Research User Testing and Evaluation Advanced Concept Design
Research through design The design process was entirely happening in learning loops for testing with people with dementia. Each prototype tested with the user, acted as a form of enquiry reflecting future decisions.
Iteration 4 Combined stimuli of lights and music
The modular tiles help in customising for each individual personalising the experience of remembrance for each resident of the nursing home.
Through a series of steps, the well being experts are guided to chose their resident profile and to customise the apron based on their interests
Validation Ergonomic evaluation conducted with the residents to understand the interaction with the smart tactile apron and the element of ‘surprise’.
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Play Video
STERILO A portable surface UVC steriliser for COVID-19 isolation wards and ICUs
UV-C LED
Snap button
Medical grade non-woven polyester
Scenario Sterilization of common surfaces is the key to prevent cross contamination of virus infections between patients and healthcare workers within isolation wards and ICUs. Spraying NaClO and alcohol wipes are not effective against many microbes like bacterial spores and surfaces with high viral loads.
Design Goal Designed an open-source, low cost portable UV-C based steriliser for common touchpoints.
Existing methods
Role Founder, dVerse Labs Primary and Secondary Research Prototyping and Functionality Testing
Fumigation
Autoclave
Surface wipes
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Adhere snap buttons
Snap Sterilo
Wrap around
Wait for 5 mins
Functional Testing Testing of sterilisation of objects such as door handles, buttons of medical devices by means of an enclosure (v1.0)
Play Video
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SOLAR EV CARPORT Scenario Range anxiety is a critical issue for electric vehicles and there neeeds to be EV infrastructure in existing buildings to cover the mobility related issues.
Design Goal Optimum component selection for the installation of the EV carport system.
Role Systems Installation of Solar EV Integrations and Systems Engineer Life Cycle Assessment
Carport Installation Design and Installation of 8.4 KW carport at York University of Toronto for EV PV monitoring research applications
Grid tied inverter Selection of Conext XW+6848 for the application based on single line diag.
Battery installation Selection of battery inverter system with two day backup
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WUNDER MIND
Pivot 1 Pivot 2
Screen free coding toy for pre-schoolers.
Scenario Excessive screen timehas been shown to cause detrimental effects to the cognitive development of children. An average dutch child of age 8 to 11 spends 4.5 hrs on screens everyday.
Design Goal To design an educational coding toy that helps children learn coding through a tactile interface.
Role Co Founder of dCode Wundermind Lead Product Designer Marketing Strategy
Pivot 3
Lean Startup Validation A series of prototypes were tested with children and educators. Through this process, five iterations were made in the span of ten months to come towards the design of d.Code Wundermind.
Pivot 4
Market Analysis For the first two years, we are aiming to target parents from middle to high income households from EU, with a Total Addressable Market of (1.6 billion). As the product costs 150 euros, the SOM (64.5 million) can be covered by spreading it across US and UK markets after the end of third year. Netherlands is chosen as the beachhead market owing to the fast growing nature of the toy market and with the qualitative analysis which showed 6 out of 10 Dutch parents are interested in buying coding/STEM toys. 27
Semifinalist
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TREND ANALYSIS
DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHY
LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPS
CREATIVE FACILITATION
CULTURAL PROBES
BRAINSTORMING
CONTEXT MAPPING
MORPHOLOGICAL CHART
RAPID PROTOTYPING DHIVE LABS
SILLY STOMPERS
CREATIVE DIAMOND
SKETCHING
INFOGRAPHICS
ANALOGIES
REMEMBRANDT PROTOTYPING
METAPHORS
HYBRID DESIGNER
SOLAR EV CARPORT
ROADMAPPING
BRAND DRIVEN INNOVATION
STORYTELLING
VIP
DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHY
STERILO
EQUARUN
SCRUM
DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHY
BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS
BASIC DESIGN CYCLE
STRATEGIC CO-CREATION
USER SCENARIOS
FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS LIST OF REQUIREMENTS
WUNDERMIND
MIND MAPPING FRAMING/QUESTIONING
PREMO USER PERSONAS
EXPERIENCE FLOW 29
I see a future of myself designing for children, co-creating solutions together as I would like to see the same magic which they see in their eyes “
LETS CONNECT bit.ly/shreyas-prakash shreyas314159@gmail.com
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