Engineering students in India may soon become full-fledged designers as well, with engineering and design professors considering a proposed curriculum they believe is the “most relevant” engineering curriculum in these times.

A discussion on the proposed curriculum — post-graduate program in Product Design Engineering — took place at the National Institute of Design on Friday, which was attended by professors from IIT-Gandhinagar, MSU, Nirma University’s Institute of Technology and LD engineering College, among others.

NID and Autodesk, a 3D design software provider that has a research chair at the institute, initiated the session. Prof N Ramakrishna, a mechanical engineering professor at IIT-B, on deputation at IIT-Gn, said: “This is by far the most relevant curriculum in engineering today.”

Such courses exist at universities in developed countries, but exist only as two-week courses or as parts of other larger courses back in India.

Sashank Mehta, Product Designer at NID’s Faculty of Industrial Design said: “Designers and engineers speak different languages. This curriculum will bridge the gap.” Most importantly, the curriculum will mean a systemic approach to a product at its birth, so that producers will not have to improve products after things go wrong, he added.

Prof Ramakrishna said the course could bring about another intellectual boom for India, much like the IT and outsourcing booms of the last decade when “we took over the Silicon Valley”.

At present, such engineer-designers mainly work abroad and charge huge fees. But if India starts producing them indigenously, clients from developed countries will flock to India because of the services being provided here at a cheaper cost.

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