Display at IITB Techfest, 2016
IIT Bombay’s annual TechFest took place between 16th and 18th December 2016. Along with other students and staff from the Design Innovation Center, I was part of the exhibition where we showcased our ongoing projects.
I displayed Shrot, the smokeless biomass cook stove, and spent time speaking with visitors about the problem it was trying to address and the thinking behind the design. What made the experience meaningful was not just the scale of the festival, but the range of conversations it enabled, from curious students to researchers and practitioners from different backgrounds.
One moment that stood out for us was a visit by Bruce Allen, an American physicist known for his work on gravitational waves. At the time, he was a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany. Watching someone deeply rooted in fundamental science engage with applied, ground-level design work was a reminder that curiosity and problem-solving cut across disciplines.
The experience reinforced my belief that good design holds its place alongside science and engineering, not as decoration, but as a way of making complex ideas and real-world challenges accessible and meaningful.
