Q: Can you share with us some intuitive design trends that you have observed?
A: A huge amount of trends are emerging from the overseas markets. Let’s take borderless design. Earlier the screen was embedded in the frame, now the screen wraps the frame. An example of that is the new Nokia Lumia 800/900.
Then there is the haptic feedback. When you touch an android phone, it vibrates a little to tell you that the touch worked. It’s a form of feedback generated by the device itself. Now, we see haptic feedback in almost every toucn-enabled smartphone.
These trends have slowly been picked up by industry leaders and we can expect them to be incorporated into new designs soon enough.
Q: What do you think about the industry readiness of students in India?
A: The ground reality in India is that there is not a good interface b/w industry and institute. Industry education and the institute tie-up is somehow hampered by bureaucracy. The institutes give great theoretical background but little to no industry values. So you could say that I am not very impressed with the industry readiness of today’s students.
Q: What kind of training does TD provide the freshers?
A: In a design company like ours, we roll products daily. Most small/medium companies work on 2-3 products a year. Big companies like Samsung work on 1000s of products. In a year, Think Design works on at least 100 products, so the fresher engineers in our company get lots of training by people who are not only industry experts but also have huge experience in the field. We make sure to arrange regular industry visits. Hence industry exposure is huge too.
Q: Do you give importance to the projects that a student has completed during his college years?
A: Yes, of course. We are very interested in knowing what kind of projects the student completed during his college years. We attach a lot of weightage to it as it shows that he can work in a team and resolve challenges related to the kind of work we do.
Q: What are the necessary skillsets you look for while recruiting?
A: One of the most important skills in our line of work is to be able to network better. Networking capability of the individual would help him to deal with vendors and clients and suppliers. You interact with many people when you’re a design consultant so inter-personal skills rank very high on the skillsets we focus on.
Q: Without doubt, the Indian electronics market has come a long way from relative obscurity to being a major player in the world market. How do you see future growth in this area?
A: My personal experience has taught me that there is an abundance of skilled labour and there are no technical ‘skill’ constraints. We have R&D centres here which are world renowned. We exclusively utilise the Indian talent pool. But I also feel that what we lack is a Unified Global Vision. Take Taiwan or South Korea for example. They have a much smaller workforce than ours but it is their long term vision which has made sure that they are the leaders in this department. With a proper plan, I see no reason why we cannot be world leaders in technology.
