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Join the Innovation: Emerge 2026 Attendee Registration is Live!

EMERGE 2026

Emerge 2026 is a three-day seminar with the theme of Product Design and Innovation sponsored by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and hosted by the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. While anyone can submit to the seminar, Emerge encourages people under the age of 35 years working in any area of design research whether through traditional PhD routes or practice-based, industrial, or independent pathways.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

EMERGE 2026 brings together renowned thought leaders from across the globe. We are honored to introduce our keynote guest speakers, whose exceptional expertise and impactful work continue to shape industry standards and inspire the design community worldwide.

Pushkar Ingle

Pushkar Ingale is an industrial designer from the 2008 batch of the IDC School of Design at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He began his career designing motorcycles at Bajaj Auto before transitioning into healthcare innovation after being selected for the Stanford India Biodesign Fellowship.

Pushkar has worked extensively in emergency medicine, neonatal health, and maternal health through his role as Country Lead at Laerdal Global Health, a Norwegian organisation focused on saving lives in low-resource settings. He currently runs the research and design consultancy Cohesive Labs and is also a co-founder of Petsaurus, a company focused on natural nutrition for pets.

His work has received multiple recognitions, including the CII Design Excellence Award and Stanford Medicine MedTech Innovation of the Year Award. Pushkar occasionally teaches at design institutes and hosts the podcast Forty Two Talks, where he engages in conversations with innovators, thinkers, and practitioners across diverse fields.

Healthcare is a uniquely slow and complex design domain, demanding the seamless integration of engineering, medicine, regulation, and viable business models over years. Progress is incremental, high-stakes, and depends more on deep context than rapid iteration.

Moving beyond standard frameworks, this keynote uses real stories from Pushkar Ingale’s work in emergency, neonatal, and maternal health to illustrate how true innovation is often found. It will explore how observing human behavior under pressure, understanding chaotic systems, and making precise, empathetic design choices is what creates real-world impact and saves lives.

Shujoy Chakraborty

Shujoy is a tenured Assistant Professor and Course Director for the Master in Design at the University of Madeira (UMa), where he has established the university’s Product and Interaction Design disciplines since 2014. He holds a PhD from Politecnico di Milano, a Master from Domus Academy Milan, and a gold-medal B.Arch from MSU Baroda. Formerly a faculty member at NID India and a Design Engineer at Whirlpool Europe, his current research focuses on interdisciplinary collaborations to develop biodegradable alternatives for single-use plastic medical products. As a Principal Investigator, he has secured over €1.1 million in research funding.

Nirav Shah

Nirav Shah is an alumnus of IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay (1999-2001 batch). He plays a pivotal role in advancing user-centric design at Interio by Godrej. As Team Lead for New Product Design, he drives the development of ergonomic seating solutions, translating deep user needs and behavioural insights into thoughtfully engineered products. He is a committee member of BIS, supporting the formulation of Indian Standards for furniture products. He is actively involved in the organization’s journey for Business Excellence by improving the design processes followed for new product design.

Architect and Industrial Designer

General Manager – Design, Interio Division of Godrej Enterprises Group.

Dr. Bori Fehér

Dr. Bori Fehér is an architect, social designer, and design strategist with over 15 years of experience connecting climate resilience, social equity, and practice-based research. She has led projects focused on disadvantaged communities in rural peripheries, and is co-founder and co-chair of the Social Design Network. Currently project lead of CoDesign4Transitions at MOME, she also serves as strategic advisor at the rector's office. A visiting researcher at MICA's Center for Social Design in Baltimore since 2014, she additionally supports foundations and municipalities as a design strategist, with earlier practice in Budapest and New York.

Designing for shared futures

Participation, Power and Social Design in Uneven Transitions

Designing for shared futures calls for approaches that recognise participation, power, and relational responsibility in contexts of uneven societal transitions.

The keynote presentation reflects on themes shaping contemporary social design practice, including participatory

processes, community agency, and the ethical position of designers working within complex social and institutional environments. It addresses questions of inclusion, power redistribution, and the role of design in supporting locally grounded knowledge and collective action. Through case studies and drawing from perspectives in transition design, participatory design, and design justice, the talk explores how collaborative design practices can contribute to shared understanding, long-term transformation, and more equitable pathways toward sustainable and socially responsive futures.

Suhasini Paul

Suhasini Paul is an Eminent Indian Toy Designer, TEDx Speaker and an alumni of the prestigious National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. Suhasini is the recipient of the “Designpreneur” award from Shri Narendra Modi. With over 400+ toy designs to her credit, including the iconic Kinder Joy surprise toys, bestsellers in India and across the globe. Her expertise as a Toy Designer and Creative Advisor is highly sought after by companies across India, China, Thailand, Italy, the UK, USA, Turkey and France. She has been invited by the City Govt. of Moscow to speak on "Design For Play" at Moscow Interior & Design Week. She has been appointed as a PLAY AMBASSADOR for The Genius of Play initiative by the Toy Association, New York, furthering her global mission to inspire learning through play. Most recently, Suhasini has been appointed to the CII National Committee on Design & Innovation (2025–26) by the Confederation of Indian Industry, recognizing her thought leadership in shaping the future of design and play. She has been recently appointed as an Adjunct Professor at IIT Kanpur Department of Design.

“How to Design for Play”

Play is one of the most powerful ways children learn, explore and express creativity. In this talk, Suhasini Paul, eminent toy designer and innovation educator, shares insights into designing toys that truly engage children through meaningful play. Drawing from her experience in developing toys for global and Indian brands for the past 21 years, she explains how observation, imagination and child-centered thinking shape successful play experiences. The talk highlights how designers can create children products/toys that spark curiosity, learning and joy.

Sandip Paul

Paul Sandip, aka "The Curious Observer" is an eminent Industrial Designer known for his unique ability, “Innovation by Observation”. He is a four times TEDx speaker, winner of the prestigious Red Dot Design Award twice, recipient of the “Designpreneur” title from Shri Narendra Modi, an Editorial Cartoonist and Author of “i didn’t say it!” - Book of Humorous Observations. He has designed over 1000+ products for his clients worldwide and is the only Indian designer to be listed amongst Top 30 Industrial designers globally by Dexigner, New York.

Who should attend?

Young faculty members embarking on research careers
Recent PhD graduates transitioning to research positions
Postdoctoral researchers continuing their scholarly work
PhD students (all stages) and M.Des by Research or similar program students on a research pathway
Researchers and designers within corporate R&D teams conducting rigorous inquiry

Emerging practitioners and independent researchers dedicated to advancing design knowledge
Prospective students exploring design research as a career direction
We particularly welcome researchers whose work challenges conventional disciplinary boundaries and those whose research contexts extend beyond traditional academic institutions.

Why participate?

FOR PRESENTERS

Present and receive constructive feedback on your research from peers and senior researchers
Connect with a community of young design researchers from diverse backgrounds and institutions
Gain visibility within the design research community
Learn about diverse research methodologies and approaches within design
Explore potential collaborations and future research partnerships
Access insights from established researchers navigating research careers in design

FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS

Engage with cutting-edge design research across multiple contexts and methodologies
Build your professional network within the design research community
Discover diverse pathways for research careers in design
Participate in substantive conversations about the future of design inquiry
Access inspiring examples of how young researchers are advancing the field

What EMERGE 2026 offers?

Invited talks by promising national and international young researchers sharing practical success stories, career moves, methods, and lessons learnt — designed to inform and inspire.
Peer-reviewed presentation slots: selected participants will present papers and receive constructive feedback from peers and senior mentors.
Informal networking, mentorship opportunities, and conversations about career building in academia, industry R&D, and practice-based research.

Registration, Travel & Accommodation

All participants will have to register to attend the seminar. The registration fee is INR 2500 for professionals and INR 1000 for students. Registration fees will cover seminar kit, 1 dinner, 2 lunches, and 4 tea/refreshments on the 3 days of the seminar.

Thanks to a sponsorship from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, presenters under the age of 35 who have an accepted paper, poster or demo will get a waiver of registration fees. The seminar will also be able to cover travel and accommodation costs for a limited number of presenters under the age of 35. Instructions about this will be sent along with the acceptance notifications.