Who am I?

Hi! I am Pranav Gawde. I am a designer by passion, an engineer by obsession and a manager by profession. I work as a Design and Innovation Manager at riidl Somaiya Vidyavihar (Technology Business Incubator) in Mumbai, India. My role primarily involves working with startups and young designers as a design consultant. I am an art enthusiast with cognitive thinking and a well-structured problem handling approach. I believe in being "Jack of all trades, master of some".

My Journey so far...

My neverending quest started with my love for physics followed by 2 years of project-based experience in electronics and my bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering with a major interest in CAD/CAM, and workshop manufacturing using lathes, 3D printing, CNC, and laser cutting.
After the technical stuff, my design journey started with internships and freelance work for various organizations in Graphic design, Packaging design, Creative Design, and Video Editing to explore all possibilities and eventually decide on product design as my choice.

I did my Master's in Integrated Product Design at TU Delft, Netherlands where I explored design and psychology simultaneously. It's indeed a perfect blend for a designer especially when you already have a sufficient technical background. Post this, I implemented my engineering + design skills into practice at H2L Robotics. At worked at H2L robotics for 2 years, initially as a Mechanical Design engineer and later as a Production manager.

Currently, I am back in my hometown, Mumbai. I work as a Design & Innovation manager at riidl(Research Innovation Incubation Design Lab) which is a Technology Business Incubator. My job profile here includes but is not limited to consulting startups and research projects with their design problems.
I am evenly allured to art and painting throughout my journey, and I do canvas paintings in all mediums (mostly oil-based) when I am relaxed.

Project SenseGlove

This is one my favorite professional projects I have done till date. SenseGlove is a Netherlands based startup aiming to make Virtual Reality (VR) real, has already developed the Sense Glove - a haptic interface glove with force and tactile feedback. The best thing about this porject is that it let me expand my knowledge base extensively as I was completely new to this industry and made me feel super proud to have achieved a working haptic glove with my team.

The haptic glove we designed was named "Manao" glove by us and the final prototype looks like the image below.

My Behance

Check out more similar projects in depth from my past works in India and Netherlands on my Behance profile.

My behance profile