Organisers.
The organizers of this workshop come from varied backgrounds with experience in design and research of purposeful games.
Sandeep Athavale
Sandeep Athavale is a Senior Researcher at Tata Consultancy Services. His area of research is design of purposeful games for behavior study and change. He has developed a Unified Model for Game Design. He has been the co-organizer of CHASE (Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering) workshop as part of ICSE (International Conference in Software Engineering) since 2014. He has also been a moderator at NASSCOM (National Association of Software Companies) panel (2016) on serious games research in India.
Ameya Athavankar
Ameya Athavankar is a co-founder at TwobyThree, a firm that works in the area of design strategy and serious games. Ameya is architect by education but has been involved in researching and developing products for middle school children over the course of multiple engagements with Education technology companies. His company is presently focusing on hybrid games.
Manisha Mohan
Manisha Mohan is Chief – Design and Innovation at Tata Interactive Systems. She is an alumni of the National Institute of Design with a specialization in Communication Design and Animation. She is also the Chairperson for Applied/Serious Games SIG, NASSCOM, visiting faculty at NID, IDC, IIT and on the Board of Studies for Animation at MITD, Pune. She has a wide range of experience in e-learning, design and animation. She has also worked on award winning projects for customers across verticals. She currently heads Design Thinking initiative in her organization and is focused on emerging technologies research including AR/VR, Holograms etc.
Antony William
J. Antony William is a Senior Instructor at NID R&D Campus, Bangalore in Digital Game Design Department. His area of interest is approaches to designing cognitive model for aging. He is one of the members in setting up the Digital Game Design programme and facilities at NID Bangalore campus. He has been the co-organiser of serious game workshop with Head Geneva at NID Bangalore in November 2016. He also offers workshop in the areas of human factors in web usability and brain-targeted teaching methods for school teachers.
Advisor.
Prof Uday Athavankar
Uday Athavankar is the Emeritus Fellow of the Industrial Design Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) in Mumbai. His research explores the relationship between cognitive science, linguistics and design decision. Using cognitive theories as a framework, he focuses on areas including product semantics and object-and-culture relationship. His current work also includes exploring the role of mental imagery, spatial intelligence and visual thinking in design problem solving. He is also on the advisory board of several international research journals.
Academic Interface.
Shakti Banerjee
Shakti Banerjee is a Senior faculty and Coordinator for digital game design MDes discipline in NID Bangalore. Graduated in Communication design from NID in 1994, Shakti has carved himself as a finest professional in the field of visual effects, motion graphics, film, broadcasting, advertising and print. With experience in multidisciplinary domains for past 23 years he focuses and believes in cross media design interventions. He started his career in 1994 with The Times of India as a Design Officer. Also has done a Print media project for India Today magazine, New Delhi. He moved to Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad then; lead the Vfx and animation team in numerous projects like Lajja, Tumbin, Yahaan, Koi Mil Gaya, Company, etc. and that won prestigious awards such as National award for best Special Effects in 2000 for Kamal Hassan’s film Hey Ram.