Lalit Kumar Das pioneered Industrial Design education at IIT Delhi. He has developed a programme that is an excellent blend of design sensitivities and industrial propensities. Professor Lalit graduated in Civil Engineering from IIT Kanpur. Thereafter he did his Masters of Technology in Design Engineering from IIT Delhi and then Master of Art in Industrial Design from the Royal College of Art, London. He has widely travelled and has worked at the Industrial Design Center, I.I.T. Bombay and at the Department of Fine Art, University of Manitoba, Canada and now at Delhi Technological University.
He is deeply interested in a sustainable approach to design and a non-parochial non-partisan framework for study of design. He was engaged in the development of the National Design Policy and a member of the National Committee on Design and Artisan development. He has worked with artisans and has conceptualized distant education for artisans under the banner of IGNOU. He has designed products for the office, home, industry. He has led sponsored projects for the differently enabled like children with cerebral palsy and others who are orthopedically handicapped. He is the founding editor of Design for All India newsletter. He has also designed educational and research equipment. He has served as a jury for many national-level design awards.
He has been an Expert Member in the ‘Science & Society’ Programme and Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) of Department of Science & Technology. He has in the past also served local commissioner in two IPR related cases by the Delhi High Court He has successfully supervised PhD in diverse areas of Design & Emotion; Values in decision making for Sustainable Product Design; Forecasting Future Design Possibilities; Citizen-Centric E-governance, Control system Quadcopters and Automated Detection of Pot Holes & Cracks.
He has been a faculty and teaching courses at IIIT Jabalpur, School of Planning & Architecture and Lady Irwin and is an external expert on the senate of NID Ahmedabad. He is also a member of the GOI Design Clinic Scheme for MSME and practices Ceramic art as a hobby.
