Academic qualification:

• Doctorate degree (Ph.D) in Development Planning,
  Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, India
  
  

• International Coordinator, ‘Project Solar Eclipse’: an international project about the Internet and the emerging technologies. Principal collaborators - the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay and the Falmouth College of Arts (FCA), Falmouth, UK.
• Project consultant for new technology issues to 'Composite Technologies', Bangalore and Studio Printart, Kolkata.
• Consultant and columnist on new technology issues for the architecture journal 'Indian Architect and Builder' (IA&B)
• Project consultant for projects based at the Industrial Design Centre (IDC), and the Educational Technology (ET), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay
• Founder, colorsofindia.com - a resource website for the 'project solar eclipse' and dreamsubmit.net - a free service on the net meant primarily for webmasters
  
  

Specialization/core competencies::

• Interpretation of technology vis-à-vis a cultural paradigm
• Socio-cultural analysis of industrial design-related issues
• Critiquing new media technologies and design issues for the media
• R&D interests:Collaborative learning environments, Social computing, Issues in development planning
• Social demographic and anthropological analysis
• Cross-relate across disciplines - to interpret data, information, material etc., at various levels of abstraction.
• Courses/lectures on evolution of new media technology, history of design (industrial design, graphic design, sign design, etc.,)
• Research on new design initiatives, Conducting user studies, Formulating strategies and branding of retail visual identity (RVI) programs for the industry
  
  
  

Project Samples:

• Project Solar Eclipse (mid-1997 to present) - rallying around the use of computer-mediated technologies to connect up with communities located at distant locations from different cultures, and experimenting the involvement of children and non-technology users as its chief user-constituency. Designed around technology 'events' happening for the first time in the world in the context of design-technology interventions. Has since been recognized with several international awards.
  This experimentation has been carried out so far through a series of ‘events’ - which are the online cum offline sessions that we hold - and which sometimes extend across the course of a whole week during which the participating communities are made to come together on the common platform of the Internet to touch base with each other.
• Design Expo 2004 – ‘People-to-people, from close friends to strangers’ (MicroSoft Research, Social Computing Group): between Jan-July 2004 towards a set of five interactive products in the realm of ‘People-to-people, from close friends to strangers’. Our products were aimed at the user groups of children, teenagers, young adults, the elderly and the cerebral palsy.
  Design Expo 2003 - ‘Sharing Personal Media’ (MicroSoft Research, Social Computing Group): conducted as an experiment between Jan-July 2003 towards a set of three interactive products in the realm of ‘Sharing Personal Media’. Our products were aimed at the user groups of the dispersed family, the visually handicapped and the elderly.
• DreamSubmit.net (Jan, 2000 to present): Background research, information content and structuring for DreamSubmit.net, a free service facility on the Net, for reaching one's website to search engines and directories. Also, comprehensive information about how to make the process of submission easy and transparent.
• 'Samas' (waiting) - Humour in Computers (July 1996 to July1997): Background research and theme-creation related to an interaction design project instrumental in creating an award-winning interface-design product called ‘Samas.' Project commissioned by Interval Research Corporation, a high-tech interface-design setup established by Paul Allen, co-founder, Microsoft Corporation, and located at Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, California. Carried out jointly at the Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT, Bombay, and the Interval Research Corporation, Palo Alto, USA.
• Background research and project proposal for 'Vision 2000' - related to incorporating futuristic and user-friendly interactive designing and implementation of ‘Retail Outlets for Indian Oil Corporation'. Part requirement of project commissioned at the IDC, IITBombay, by the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Oct 1994-1998.
• Background research and project proposal for Street Furniture for the City of Ahmedabad as a prototype of how public domain design and facilities can work in interface with private sector sponsorships and investment. In part requirement of Project commissioned by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), 1997-'98
• Locating potential spots for tourism from given areas and circuits in Gujarat through spatial modeling (for the TCS, Bombay), as part requirement of a project appraisal for proposing an Area Development Plan. Project commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism, Govt.of Gujarat to the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bombay, mid-1995-1996
• Formulation of Vision and Mission Statements for Larsen and Toubro, 1994. Since adopted for use by the Company
• Project outline for the National Commission of Urbanisation, 1993
• Formulating a Structural Framework for Examining the Semantics, the Syntactics and the Pragmatics of a name as part of a Name-Search Project, undertaken for the international perfume industry as part of a project commissioned to IDC, IIT Bombay, by the Mercantile Essential Oil Company, USA, Dubai, Bombay, Jan 1991-Jan 1992
• Design and scripting for an audio-visual project on Siddham Calligraphy, project commissioned on the occasion of the World Exposition on Calligraphy, New Delhi, by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), 1988-'89
• Conceptualisation and designing of a video film on "The Kinetics of Calligraphy," project commissioned as part of the World Exposition on Calligraphy, New Delhi, by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), 1988-89
  

• Sen, Ajanta, Poovaiah, Ravi and Pulley, Robert: "Across the Web: the Colours of India as a cross-cultural collaborative initiative for learning," Design Issues (Guest Edited: Prof. Martha Scotford), MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, USA, 2003
• Sen, Ajanta, Poovaiah, Ravi and Pulley, Robert: "Carnivals, cultures and daisy-chains: Project Solar Eclipse as a case study for sustainable use of new media ," Design History Society Conference - Situated Knowledges: Consumption, Production and Identity in a Global Context, University of Wales, UK, 3rd - 5th Sept. 2002
• Sen, Ajanta and Poovaiah, Ravi: "Design interventions in the evolution of personal communications in the context of India" 3^rd International Conference on Design History and Design Studies, 9-12 July 2002, Istanbul, Turkey
• Sen, Ajanta and Poovaiah, Ravi: "A technology-non-technology alliance: does it really work towards learning"? Invited paper at the 4th National Annual Conference on the theme "Teaching - learning and research for the creative professions" as part of Academic Education covering New Technologies and Methodologies in Arts, Media & Design around the topic held at Bangkok, Thailand, Nov-Dec, 2001
• Sen, Ajanta: (history of computing), invited paper at New Media Design workshop, IIT Bombay, Dec, 2001
• Sen, Ajanta: "Fork in the Desert: A History of Environmental Design", invited paper at Design of SignageSystems, IDC, IIT Bombay, India, Oct, 2001
• Sen, Ajanta: "The Metaphors of New Technology - where do we fit in the concept of cross-cultural collaborative leaning?", keynote address at CADE Postgraduate Conference, Falmouth College of Arts, Falmouth, UK, July, 2000
• Sen, Ajanta: "Art at the threshold of claiming space on the Web: Can the City Gallery, extend its constituency via the computer-mediated technologies?" Keynote paper for City Gallery, Leicestershire, UK, July, 2000
• Sen Ajanta and Pulley, Robert, "The School of the Future: the time-space meltdown"- selected paper presented at ICSID/ICOGRADA/IFI, Millennium Design Conference, Sydney, Sept-Oct 1999
• Sen, Ajanta: "ACUADS, University of new South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Oct, 1999
• "Project Solar Eclipse '99," invited paper during the national seminar entitled 'Business Models for the Internet' at IDC, IIT Bombay, India, April, 1999
• Sen, Ajanta and Poovaiah R, "New technology’s New Home" - invited paper as part of the theme Design, Knowledge and Technologies - to be presented at Fiera De Santana, Bahia, Brazil, as part of the 2^nd International Congress of Graphic Engineering in Arts and in Design, and the 13^th national Symposium on Descriptive Geometry and Technical Design, Sept, 1998
• Sen, Ajanta and Poovaiah R: "A paradigm-shift towards user-centered methodology in interaction design: the case of an icon-driven interface product", Invited paper presented at International Conference on Multi-Media, New Delhi, India, January 1998
• Sen, Ajanta: "The Telephone as an Icon of Change for a Developing Economy - the case of India" as part of sub-theme ‘Communication, Connections and Society,’ selected paper presented at the Humane Village Congress, as part of the biennial design meet of the International Council for Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), Toronto, Canada, Aug,1997