Guwahati, Assam, India
Dr. Sharmistha Banerjee is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Design and Associate Faculty at the Centre for Disaster Management and Research, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. She specializes in Design for Sustainability. As co-founder of the Sustainability and Social Innovation Lab at IIT Guwahati, she leads initiatives on transforming consumption and production systems through sustainable product-service system design interventions. The lab participates in the global Learning and Education Network in Sustainability (LeNS), a consortium of more than 150 universities across the globe, focusing particularly on design of sustainable distributed economy solutions. Her research and development primarily work focusses on: - SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) through her role at the Department of Design - SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) through her role at the Center for Disaster Management and Research.
Over the past years, our research has been deeply embedded in exploring Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, focusing on enhancing inclusive and sustainable urbanization and fostering participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement planning to mitigate disaster losses and bolster resilience among vulnerable populations. Our primary investigation has revolved around the effective integration of Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) into sustainable settlement design frameworks. Secondly, we develop products for disaster-resilient and climate-adaptive agriculture through machinery and technologies that support disaster management capabilities and resilience building in agricultural communities, particularly in Northeast India. Thirdly, we develop games to train people in disaster preparedness is a fun and engaging way.
I am an industrial designer with experience in collaborative R&D, system design for sustainability, agricultural machinery design and serious game design. I have co-founded the Sustainability and Social Innovation Lab at Department of Design, IIT Guwahati. The lab focusses on creating systems for sustainable human consumption and production through a complete revamp of the consumption structure with our design interventions. We are part of the global network on sustainability, the Learning and Education Network in Sustainability (LeNS) consisting of 150+ global universities. Currently a large part of our sustainable product-service development projects are in the domain of agriculture. At IIT Guwahati I teach courses like System Design for Sustainability, Usability Engineering, User Research Techniques, Product Detailing, Interaction Design, Design Management, Plastics and composites and Design Semantics. I have also developed a MooC course on System Design for Sustainability for the NPTEL platform and a course of Product Design for Engineers for the Coursera platform. In the past few years, I have worked with several companies (like ABB, Philips, Infosys, MIDCO, VU Medical University Amsterdam, Conpax Verpakking, Beat Belly, Botanische Tuin Delft, ACC Ltd, MIDCO, Prince Plastics), educational institutes (like IIT Guwahati, MIT Institute of Design Pune, IDC, IIT Bombay and L'Ecole de Design (Indian Operations), Nantes-Atlantique, France), NGOs (like International Development Enterprise Bangladesh, Antaran) and governmental organizations (like NEHHDC, NEBDC).
Design for Sustainability (DfS) is an emerging and significant domain. It is also one of the prime needs of the hour considering the burden of human consumption and production. In order to create sustainable human consumption and production, a complete revamp of the consumption structure os needed. Design for Sustainability stands on the pillars of innovation. Through the Sustainability and Social Innovation Lab, the Department of Design at IIT Guwahati, aims to foray into this domain. The R&D at the lab focusses on three structural components: Knowledge Innovation, Product and Service Innovation, Social Innovation
Conducting classes and mentoring projects for undergraduate & post-graduate students in the discipline of Industrial Design. The various subjects undertaken are Green Design, Ethnographic Research, Research Methods, Ergonomics, Packaging Design, Techno-aesthetic Detailing, Appropriate Economics, Simple Product Design and Science in Everyday Objects & Creative Intervention.
Working on a R&D project with ACC Ltd. to develop mass production possibilities for affordable and sustainable rural and semi-uban housing solutions for the BoP market. My responsibility involves managing a multi-disciplinary team consisting of industrial designers, architects, civil engineers, energy science professional and humanities professionals; conducting ethnographic research; generating creative ideas; disseminating research through blogs and seminars and managing several student projects. Other projects undertaken in the studio include development of high-tech products like explosive detection device; creating communication material for the studio and content for D’source, a web-based learning environment being developed by IDC (IIT Bombay), NID and DoD (IIT Guwahati).
Working on designing an efficient and effective grabbing-positioning mechanism for Taxus branches and needles and thereby applying an electrostatic field to extract taxoids. Taxoids are used to make chemotherapy drugs. The proposed technique is looked upon as a more sustainable and economical way of winning the chemical.