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 A.G. Rao (Ananthapuram Gopinatha Rao) is a faculty member and professor at Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and was the Head of IDC during 1987-90. Rao was born in 1945. Graduated as a Mechanical Engineer, he pursued his post graduate studies in Product Design at N I D, (Ahmedabad). In 1980, he spent 9 months in U.S.A. under a UNESCO fellowship, studying creativity at M.I.T (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and other places.
Rao was inspired by personal discussions with Charles Eames on his concerns of vanishing product traditions of India and need for its study in 1969. He took sabbatical leave for a year to study bamboo craft in North Eastern India.
Having been a core faculty at IDC developing courses in Basic Design, Product design, Creativity and Design philosophy, Rao also guided 120 M. des projects and is currently guiding a Phd student. He is a member of the editorial board of International journal of Bamboo and Rattan.
Rao has been very active professionally and designed more than 20 products for Indian Industries, including “Electronic Voting Machine’ being used in India. He has set up ‘Colour fly’, a design studio for MESO for their exported products. And he has been a member, board directors for Boroplast ltd.
For the last 10 years specializing in Bamboo Craft products, Rao developed a tool-kit and small technologies for bamboo, and established Bambu Studio at IDC giving a new direction to design in bamboo with Social cause. He initiated 20 mini bamboo clusters in the villages of India wit Design and Technology Assistance. He also started an Incubation company with social concern, 'AG Bambu Style'.
Papers
- Cultivating creativity-Output 1, IDC 1972
- Realities of the real world-ICSID congress, Dublin 1977
- Expression as basis of new form in I.design – abhikalpa, IDC
- Aesthetics in problem solving – abhikalpa, IDC ’83
- Semantics in Basic design presented in Arthaya-International seminar held at IDC ’90
- Programme as a metaphor for structured creativity- in ‘IDC faculty on design’ published by IDC ’92
- Trends in the use of surface finishes in the context of Product semantics (co-author) in ‘proceedings of Int. Conference on Surface engineering ’92
- Bamboo craft: its relevance in rural employment generation-invited talk in international bamboo congress held at Bali, Indonesia ’96
- Language as tool for articulating Arupa the formless in design-prepared for a seminar on Semiotics held at Mysore ’97
- Search for a new aesthetics in Bamboo Craft-presented in the Seminar on Bamboo’s held by Bamboo Society, at Bangalore, Nov. 96
- Design, Technology, Training and Marketing (DTTM) link for survival of Bamboo Craft in 21st century, presented in international congress held in Costa Rica, Nov. 98
- Tools, Small Technologies and Design for Bamboo Craft: Indian Experience, presented in the International Bamboo Congress held at New Delhi, March 2004.
- Tools and small Technologies for spread of design innovations in bamboo craft at grass root level. Presented at the International Seminar on Bamboo and its Applications held at New Delhi in April 2008.
Publications
- Decade of Design pub. By IDC
- Bamboo Craft Design pub. by IDC
- UNDP report on Tools, Small Technologies and Finishes
- Manuals on Tool kit, Small Machines and Natural Dye Colouring in Bamboo
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