Vinay Venkatraman is the co-founder of CIID (Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design). Vinay helps shape the strategy and content for CIID through consulting, teaching and research lead initiatives. He is trained as product & interaction designer in India and Italy. His works in the past have spanned design of consumer products, software and film visual effects.

He currently spends his time between creating new education curriculums, shaping policy initiatives for the Danish government and consulting large global companies on innovation around new product experiences and design strategy. He has helped shape product strategy for companies like Nokia, Intel, Novo Nordisk, Maersk line, Lufthansa Technik, Philips lighting etc. His passion lies in incubating new technology ideas, finding new models of sustainable socio-economic development using appropriate technologies.

He has also assisted in teaching courses at the University of Aarhus, IUAV University in Venice and the IT university in Copenhagen. His current interests include tangible user interfaces, service design and finding new models of sustainable economic development using emerging technologies. As part of this Vinay has initiated a global research track for emerging economies called Frugal Digital to help empower small business using innovation based on simple and inexpensive technologies.

Vinay’s work has been exhibited during the Salone del Mobile (International Furniture Fair) in Milan, written about in leading design magazines like Wallpaper, Domus etc and various popular blogs. Vinay routinely travels and lectures worldwide in platforms like TED on innovation, user centred methods and design for social change.