SRMIST Celebrates the Second Convocation of Faculty Trained in Design Thinking

School of Design Thinking (SoDT) empowers the faculty to build a Culture of Creativity, Innovation, and Lifelong Learning

Chennai (India), August 25, 2025: SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST) marked a major milestone today, hosting the second convocation for faculty members who have successfully completed a comprehensive three-day Faculty Development Program conducted by School of Design Thinking (SoDT). This event is a cornerstone in SRMIST’s mission to embed a culture of Design Thinking across all its campuses, enabling faculty and students to grow as innovative thinkers for tomorrow’s world.

The Faculty Development Program initiative was led by the School of Design Thinking. Since signing a Memorandum of Understanding in 2019, the School of Design Thinking has been a strategic partner and catalyst for this transformation at SRMIST, delivering structured workshops, hands-on problem-solving sessions, and practical tools to make design thinking a foundational practice in classrooms. SoDT’s vision aligns with SRMIST’s purpose of nurturing a new generation of leaders who are empathetic, creative, and solution-focused. The School of Design Thinking has conducted the Faculty Development Program for 14 batches of faculty members across its Kattankulathur, Trichy, NCR and Vadapalani campuses.

Faculty members of SRMIST who have successfully completed a comprehensive three-day Faculty Development Program conducted by School of Design Thinking (SoDT) receiving the certificate, at Design The Thinking ® ️ Faculty Development Program Convocation 2025 at SRMIST in Chennai on Monday, August 25, 2025.

From left to right: Dr. Shantanu Patil, Director, DEI, SRMIST; Ms. Manju Jain, Director and Co-founder, School of Design Thinking (SoDT); Prof. C. Muthamizhchelvan, Vice Chancellor, SRMIST; Mr. Ramanan S.V, CEO-India & South Asia, Intellect Design Arena; and Dr. S. Ponnusamy, Registrar, SRMIST, at Design The Thinking®️ Faculty Development Program Convocation 2025 at SRMIST in Chennai on Monday, August 25, 2025.

SRMIST has been at the forefront in championing Design Thinking, not simply as a set of skills, but as an institutional culture. The University’s ongoing drive ensures that Design Thinking reaches all students, faculty members, and departments. From engineering and technology to entrepreneurship and innovation, SRMIST has set a benchmark for interdisciplinary creativity.

This year, 110 faculty members from all major engineering departments received their certificates. They join a distinguished cohort of 165 faculty alumni from the first convocation event, making a total of 275 SRMIST faculty trained in Design Thinking since the inception of the program in 2019. Combined, they have undergone an intensive 42 person days of training and over 450 person hours of active learning, equipping them to transform education and foster innovative mindsets in over 20,000 students to date.

The event also witnessed the renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding between SRMIST, School of Design Thinking and Intellect Design Arena for the next five years.

Speaking during the occasion, Prof. C. Muthamizhchelvan, Vice Chancellor, SRMIST, expressed, “We, at SRMIST, are at the forefront of many strategic initiatives with the government, industry and other entities. Through and beyond academics, we work on trying to solve larger problems that beset our nation and society. I firmly believe that Design Thinking, as a human-centric approach to solving real-world problems, is a catalyst in aiding our approach to work on societal issues. I am glad that through the School of Design Thinking, we have been able to enhance the capabilities of our Faculty and make a lasting impact in the lives of the students.”

Dr. Shantanu Patil, Director, DEI, SRMIST, shared his thoughts, “Design Thinking drives deep differentiation in one’s approach to design new solutions or to solve societal problems across multiple domains. I am pleased that SRMIST and DEI have partnered with the School of Design Thinking to bring about change in the thinking of our students through the certified faculties. We are well on our way in a mission that is on par with global academic standards when it comes to scale in mindset transformation.”

The Chief Guest for the event, Mr. Ramanan SV, CEO-India & South Asia, Intellect Design Arena Ltd., delivered the Keynote address and shared his insights, “The transformation at SRMIST demonstrates the powerful impact of focusing on mind space. Fostering the right mindset is essential for true innovation and growth. Through Design Thinking, institutions can move beyond traditional boundaries, connect, and find outside-the-box solutions that drive excellence. It is not just about processes or infrastructure, but about cultivating internal flexibility and openness to new ideas. I am delighted to see SRMIST lead this journey, setting a new benchmark for academic innovation.”

Ms. Manju Jain, Director and Co-founder, School of Design Thinking (SoDT), in her Special Address commented, “Design Thinking has immense potential in creating a positive impact between teachers and students, especially in the arena of teaching and learning. At the School of Design Thinking, we have evolved a new approach to bring Design Thinking as pedagogy in order to bring about mindset change in faculties and students at the fundamental level. I am very happy that the senior faculties at SRMIST have adopted this strength of Design Thinking, beyond a mere course, to explore the innate potential of the students and to create engaging learning experiences.”

About School of Design Thinking

School of Design Thinking is committed to creating awareness about Design Thinking as a ‘Human Centered – Future Focused’ approach to society at large. It strives to bring the culture of design thinking in all aspects of life by focusing on preparing the design mind & bringing a mindset transformation to unlock the potential of Design Thinking. School of Design Thinking collaborates with educational institutions, corporations and businesses, startups and entrepreneurs, government agencies and social organisations across India to foster Design Thinking in their organisations and implement transformation. For more details, visit https://www.d-thinking.com/

About SRM Institute of Science & Technology (SRMIST)

SRM Institute of Science and Technology is one of the top ranking universities in India with over 60,000 full time students and more than 4600+ faculty across all the campuses – Kattankulathur, Ramapuram, Vadapalani Campus – all in and around Chennai, Tiruchirappalli (in TN), Modinagar (in UP) & Sonepat (in Haryana) – both of which are located near Delhi NCR, Amaravati (in AP), Gangtok (in Sikkim) – offering a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programs in six Faculties – Engineering & Technology, Management, Medicine & Health sciences, Science & Humanities, Law and Agricultural Sciences. For more details, visit https://www.srmist.edu.in/

About Intellect Design Arena

Intellect Design Arena Ltd is a global leader in enterprise-grade financial technology, delivering composable and intelligent solutions to forward-looking financial institutions across 61 countries. With three decades of domain expertise, our product suite spans Wholesale Banking, Consumer Banking, Central Banking, Wealth, Capital Markets, Treasury, Insurance and Digital Technology for Commerce. Applying First Principles Thinking and Design Thinking, we have elementalised the financial services landscape into a finite set of Events, Microservices, and APIs, enabling faster, modular transformation with measurable outcomes.

At the heart of this are eMACH.ai, the world’s most comprehensive, composable and intelligent open finance platform; Purple Fabric, the world’s first Open Business Impact AI platform; and iTurmeric, our composable platform for seamless integration and configuration. We are a pioneer in applying Design Thinking and our 8012 FinTech Design Center, the world’s first Design