Vinay Venkatraman

Vinay Venkatraman is the founder and CEO of Leapcraft – a design driven innovation consultancy based in Denmark. Prior to this Vinay co-founded CIID (Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design) in 2006. in 2013 he initiated the Big Data Viz academy in collaboration with the Danish Design Center also. Vinay helps shape the strategy and content for numerous initiatives through consulting, teaching and research lead initiatives.  He is trained as a 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.

As part of his academic interests, he has taught courses at the Copenhagen Business School, 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.

in 2013 Vinay has also designed and initiated the Big Data Visualization academy in collaboration with Danish Design Center to create new skills and build awareness of how big data can be utilized with design thinking and innovation strategy.

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