Mr. Parameswaran Venkataraman has over the last 17 years, worn multiple hats – Interaction Designer, User Researcher, Design Director, Innovation Consultant – at IDEO, GE Healthcare, and Sapient.

As Director at IDEO, he led strategic innovation engagements across India, China and Russia. Mr. Venkataraman’s passion lies in finding design-thinking led solutions for emerging markets, a task that he has executed for a variety of multi-national clients. He serves as Advisory Board member of Saaf India and has been an Executive Council member at “The Centre for Emerging Market Solutions”, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Startups often discount the importance of Design when building products, while this could be the difference between having good product and great product.

Mr. Venkataraman will be speaking at Lounge47 on the 19th. of July 2014, 4pm. Please RSVP via email – (lab247 AT Lounge47 DOT in) or at www.meetup.com/lounge47.

Param focused on the much used term, Ԅesign ThinkingԠand made it more understandable to the audience. Design thinking as a mindset and methodology for problem solving, starts with understanding the user first and adopts specific methods and processes that enable practitioners, to uncover valuable insights that would not have been visible otherwise. Our key takeaways mirror the phases of Design Thinking and its application 1) Develop empathy for the user, observing and capturing details of their action and emotion 2) Brainstorm and admit a large number of new ideas. Use discipline to build on ideas 3) Re-frame the problem. Oftentimes the problem is not what you originally thought it was. 4. Adopt rapid prototyping and fail if need be, but fail cheap.

For Startups, a design centric approach is one that Lounge47 recommends to 1) Overcome any disconnects from market needs and 2) Trim technology features that do not directly contribute to market needs.