About

नमस्ते / Hello / 你好 / ¡Hola! I am Rohit.

I am a designer and an engineer who believes in the power of design to generate rational discussions about the present and probable. I try to approach design as a dialogue with problems through diverse mediums. I practice "design by doing", flexing my muscles in both — engineering and design. I like to build and create things for creative inquiry with a research focus.

I have made things from electronic matchsticks to a solar car that has crossed the entire Australian continent. Some of my work goes in cars used by about 370,000 people. I have experience working in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural international design and product teams.

I have won awards like the CHI-17 Best Student Design Award, Best Interaction Design Student at IIT Bombay, Yahoo! Japan Hack-U Best Hack, and some others. I work at the cross-roads of design, technology, and research.

Contact

Present

Since January 2025 I am working as an independent technologist, across projects focused on Climate Change x Speculative Design, Toys x Rehabilitation, and Media Art x Creation/Restoration.

Rohit Gupta

Experience

2023 – 2025

Head of Technology, The Overview Effect, Madrid, Spain

Led AI-driven proof-of-concept development with a pre-sales focus. Supplier negotiation, go-to-market, and launch of products.

2019 – 2023

Designer and Technologist at Propelland, Madrid, Spain

Exploring design possibilities through technology for meaningful change.

2018 – 2019

Design and Technology Fellow at IED Innovation Lab, Madrid, Spain

Design research, prototyping, data visualization, generative design, art, AI, agents, experimental design methods, EU-funded art+tech collaboration, new social networks, and web technologies.

2016 – 2018

Graduate Teaching Assistant, eKalpa Project, IDC School of Design (Prof. Ravi Poovaiah)

Creative technologist with artists and designers for installation work exhibited at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai.

2014 – 2016

Assistant Manager — Human Machine Interaction, Tata Motors ERC, Pune

HMI engineer working on infotainment, app designs, attribute strategy, and vehicle acoustics. Products include Bolt, Tiago, Tigor, and Nexon.

Education

2018 – 2019

Masters in Digital Design (by Internship), Digital Design Lab, Istituto Europeo di Design, Madrid

2016 – 2018

Masters in Interaction Design, IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay

2010 – 2014

Bachelors in Electrical Engineering, Delhi Technological University

Exhibitions & talks

  • 2025 — "Pozo de Vidrio" — an interactive installation about Castelo, Galicia, and Esperpento at Auditorio de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela.
  • 2023, 2024 — Tejidos conjuntivos, Programa de Estudios Propios en Museología Crítica, Museo Reina Sofía.
  • 2022 — Il Collettivo Intelligente, Fabrica Research Centre, Treviso, Italy.
  • 2021 — "Computational Meditations", a performance on machine generated meditations, at NØ School, Nevers, France.
  • 2020 — "Daily Animals", a critique on ritualisation in the city, at MediaLab Prado, Madrid.
  • 2018 — "Nature Embedded" at National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India.
  • 2017 — "Who you are is what you get" at Interact 2017, Mumbai, India.
  • 2019 — Threads — Exploring generative complexity through digital threads at function() fest, Mallorca, Spain.

Publications

  • Gupta, R., Vidyanta, U., & Murali, S. (2019). LOCAL: Online visibility for local shopkeepers through participatory geo-information systems. 7th International Conference on Research Into Design.
  • Gupta, R. & Dalvi, G. (2018). FAND: A shareable haptic foot interface device. IEEE Serious Games and Application to Health 2018, Vienna.
  • Padhi D.R., Gupta R. (2017) IVR Wizard of OZ Field Experiment with Less-Literate Telecom Customers. INTERACT 2017, LNCS vol 10516. Springer.
  • Gupta, R. (2017). Who you are is what you get — A reflection on objectivity and bias in information search. Adjunct proceedings, Interact 2017.
  • Gupta, R., Vidyanta, U., & Murali, S. (2017). Paisa Stick: Tangible Currency Interface for Cashless Transactions. CHI 2017 Extended Abstracts, ACM. [Best Student Design Award]
  • Singh, J., Gupta, R., & Rizwan, M. (2013). Ultra Low Power and Cost Effective Wireless Instrumentation and Telemetry Support System for Solar Mobility Applications. TIIEC 2013, IEEE.
  • Kesari, J. P., Singh, J., Singh, S. K., & Gupta, R. (2012). Development of a Solar Electric Hybrid Vehicle (No. 2012-28-0025). SAE Technical Paper.

Awards

  • 2018 — Global €25,000 Scholarship to work with Digital Design Lab, IED Madrid on research on affective interactions.
  • 2018 — Best Student Award — Interaction Design at IDC School of Design.
  • 2018 — Best Office Bearer, Department Placement Co-ordinator, IIT Bombay.
  • 2017 — Winner, Student Design Competition at CHI 2017 for Paisa Stick.
  • 2016 — Winner, Yahoo! Japan HackU! 2016 Hackathon.
  • 2016 — Winner, Student Design Contest, India HCI 2016.
  • 2015 — Runner Up — Intel IOT Hackathon, Pune, India.
  • 2014 — 2nd Prize, Autodesk Instructables Build My Lab Contest.
  • 2011 — Member of the first ever Indian contingent to World Solar Challenge 2011, Australia — a 3000 km cross-continent race of solar cars.

Interests

Activities

Cycling, Reading, Walking, Bookbinding, Gardening, Cooking, Hiking, and Tinkering

Objects

Maps, Mirrors, and Clocks