Rama Gheerawo
Rama has experience in the creative industry having worked in the automotive, product design and multimedia design sectors. He writes, publishes, lectures and curates exhibitions on design to audiences that include students, academics, designers, industry and government.
Rama also concentrates on creating effective mechanisms for knowledge transfer and has run workshops at universities, design organisations and corporations in venues across the world, including California and China. As a keynote speaker, he advocates the benefits of design and a more socially-inclusive approach.
He believes that good design can significantly improve and transform people's lives and is interested in evolving the role of designers to involve people in the creative process as active contributors and equal voices in the process.
Rama Gheerawo has a BA in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, London and an MA in Industrial Design Engineering from the RCA, for which he won a scholarship from the Royal Commission of the Exhibition of 1851. He was a founding member of the Centre at its inception in 1999 and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Art in 2005.
Rama leads the Centre's Age & Ability research lab, where the focus is on enabling people of all ages and abilities to have greater choice and independence in their daily lives. Transport, technology and design for neuro-diversity are key areas. He is keen to expand the role of inclusive design, looking at how it can become more business-ready and more engaged with current social issues.
Knowledge transfer to business is delivered to companies across the globe through executive education modules that Rama has created. Supporting material includes publications and presentations. This strand of research aims to engage people involved in specifying, managing or practising design. The work builds on leading the Research Associates Programme where over 120 projects have been successfully completed with over 95 organisations including: Samsung; Toyota; Intel; B&Q; the NHS and GlaxoSmithKline.
Rama sits on review committees for a number of conferences and is a reviewer of submissions for the UK Research Councils. He is on the Approval Committee for AgeUK's kitemark and is a UK Director for the EIDD Design for All European network.
