UPES student wins CII Young Designers Award

The award-winning project by Shivam Anand, a student of B.Des. in Transportation and Mobility Design, consisted of a futuristic shared mobility transport system

Success doesn’t come easy. And no one knows it better than UPES student Shivam Anand, whose futuristic mobility design project won the prestigious CII Young Designers Award 2021, even as his family was undergoing a period of personal crisis. Shivam’s mother, a homemaker, was battling cancer and Shivam, his two brothers and a circle of staunch friends came together to support their parents and help with the treatment.

His mother is recovering now and over the moon at her hardworking son’s achievement.

“My family was overjoyed, and elated to see the huge potential of my idea,” Shivam, who is pursuing B.Des. in Transportation and Mobility Design, says. “It was a great experience taking part in the competition. My project was appreciated well. I also received insights from them on how to improve my skills. It was an enriching conversation,” he adds.

Shivam’s project focussed on designing a shared mobility transport system for the future, especially as a response to the pandemic.

“My project was meant to encourage people to use shared mobility. During the pandemic there was a sudden shift to the use of personal vehicles, adding to the imbalance of the environment,” Shivam says.

The idea behind his project ‘Motion’ for the theme of the semester, Earth To Earth, was to design and develop a system of mobility for the year 2050 that would also leave a positive impact on the society and the environment.

“For my project, I researched various possible technologies and came up with the idea of a mode for traveling between two locations on earth via different orbit levels,” Shivam says, explaining his project.

“Before starting the design process, I conducted interviews with a sample group of youngsters and adults to gather information on their expectations from future modes of travel. Then I used secondary research data to brainstorm on possible future travel technologies,” the 21-year-old says.

Shivam used his findings and research to design Rapid Transit Mobility Pods, which he creatively named Ra-Pods. These would take passengers to the launch station equipped with all the necessary control and monitoring systems for trip management and experience.

An ardent follower of Ratan Tata, Shivam was not happy with the carbon footprint that the “stereotypical combustion technology” would leave.

“So I started digging into history and came across the idea of pure and free energy championed by Nikola Tesla,” Shivam says.

“I have always been fascinated by the work and inventions of Nikola Tesla. I came across his idea of pure and free energy, which never saw the light of day after his death. According to Tesla, the pure and free energy could levitate an object with minimum energy wastage,” he adds.

While designing his project, Shivam also took into account the future craze of space tourism.

“With the tremendous increase in investment and technological development, carrying a payload into space will soon be cheap,” he says.

Shivam is thankful to his mentors at UPES for believing in him and steering him in the right direction.

“I joined the School of Design in 2019. The interview was great. Even though most of our classes happened online due to the pandemic, our faculty went to great lengths to ensure we did not miss out on our learning,” he says. “Learning Mobility Design is not easy, especially at home, but our faculty kept guiding us in the right direction. Through new opportunities of online learning such as podcasts and YouTube, I was able to develop my skills in research, sketching, rendering, 3D modelling, sculpting, product animation and featuring,” says Shivam, signing off.