About

I bring a rich & very varied background into my current work in information architecture & interaction design: study of new technologies, business management, & painting. I have recently completed my Masters at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University.

In the last few months, I have conceived & designed FoundIt, an application that enables users to get a bird's eye-view of all of their local files & emails. Email management is a vexing problem that will receive special attention as we refine & improve this application. FoundIt is a powerful productivity tool, download it for free here.

New technologies & design:

This 2-year program is highly diverse in its offerings: I took courses in Physical Computing, 3D, Video Art, Experimental video documentary, designing of digital products, mobile design, and networks among others. This was an intense & demanding program, and I have come out with a better awareness and openness to the technological changes happening all around us. My passions remain designing better experiences for web & mobile applications, with a particular focus on findability.

Entrepreneurship:

I have also a prior Masters in Business Administration that has given me a comfort level with business and financial issues. I admire entrepreneurs and have started my entrepreneurial venture with FoundIt, a personal information management tool. Some years back, I ran my own rug-making unit for about 6 years, designing & manufacturing lush, high-pile Scandinavian-style carpets & rugs. Restless soul that I am, I did not want to be sitting at home while my son was growing up, and neither did I want to leave him in the care of anyone else while I pursued a job!! So started this venture; every morning, my son & I rushed around town, buying wool, delivering it to the workers, ensuring adherence to the design & deadlines, trimming & backing the finished pieces: I am sure my husband & son remember those evenings when huge rugs were spread across the living room, while I added the finishing touches. Whew!

Design & Art:

I got into painting quite by chance. I had enrolled in a one-year course in Furniture Design at the local School of Architecture. On the same campus stood the Kanoria Center for Arts, & they ran foundation courses that covered a bit of sketching, painting, clay modeling, print-making & lithography. I guess the turning point was the classes in life-sketching: drawing from observation gives one a high like very few things; in addition, you have the bonus of practicing focused eye-hand coordination in a spirit of intense yet free concentration. This is almost meditation, everyone should try it! So anyway, I sketched away and once I realized I could draw just about anything ( I find human figures & faces tough though), I picked up some paints & experimented with those. A key influence was also some Renoir prints that Ravi, my husband had brought back from his trip to Boston. I so loved the Impressionist style that I learnt more about it, & painted scenes from my world in that manner: loose brushwork, bright colors, diffuse forms to give atmospheric effects. Check out my paintings here.