Parimala Inamdar

Director, Aquarians Management Consultancy Pvt. Ltd., India.

email: parimalainamdar@yahoo.co.in

I have over 34 years experience in design innovation for human learning and strategies for organisation development. This includes extensive work with the urban corporate sector, with international development agencies and, importantly, across the breadth of rural India. 

My work is founded on innovation for organisation growth in rapidly evolving socio-cultural and technological scenarios. This demands substantially novel approaches in the cross-cutting and inter-disciplinary areas of pedagogical design, technological innovation and growth strategy. 

My research is internationally published and cited.

I have an abiding personal interest in indigenous knowledge systems (Ayurveda, Yoga, Vipasana), Indian heritage & crafts and languages (English, Marathi, Hindi, Sanskrit, French and others) 

I am a Certified MBTI Practitioner. 

Presently, I am Director and Principal Consultant at Aquarians Management Consultancy Pvt Ltd., India (AMCPL).

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The Journey

Research, Design & Development:

I was in the United States in the 1980s for a postgraduate degree in Mass Communication after a BA from Mumbai University. That decade saw the development of the world’s first products in multimedia for education in the USA. My research looked at the emerging revolution in the convergence of computing with communications. Inspired, I returned to small town and rural India to apply my newly learned skills. A programme funded by the The USAID pioneered multimedia development in India. Under its auspices, I began to work on India’s first interactive videodiscs for water and land management training and led diverse teams on pedagogy and content.  

There were challenges working in rural India in the 1990s. Long days of field work were coupled with extreme heat and little or no communication – not cell nor land. Even sending a fax* meant sitting days at the only fax machine in town – the local post office in Udaipur – trying to dial up for an ‘instant connect’! A normal day traversed diverse worlds, ranging from work with Indian farmers, indigenous people, professors, cinematographers and artists to American project managers.

In those early years, we developed tech enabled visualisation and self-paced learning to enhance classroom training for water and land management. Unique simulations helped learners experience complex natural phenomena. In the 1990s these programmes enabled adult learners to visualise, explore, observe, analyse and solve, at their own pace. Our final multimedia products were technology enabled, exploratory approaches to real world problem solving – a tech and pedagogical innovation of the time.  

At NIIT Ltd later I started the ‘Centre of Competence in Multimedia’ and ‘The Design Lab’ within R&D. We developed some of the first concepts, content, products and platforms for educational technology. They were aimed at diverse audiences – adults, children, rural, urban, social & industry. These included interactive cd roms for children, learning management systems, corporate virtual universities and virtual classrooms.

The work on the globally acclaimed Hole-In-The-Wall project was launched in 1999. I led the research, design and development of its first large scale rural implementation in the coastal Sindhudurg District of Maharashtra (stories from ‘Hole In The Wall’).  An evaluation paradigm (GUI Icon Association Inventory) I developed became the core of its pan-India empirical research proofs. The research was internationally peer reviewed,  published and cited.** 

During these years, a project I conceived concerning digital art for rural Indian children***, was supported by The French Embassy in India, under the auspices of their Artist In Residence program. Our artist-in-residence was the brilliant Pascal Monteil.  While working in rural classrooms and the field, we integrated pedagogical methods like scaffolded observation, peer learning, reflection and practice, enhanced by various aspects of tech. For me, our enduring collaboration has given me fundamental insights into sustainable pedagogy.

Consulting & Advisory Practice: 

Presently, I am Director and Principal Consultant at Aquarians Management Consultancy Pvt Ltd., India (AMCPL). AMCPL is a consulting firm founded by Senior Advisor and Strategic Management Consultant, Anil Inamdar. Under his visionary and astute stewardship, over many decades, our experience footprint covered top ranking large and mid sized organisations in the private sector as well as cutting edge technology start-ups.

Later, through the Technology & Learning Practice, our clients expanded to include international agencies, bi-lateral agencies, governments, NGOs and policy think tanks.

Our focus today emphasises convergent and integrative approaches for sustainable solutions in organisational growth and learning. It is imperative for organisational cultures in educational or other domains to be highly integrative, across subject areas, physical and digital spaces, action and reflection, self and the organisation, teaching and learning. 

At AMCPL, we hold that for change to be meaningful, it must come from within. We contribute well-honed judgments. We fully participate. We would always walk the last mile with the client.

Flikr photo stream

INTERNATIONAL DESIGN EXHIBITION – Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2005 – The Digital Art Project exhibited for 3 months at the prestigious design exhibition – ‘D Day Design Aujourd’hui’ – The Centre Pompidou , Paris, France.

WORKSHOPS, CONFERENCES, LECTURES

• World Bank and the Government of Karnataka
• United Nations Development Programme, India & Asia-Pacific.
• United Nations Development Programme, Timor Leste
• Center for Policy Research, India
• Swiss Agency for International Development, India
• Kudumbashree Mission, Kerala, India
• Sri Aurobindo Society, India
• International Kaleidoscope Symposium, Europe
• Intel “Innovation in Education”, South Africa
• Institution of Engineers India
• University Joseph Fourier, France
• IT for Change, India
• Kutch Abhiyaan, India
• T4E (Technology for Education) IIT-Powai, India
• International Usability Professionals Association, India
• The French Embassy in India
• Rotary International, India
• Seagull Publishers, India
• ACM SIGCHI, India
• Comet Media Foundation, India
• Education Development Center, USA
• Industrial Design Center IIT, India
• Underscore Records (Shubha Mudgal, Aneesh Pradhan), India
• NIIT University, India
• Symbiosis Center of Information Technology, India
• PUKAR Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research, India
• ……and others.

PROJECT REFERENCES

•  ‘Towards Holistic Panchayat Raj’, Twentieth Anniversary Report of the Expert Committee on Leveraging Panchayats For Efficient Delivery of Public Goods and Services. Government of India Report 2014.
• ‘Imagining India’ by Nandan Nilekani
• ‘The Beautiful Tree’ by James Tooley
• Annual Report of the French Embassy in India (2004-2005)
• ‘Impressions’ Journal of the Alliance Francaise de Mumbai
• ….and academic citations

International press:

BBC, Discovery Channel, Catalogue of the Centre Pompidou, France, The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, DNA, The Indian Express, The Statesman, The Telegraph, Sakaal… and others.