Vijay Kumar

Vijay Kumar is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Design. His teaching and research focus on strategic innovation, innovation methods, information structuring, and human-centered product/communication systems. He has over 22 years of experience in consulting, teaching, and research and development in these areas worldwide. As an innovation planning leader at Doblin Inc., Kumar spent more than 12 years consulting on customer-centered innovations for companies such as Alamo, Amoco Oil, Cummins Engine, Hallmark, Lenscrafters, McDonald’s, Monsanto, Motorola, Perot Systems, Pfizer, Royal Dutch Shell, SAS Airlines, Steelcase, Texas Instruments, Weirton Steel, and Wells Fargo.

Kumar is adept at working with multi-disciplinary teams to use structured planning techniques to transform user insights into innovation systems and strategic plans for companies. He is the inventor of many methods, frameworks, tools, and software applications designed to extend innovation capabilities; students, researchers, consultants, and business executives worldwide have been successfully using some of his tools, such as Analysis and Transformations (A&T) and Innovation Landscape, for many years.

Kumar has taught at the Institute of Design since 1993. He is also an alumnus of ID's Masters program, where his research focus was on information visualization tools for planning and is published widely. Kumar received his undergraduate degree in product design from India’s National Institute of Design in 1979. Afterward, as a principal in Kumar Group, a systems design consulting firm in southern India, he consulted with companies in product design, environment design, architecture, and environmental planning.