BITS-Pilani launches design school, admissions open February 26

Meritorious students will receive generous scholarships to enable access and ensure diversity of the cohort.

Birla Institute of Technology & Science in Pillani (BITS-Pilani), one of the country’s top engineering schools, has announced the launch of BITS Design School (BITSDES) in Mumbai.

The design school will equip graduates with a set of transdisciplinary and in demand competencies to take on C-Suite positions as they grow in their careers, the institute said in a statement.

“BITS Design School will reimagine design education with a bold, trans-disciplinary, competency-based approach, and embrace avenues where design can positively impact people, businesses, and the world,” Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chancellor, BITS Pilani, said.

The design school will offer a four-year, residential Bachelor of Design (Honours) programme in the academic year 2024-25, followed by a master’s programme and a faculty development programme for design educators over the next two years.

Admissions open on February 26 for the founding class, which will be taught by international visiting faculty and a marquee Indian faculty trained at the top design schools in the world.

With a strong international focus, BITSDES has as advisors, Don Norman, founding director of the Design Lab and author of the bestselling Design of Everyday Things, Sandy Speicher, former CEO of IDEO, Biju Dominic, chief evangelist at New York and Mumbai-based Fractal, and CEO, FinalMile Consulting, and John Thackar, author, professor, and curator of The Doors of Perception.

The curriculum has been co-designed and will be reviewed annually by Aalto University, Finland, ranked 6th globally in Art & Design according to QS, a provider of services, analytics, and insight to the global higher education sector.

The collaboration with Aalto University also covers freemover student exchange. BITS Pilani has a partnership with RMIT University in Australia. BITS Design School and the RMIT School of Design are working together to identify future collaboration opportunities, the release said.

The design school will come up on a 63-acre campus in the Mumbai Metropolitan region for which Rs 1,500 crore investment is being made.

While the permanent campus will be operational in early 2025, the school will commence its first academic session in August 2024 out of an interim campus in Powai, Mumbai.

Meritorious students will receive scholarships to enable access and ensure diversity of the cohort, the statement said.