Profile of the Instructor(s)

Prof. SIVAKUMAR M SRINIVASAN who signs off as Anbudan Siva, is a Professor and Head of Applied Mechanics at IITM for over a quarter of a century. Before this stint as HoD (Heart of the department), he served as Dean of Students (DoSt) at IITM for over six years. He has also been a visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology, USA, and Texas A&M University, USA. Several of his students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) are now faculty members in top institutes and in senior positions in organisations worldwide and in India. Over 25 of them have graduated with a doctoral degree. He has published over 250 journal and conference articles, authored a few textbooks, and edited volumes. He is one of the founder Directors of two startups, Newtomech Innovations India Ltd and Biomimicry Compass Ltd.
A strong advocate of and practices thinking with hands – he started a minor program called Engineering in Everyday Life for IITM students. Fun with Engineering was a popular school-oriented CSR initiative that ran for several years. He is on a mission to nurture the leaders of tomorrow.

Mr. SHIVA SUBRAMANIAM is the co-founder of Biomimicry Compass, an IIT Madras incubated company, that enables innovation using nature’s design strategies and engineering principles. He is a coach and facilitator, specialising in innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and cross-cultural skills. In his career spanning over 3 decades, he has worked with a multitude of organisations, teams, and individuals, helping them with new ways of thinking, exploring connections, expanding their vision and realising their potential.

He started his career as an advocate at the Madras High Court. Subsequently he worked with TCS where he was evangelising innovation. Shiva has also worked with the Indian national cricket team with Greg Chappell on the connections between creativity and sports. Shiva is guest faculty at IIT Madras, where he teaches courses on creativity, entrepreneurship, life skills, cross-culture and biomimicry.

Ms. Mrinalini is the co-founder and CEO of Biomimicry Compass, an IIT Madras incubated company, that enables innovation using nature’s design strategies and engineering principles. She has held many executive positions throughout her career in technology, strategy, innovation and knowledge management, and has headed cross-disciplinary teams locally and globally. In her first entrepreneurial foray, she designed and developed a novel social networking platform for Indian families, that was recognized by ‘The Power of Ideas’, an entrepreneurship development program conducted by ‘The Economic Times’ and the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. 

She worked at IIT Madras’ ambitious pan-India project to provide affordable and reliable electricity to un-served households across India, where she oversaw the design and development of low-cost solar-DC controllers and led the deployment of microgrid projects covering 10 different states in India. Mrinalini enjoys exploring different disciplines and topics and is a firm believer in the power of intersections, wherein diverse disciplines, fields, ideas, perspectives and cultures come together to spark fresh thinking and new ideas. She holds an engineering degree from BITS Pilani and an MBA from INSEAD.