Brief Profile of Dr. Dinesh Katre
Presently heads the National Multimedia Resource Centre of C-DAC, Pune as Group Coordinator.

Qualifications
Ph.D. in Human Computer Interaction / Interface (HCI)
Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS), Pilani

Dissertation Title:
"Visualization of Interface Metaphor for Software: An Engineering Approach"
(The Ph.D. Research was completely sponsored and hosted by C-DAC)

Master of Designs (M.Des.) in Visual Communication
Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.) Powai, Bombay

Bachelor of Fine Arts (B. F. A.)
Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Arts, Bombay

Professional Activities
Dinesh Katre has Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. His is perhaps the first HCI Ph.D. in India. He also has M.Des. in Visual Communication from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Arts, Mumbai. He has 15 years of sound experience of working with an Information Technology organization, where he has been working on both R&D and business projects.

Presently, he heads the National Multimedia Resource Centre of C-DAC, Pune. The centre was established under his leadership and with the sponsorship of Dept. of Information Technology, Govt. of India in 1998. In this responsibility, he has built a multi-disciplinary team at C-DAC. He has conceptualized and implemented many R&D projects that deal with Digital Library for Indian Heritage, e-Learning, Multimedia Authoring & Content Creation, and 3D Game Development. He is the principle designer of many software, content and training products. He has also designed software tools for remote usability testing of interface metaphor and cognitive structures.

Recently, he conceived the R&D charter for Human Computer Interaction Design (HCID) program at C-DAC. In this responsibility, he manages multiple teams and coordinates between diverse technology development groups.

He is passionately interested in enriching the HCI/Usability domain and has set the following goals-
1. Create usable products and technologies
2. Define new methods for user study, design evaluation and usability testing
3. Design usability engineering process adaptable to different work cultures
4. Evolve multi-disciplinary teaching curriculum on HCI/Usability
5. Propagate the usability culture

Specialities
* User Research (Cognitive and behavioral)
* Human Factors in Product Design
* Visualization and Design of Innovative Features
* User Experience Design (Interface, Interaction, Content)
* Usability Analysis and Evaluation
* Usability Test Design and Testing
* Interpretation of User Research and Test Results

Research Interests
He is interested in the design of usability for software products through the study of user's cognitive and behavioral psychology. His research covers interface metaphor design, interaction design, cognitive linguistics, instructional models, visual comprehension, user experience design, remote usability testing, etc. He has special interest and experience in the cognitive study of children and illiterate users.

Research Publications / Workshops / Conferences
He has traveled across India and abroad to deliver lectures, seminars and workshops dealing with HCI. Some of the reputed institutes in India where he is invited include Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai; National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, SNDT University, Mumbai; Film and Television Institute of India, Pune; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of ICT, Gandhinagar; and several others. He is invited to share his expertise at University of Abertay, Dundee, UK; University of California, USA; and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Recently, he delivered a seminar on 'Pragmatic Approach to HCI Education' which was organized by Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology (VIIT), Pune. It was attended by faculty members of computer science from several engineering colleges in Pune. He also delivered a workshop on Usable Design for e-Government Systems at C-DAC. Apart from these, his talks have been organized by professional bodies like Usability Matters Organization (UMO), Hyderabad, Usability Professionals Association (UPA), Computer Society of India, Project Management Institute (PMI), CHI-SI and many multinational IT companies.

He has published around 25 research articles in the national/international conferences and journals. He chaired and organized the National Conference on Multimedia Technology for Culture in year 2000. His technical article for 'GUI of the Future' contest won the PC Quest award in 2003. He was a member of international program committee of India-HCI 2004 conference. He was invited to share his experience of Remote Usability at the seminar on User Centred Design (UCD) organized by Indo-European Systems Usability Partnership (IESUP), along with professors from Uppsala University, Sweden at Mumbai in 2003.

During 2005-2008, he has delivered over 60 talks on wide ranging topics related to usability at academic, research and professional organizations.

Academic Contributions
He has been actively contributing to academics as well. He was a member of advisory council of Creative-i College, Pune.He has been the external guide and examiner for UG and PG design students from IIT Mumbai and IIT Guwahati. He designed the syllabus of Diploma in Advanced Computer Arts (DACA) program with the tool-independent approach in 1995. This educational program is offered through a network of ACTS centres across the country for over a decade now. It has produced over 2000 multimedia professionals so far. Many of these professionals are now contributing to the newly emerging domain of user-experience-design.

Proudest Moment
In 2004, he was invited at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, as part of the delegation, to present His Highness, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, President of India, the CD ROMs on 'Life and Work of Srinivasa Ramanujan'. The CDs were developed under his leadership. This is the proudest moment in his professional career so far.

Other Activities
In past, he has created / directed many video presentations and interactive multimedia involving significant amount of computer animation for C-DAC's Supercomputers and Language Technology Products. He regularly writes and publishes thought provoking articles (about 35 articles so far) related to HCI research in India on www.hceye.org. Apart from these activities, he has interest and skills in Indian classical singing (learnt it for 4.5 years), music composition, poetry, cartooning / caricaturing and animation.

My Roots in HCI...

In this section, I propose to narrate my journey in C-DAC since the beginning, to present the underpinning of my endeavors in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The roots of 'multimedia creations team' of C-DAC, Pune (now popularly known as National Multimedia Resource Centre) go back in 1993.

My first assignment was 'the foundation day of C-DAC' in 1993-94. I designed an animated sequence of 'electronic lamp lighting' using the Macintosh system for its inauguration. The music for this sequence was composed on PC, as we had installed one of the first sound cards from VideoLogic on it. We did not have the sound card for Macintosh.

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, the chief guest for the foundation day, was requested to click the mouse button to inaugurate the event. After clicking the mouse, it triggered the animation sequence, wherein a star from the sky dropped on the wick of lamp to light it. At this time, my colleague had to hide behind a wooden counter with his PC to manually trigger the music in synchronization with the animated sequence which was running on the Macintosh system.

This was the first time we faced cross-platform compatibility problem. The novelty of e-lamp appealed to everyone including Dr. Mashelkar, as later he borrowed the e-lamp to National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) for another event. I agreed to take the Macintosh and PC to NCL with a request to arrange a wooden counter for my colleague to hide behind! It was fun!

The e-lamp became so popular that Times of India published the news as 'High Tech C-DAC Inaugurates Foundation Day with Electronic Lamp'. This assignment earned me the legitimate space for my activities, as later I was entrusted with the responsibility to setup the 'Multimedia Creations Team' at C-DAC.

In 1994-1995, I was asked to design the corporate image of C-DAC. The objective was to justify the diversification of C-DAC into several technological spheres by visually representing these activities in a unified and integrated manner.

Although I never new about Human Computer Interaction (HCI) domain, my natural thinking prompted me to represent the 'Human' focus into the activities of C-DAC. I felt only human centric focus could justify all our efforts!

After looking at the corporate image, as shown above, Padmashree Dr. Vijay Bhatkar, founder Executive Director of C-DAC, titled it as 'Advanced Computing for Human Advancement'.

I was happy to find this image printed on the cover of Elitex 2005 brochure published by Ministry of ICT. This speaks for its relevance even after a decade has passed. And now HCI ideology, which epitomizes 'Human dimensions in computing', has taken over the technology domain. It is more relevant today than ever before!