About Us
VisoNxt is undertaking a mammoth task of amalgamating the plurality of India through an expression of fashion foresights that is indegenous and unique to this country. While India has 22 official languages, it is a home to 121 languages and 270 mother tongues. It houses hundreds of different tribes, and inhabits every major religion in the world. It is a tropical country with varied climatic conditions within the country. This diversity makes India a unique subject to research and understand in the context of fashion consumption and human expression. India is also one of the youngest countries in the world with more than 62% of the population in the working age group (15-59 years) and more than 54% of the total population below 25 years of age. This young demographic is impacting the lifestyle, mindset and fashion in India and needs to be mapped to derive insights from emerging cohorts.
VisioNxt maps these distinct plurality, diversity, complexity, and converts it into meaningful insights which can be employed to derive industry specific strategies to harness the soft power of fashion. These authentic, geo-specific fashion insight reports enable the Indian textile, fashion and retail industry to create targeted products for Indian consumers.
VisioNxt is housed in Chennai and New Delhi. As hubs of VisioNxt core activities, the data is harnessed at the Insights lab in Chennai and its creative expression through trends and styles, colors and regional accents is developed in Delhi in the ‘Creative lab’. These core labs are connected across the nation through a systematic human network that is further aided by a ‘VisioNxt app’, developed inhouse to ensure data security and accessibility following all ethical guidelines.
VisioNxt, a Trend Insight and Forecasting Lab at NIFT, is funded by the Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India under their Research & Development scheme. National Institute of Fashion Technology is uniquely positioned to execute the project due its network of 18 campuses across the nation, inhouse expertise and a robust alumni network that spans the entire landscape of the fashion industry in this country across clothing, textiles, lifestyle, and retail.
Visionxt has successfully designed an indigenous trend forecasting system called ‘Deep Vision’ using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Emotional Intelligence (EI).
About Ministry of Textiles
The Ministry of Textiles is an Indian government national body responsible for the formulation of policy, planning, development, export promotion and regulation of the textile industry in India. This includes all natural, artificial, and cellulosic fibers that go into the making of textiles, clothing and Handicrafts.
Read more at http://ministryoftextiles.gov.in/
About NIFT
Set up in 1986, NIFT is the pioneering institute of fashion education in the country and has been in the vanguard of providing professional human resource to the textile and apparel industry. It was made a statutory institute in 2006 by an Act of the Indian Parliament with the President of India as ‘Visitor’ and has full fledged campuses all across the country. Over the years NIFT has also been working as a knowledge service provider to the Union and State governments in the area of design development and positioning of handlooms and handicrafts.
Read more at https://nift.ac.in/
Meet Our Team
The VisioNxt team comprises academicians, researchers, professionals and creatives from various domains. It amalgamates experience and youth that is passionate towards constantly evolving socio- cultural mindsets in India to interpret dynamic stories and data across sectors.
VisioNxt is committed to being an inclusive work space with no discrimination on any basis.
Dr. Kaustav Sengupta, Director - Insights
Dr. Kaustav SenGupta (a youth marketing expert, fashion trend analyst, design mentor , AI enabler, futurist, color psychologist, award winning academician) is the Associate Professor at NIFT. He is one of the most awarded NIFT alumni with 4 gold medals (best academics, best design collection, most innovative design collection, jury's special award). His more than 20 years of expertise has helped many international brands to establish themselves in Indian subcontinent.
He has consulted for Zara, Nike, Lenovo, Mountain Dew, Scull Candy, BBC, Nokia, BCL, Groupe Adeo- France, Hyundai, Vodafone, Nippon etc. he also heads (honorary) a research & direction team of young Indians which is organically growing and now has a network of more than 2000+ young trend-spotters/ youth fashion trend scouts across India. This initiative is called INgene (established in 2007), the first ever youth trend research Lab in India with niche expertise in socio-psychology, lifestyle deep dive, product testing, consumer networking.
Kaustav has published more than 29 papers and articles, delivered lectures in 5 international forums and continuously researching on youth subcultures, color psychology and creative education with experts like Ted Polhemus (www.tedpolhemus.com) and Ruby Pseudo.
He has delivered speeches and presented papers on color, design, fashion and youth Marketing at London College of Fashion, IIT Madras, CII, FICCI, NIT, TEDxYouth, ThinkEdu conference etc. He is in the panel of PYMCA UK, Ruby Pseudo UK, Titan Industries Paradox Panel, Asian Paints ColorsNext, NIT NeN conference etc. Professor SenGupta is the organizer of TEDxYouth Chennai.
He co-heads (Director, Insights) the first-ever AI-enabled Fashion forecast initiative in India (VisioNxt) that addresses the plurality of this nation. This mega-initiative is supported by the Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India and conducted under NIFT.
Professor SenGupta has Co-founded InkLink Trust (a trust under 12AA and 80G) in the year 2014 which has imparted creative education and eco-awareness to more than 2500 underprivileged youth across the nation.
Read more about him: www.kaustavsengupta.net
Dr. Shalini Sood Sehgal, Director - Creative
Dr. Shalini Sood Sehgal (a fashion trend insight, consumer futurist expert, design mentor, and academician) is a Professor at NIFT. She has trained and worked with many brands in India over the last 26 years of her career. She has successfully led a trend forecasting cell for the Indian Leather Industry creating design insights and original leather surfaces for the manufacturers in India and doing product developments for some of the biggest international brands. She has many papers to her credit and she has also presented papers in National and International forums in the area of fashion trends, design, and design education.
Dr. Sibichan Mathew, Director - Associate
Teach, Research and Disseminate forms the major role as a faculty. As a Head of Industry and Alumni Affairs I am responsible the placement, internships and other industry engagements of roughly 2000 students belonging to 9 different programmes in Design, Technology and Management Programmes from 15 different campuses. I also coordinate the 15000+ network of NIFT Alumni at present.
Professor. Dr. M.K. Gandhi Director - Associate
Career span of 29 years - spread over programming - software development - implementation - training - skill upgradation - Project management - diagnostic study - coordinating fashion shows - expertise in audio visuals -Curriculum development - Academic process automation
Dr. Kishore Kumar Ravi AI Engineer
Dr R Kishore Kumar is a Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) major, and has received his Doctorate degree from IIT Kharagpur. His strengths lie in speech processing, image processing, and artificial Intelligence. Dr R Kishore Kumar is working as an Assistant Professor at NIFT, Chennai and currently deputed as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineer in the VisioNxt Project. Beyond his multiple academic achievements, he is also a car enthusiast and likes to spend his time playing various sports.
Ms. Poornima S, Insights Lead (Fashion)
Poornima is an Accessory Design Graduate and she describes herself as a curious-creative. Adventurous and outdoorsy, she loves activities that pump up her adrenaline. Consumer research as a broader interest, she is keen in exploring internet studies and is exploring Data Analytics on the side.
Harini Srinivas, Content Manager
A textile design graduate, Harini aspires to be interdisciplinary in her design approach. A curious learner, her interests are myriad ranging from psychology to sartorial. Through writing, art and design she aims to exist at versatile intersections in a pursuit of understanding the human condition.
Darsana Karthikeyan, Trend Spotting Assistant
Darsana Karthikeyan is a Knitwear Design graduate and an experimental knitter. With a keen eye for fashion trends and an expertise in knitwear, she enjoys pushing the boundaries of traditional techniques and materials to create one-of-a-kind pieces. She’s passionate about trend analysis, social media marketing and crafting unique handknits.
Chaitri Patel, Trend Spotting Assistant
Chaitri is a Fashion Communication graduate from NIFT with a penchant for storytelling through words and fashion. Her expertise lies in her appreciation of aesthetics, meticulousness, and inquisitiveness, which allow her to bring these narratives to life. She is also a Bachelor of Performing Arts in Bharatnatyam and an avid reader.
