Hello!

I am Arnab and here is a

peek into my work.

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[For best viewing experience,

Click ‘present’ or go to View>’Present’]

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I’m a/an

Designer. Mostly.

Artist. Rarely.

Technologist. Recently.

Human. Always.

I am a Brooklyn-based UX designer/ Creative Technologist with diverse experience designing and prototyping hardware and software interfaces.

Over the past decade, I have had the opportunity to work in diverse roles and contexts as a hybrid design/tech generalist in small product teams to specialized roles in large, multinational organizations.

I started my career as a UX researcher/ designer working in the Global south for many years.

I designed MVPs for start-ups as a part of their founding teams….

IDfy.com
I was the sole designer responsible for designing the UX and UI for the MVP which raised the first round of funding.

citizengage.com

Envisioned as the Uber for waste, I was a part of the founding team and led the design of the digital touch-points and played a big role in the system design and the pitch for the first round of funding.

citizengage.com
We were chosen at India’s top 30 start-ups in 2016 and were heavily featured across major publications.
Intro video: Link

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I worked at Philips across multiple domains….

Mom 2.0
MOM was a project close to my heart. Envisioned as a complete system to help improve maternal mortality rates in the global south, I was responsible for the UI/UX design and later leading a 3 people design team to deliver the final product.
Detailed case study: Link

Mom 2.0
MOM has been a major successful innovation for Philips and has been awarded multiple times by different organizations through its history.

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Product video: Link

Mom 2.0
MOM was a project close to my heart. Envisioned as a complete system to help improve maternal mortality rates in the global south, I was responsible for the UI/UX design and later leading a 3 people design team to deliver the final product.
Detailed case study: Link

Mom 2.0
MOM was a project close to my heart. Envisioned as a complete system to help improve maternal mortality rates in the global south, I was responsible for the UI/UX design and later leading a 3 people design team to deliver the final product.
Detailed case study: Link

Dubai Heart-safe City

The project between the Dubai Government and Philips healthcare was envisioned to increase the survival rate of sudden cardiac arrest in Dubai and aimed to break the world’s benchmark and achieve 65 per cent survival rate by 2020. I was the UX lead on the project working with stakeholders to define the experience flow, design strategy and UX needs and was responsible for anchoring all the design activities on a very tight timeline.

Dubai Heart-safe City

The project ended on a successful sign-off on a multi-million dollar contract and has grown bigger ever since. A lot of the work is under NDA and can be shared offline.

Inuka

Inuka was a mental health start-up inside Philips and I was responsible for turning the product

Vision into tangible digital touchpoints. I drove the UX/UI of the product across all its touchpoints till it was spun out as a separate company.

VR+Therapy

In 2017, I worked with a colleague of mine to create a pitch for Philips to look at VR as a potential medium for working with long-term therapy for chronic conditions. We hacked different controllers to create VR experiences including a glove that could measure hand pressure, EEG sensor to detect attention and gaze detection. We were recognized and awarded for our prototype and business model innovation.

VR+Mental Health

Left: A VR game to build muscle power

Middle: a VR experience that builds attention.

Right: A puzzle game that needs to be worked using gaze detection.

I came to NYU ITP for grad school to learn how to make what I design…

I ended up getting pretty good with electronics, microcontrollers, fabrication which combined with my background in UX design led me to new paths….

The box

The box is an escape room in a...box. I built the hardware, UI and was responsible for the game design and programming.

Detailed case study: Link

And its second life, the box became a part of an immersive experience...

The Rogue’s Gallery

Working with Broken Ghost Immersives where I am working a technical director, the box became an evil supercomputer that helped players achieve world dominion to become the biggest, baddest super-villain. I designed the world UI as well as the digital hardware infrastructure and lighting systems. We opened to great reviews and we were supposed to expand on it in 2020 but *sigh*.... Review.

Verbal Gymnastics

Earlier this year, I, as a part of Broken Ghost Immersives, got a grant from CMU’s Studio for Creative Inquiry to build a playable work about the Bill of Rights. We are working on an interactive installation/game which focuses on Jury selection. We got the grant last week and this work is in very early stages.

ASCAP+NYC Media Lab

As a part of a fellowship with NYC Media Lab and ASCAP last year, I built an innovative silicone sensor which expanded the expressivity of musical surfaces with a view to expand the paradigm under which digital musical instruments are built and played.

Verbal Gymnastics

Earlier this year, I, as a part of Broken Ghost Immersives, got a grant from CMU’s Studio for Creative Inquiry to build a playable work about the Bill of Rights. We are working on an interactive installation/game which focuses on Jury selection. We got the grant last week and this work is in very early stages.

ASCAP+NYC Media Lab

We were selected as the top two teams to present our work at the NYC Media Lab summit and discuss the future of musical instruments with music legend Vernon Reid of Living Color.

Verbal Gymnastics

Earlier this year, I, as a part of Broken Ghost Immersives, got a grant from CMU’s Studio for Creative Inquiry to build a playable work about the Bill of Rights. We are working on an interactive installation/game which focuses on Jury selection. We got the grant last week and this work is in very early stages.

Stretchable circuits

Building on this work, I have been working towards creating a new fabrication techniques to create truly stretchable electronic devices.

ITP Weather Band

Envisioned as a community art project, I was responsible for technical development of the original weather station, writing the APIs for fetching data from the database and its debut performance at the Network Music Festival . Project link.

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SWITCH-IT: ABILITY Lab, Tandon School of Engineering, NYU

Switch-it is a hardware box emulator that lets people with low mobility use their assistive technology devices such as sip and puff devices and accessibility switches with their computer. This project won a grant from the RUSK-Transformer challenge as is being currently developed.

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Franklin’s Secret City:

I was responsible for prototyping the user experience and the architecture for the bluetooth communication for a site-specific multiplayer mobile augmented reality audio theater experience which are triggered by two users’ server-connected phones as well as by Bluetooth beacons located around the site. Link.

Follow: A two-player cooperative game

I was responsible for building the hardware and controller for Marie Claire Flannegan’s game as a part of her NYU Game Center residency which was exhibited at No:Quarter.

Upcoming Projects...

Pulse:GROVExGoogle (Collaboration with Shilo Suleman + THE Workshop)

Pulse is an interactive installation by artist Shilo Shiv Suleman at Burning Man that will be installed at the Google HeadQuarters in San Francisco. My role is to build the technical architecture of the installation.

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Shall make, shall be (CMU artist grant)

As a part of my Artist Residency at The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO For Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, I am currently building a playable installation on the 7th Amendment of the Bill of Rights as a part of Shall Make, Shall Be: the Bill of Rights at Play. The work will be exhibited at the Federal Hall for the general audience in downtown Manhattan in December. More details.

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And I teach….

Homemade Hardware

A 2 day workshop on how to build circuits using an other-mill and EAGLE-CAD.

NYU Tandon + Unity

I am the instructor on the VR module for NYU Tandon’s Unity Immersive certificate program.

To know more about me, you can view my resume/CV here

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Or get in touch with me @ arnab.chaky@gmail.com

Fin