Meet Kiran Jesudasan

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kiran Jesudasan.

Hi Kiran, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a transportation systems designer and strategist based in Pasadena, CA. I’m originally from a little town in India called Vellore but have moved around a lot before coming here six years ago. Nothing fascinates me more than movement. Things and machines that move, people as they move through cities, cars through traffic, and cars attempting to move through traffic. Oh, and planes. Let’s not forget planes. One of the nice things about getting to move around a lot was getting to experience the symphony of movement on display through the oval-shaped windows from window seats. I’d try and draw every little vehicle around the plane and observe all the specific little something they were doing. This super system, seeming like chaos but perfectly synced was beyond intriguing, all to get the plane into the air and back down again, even more magically, with fully fed passengers on board and for the most part with the stuff they brought. The complexity of what it took for everything to work fascinated me. I’ve moved around a lot. I was fortunate to have lived in Bhutan as a baby, elementary school in India, Middle school in Baltimore, High School back in India, undergrad in Malaysia then worked in a few places in India before coming to LA for grad school at ArtCenter College of Design. I wasn’t particularly good at school early on, but history appealed to the part of me that liked complex things. Seemingly unrelated but complex things.

But like my other textbooks, the history ones were peppered with doodles of cars, planes, ships, spaceships, and more. I did product design because it was an avenue to the world of production, design and it makes you intimately familiar with how and why people use things. I got to do some really cool things before undergrad, like designing a prosthetic hand for the Indian Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which was producible on a large scale for a very affordable price. After graduating from undergrad, I worked at Volkswagen India, then as a freelance designer in India but always looking for something deeper. Working on cars, seeing the assembly line, and watching them come to life was unbelievable and I had a blast, testing systems under real-world conditions but do we need cars for everyday use? Are there cities that use cars less? Why is every developing country rushing to build more cars when developed ones are advocating for cycle use? I experienced the usual existentialist dread that comes from being too tunneled visioned and I stretched out into design and research for a c-suite training firm and a health and education NGO working with tribal communities in southern India. I was still stuck on transportation though, and that’s what brought me to LA. The irony, I know. Where else can one love and hate how people move so much. Here I got to ask the big questions, ones that live in the fringe area between economics, politics, technology, and learn how design’s role is critical as we look to build more circular sustainable systems.

I got to work on flying cars, on autonomous vehicles, on machine learning algorithms that help ride-hailing drivers and passengers connect easier in otherwise impossible scenarios, how cities and private companies can work together and leverage each other’s strengths. This was amazing. The opportunity to learn how to shape ideas and ways of making systems that design was historically never privy to was surreal. I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing local municipalities and urban design and automotive planning firms. I’ve even gotten involved with exploring how flying cars can fit into the rideshare context. More recently, I’ve worked as a transportation designer, researcher, and strategist at two incredible startups. I currently work with some of the smartest people in the world, looking to bring benefits of autonomous transportation but in a way that engages cities, policymakers and provides transparency between the development of the technology and the people who represent our interests. Complicated is an understatement but the world is starting to see that successfully bringing about any technology with huge potential benefits requires the input of several and in many cases differing voices. To be a part of this journey has been and continues to be very tough and a huge privilege.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Nope. Moving around a lot as a kid is not easy. Moving to Baltimore for middle school was particularly hard. In India, a student stays in a single class and teachers move around. Here you move and teachers stay put. Also, what are lockers? And why do we need them? In hindsight moving around is amazing, you learn about different cultures, experience different food, and generally learn to see the world at a much more global scale, and right now, I don’t experience culture shock. I’m more curious to explore a place I’ve never been to and never anxious. But at the time, it was brutal. Making friends never came easy to me, paired with a complete lack of common interests at first, took its toll but in time it worked out and was an excellent learning experience. My dad passed away when I was 8. The tragedy still leaves its marks, but it also showed me how fortunate I am and have been because of the strength of my mom. She taught me that life is tough, there’s simply no preparation or anticipating how bad things can get. It’s how you deal with the hard times is what matters. People can use any experience or memory as justification to do anything. Good or bad. One’s mindset is everything. Also, exercise a lot, stress is bad, endorphins are good. They will help. Also, generally speaking, being in an early stage start-up is fascinating. There are tons of ups and tons of downs, seemingly daily because things happen so fast. It’s been tough coming to terms with the roller coaster ride but like everything, it’s an amazing learning experience.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I work at an early-stage startup called dRISK.ai where I’m the transportation systems designer and strategist. We build software to test how safe autonomous vehicles are. We do that by mapping out all the weird things that have caused or can cause accidents, then we re-create simulations of those events and feed those simulations to the brains of these autonomous vehicles to see how it handles that scenario before it ever faces it in real life. I build out the simulation capabilities, I work on how we integrate with policy bodies, communicate with investors, customers, and I’m responsible for figuring out what we’re missing in our tests and how we can get them. Also, I work on finding more customers and partners and define how we can work together. I make outreach material and define our value to a diverse audience, cities, insurers, autonomous vehicle developers, car companies. I’ve been fortunate to be a part of and contribute to the World Economic Forum’s group that’s looking to bring together leading policymakers and developers of the technology and architect new forms of safety forward policy. My work and the team’s collective work have been featured across multiple media outlets that focus on transformative technology.

We’ve been fortunate to present at organizations that shape technical standards globally. What I try and bring to the table that makes me different is an understanding of the macro forces around access and transportation and I use that understanding to round out discussions. The technical narrative behind autonomous vehicles is that they have the potential for bringing about equitable mobility, save lives, and improve the flow of goods and services. However, it requires people and industries to come together like never before, car companies, city regulators, insurers, and everyone else who could be impacted by them, which in truth could be everyone. Only together can we actualize and then utilize the benefits of this new technology, ensure that it is safe, and incorporates input from the vast number of stakeholders, and communicated to everyone not just the people in the board room. I see myself as sitting right in the middle and contributing to this ever-fluctuating space.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking?
I see the act of taking risks as just an unavoidable byproduct of living in a fast-paced world. If the unknown is scary, it usually means there are aspects of that something you aren’t familiar with that causes worry. Design work taught me early on that the solution isn’t something that you should presume to know. Trust the process, leave biases at the door, and though you may (and probably will) find yourself in unfamiliar territory, there are lots of things to learn on the way. I tend to take risks and I’m the type of person who’s a bit of a contrarian and if someone says something can’t be done, I like disproving them. Traveling halfway across the world, leaving family and friends behind was risky, pursuing the creative fields is also risky, and being in an early-stage startup is inherently risky, not currently because we’re just that aaaaaamazing, but generally speaking, it is. But if this year has taught me anything it’s that nothing is set in stone and things can change very quickly, whether at a global or personal level. The only certain thing is change. So far, coming to terms with it helps me view things not as risky or not risky but where’s there an opportunity to learn more.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.drisk.ai
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/drisk_ai

Image Credits:
drisk.ai