John Vijay Abraham was born in Madras the capital city of the Tamil province of India. Starting-out with Electronics & Communications Engineering, as a student designed and developed systems in the National Institute of Ocean Technology to help scientists in their research concerned with marine life forms and the world's largest capacity OTEC which was designed and developed there. He went on to do his Master of Design at the Industrial Design Centre in the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; during which ‘has been into projects that address large sections of society, native traditions of niche people groups and cultural values that impact the relevance of design.. Especially in a context as complex as India's land and peoples... He also wrote 'Thinking Design' a column for a monthly national design publication and presented his work in many international conferences such as Doors of Perception & Transcultura... Thereafter he has consulted towards new product innovation & has been into starting a design firm with an Indian identity.

Research Title:
The Intangible Interface - Design of Interfaces and Future Systems based on Intangible Interactions

PhD Advisor:
Prof Ming Xi Tang

At the School of Design John is investigating mind-machine interfaces and associated intangible as the basis of future interactions between humans and machines that can drive change in the way we compute and architect information flow... With the way the digital landscape is expanding... we are left with input interfaces that are relatively ancient compared to the structures that information grows on. The way the interface impedes expression and creation of content is directly related to the purposes & needs for which such interfaces were originally designed.

With advances in neuroscience and new insights into the ways in which our minds through our brain works-out purposes & intentions... it is of great relevance to design to embrace these findings; since design hinges on purpose as the very foundation for all meaningful superstructures and iterations of design. Can we trace-out our thoughts into meaningful interactions and build interfaces and systems that redefine human interactions as not being limited by physical devices but set-free or constrained purely by the deliberations and out-workings of the mind? I set out to answer these questions and more; by creating an interface that hopefully gives us an idea of what the future holds...