Hello, I am Rajesh Nair

Engineer | Designer | Entrepreneur | Educator

On a mission to nurture a million children and youth into innovators and entrepreneurs in under-served communities.

"WHAT IF WE CAN CREATE A MILLION
INNOVATORS AND ENTREPRENEURS IN COMMUNITIES?"

They would create jobs, build wealth, and transform communities from the bottom up. But can innovators and entrepreneurs be created?

My twelve years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Asia School of Business, and EnCube Labs have shown that we could nurture ordinary youth and children to take on innovation and entrepreneurship by building their skillset and mindset and creating ecosystems in their community.

The entrepreneurs I met, who grew up in under-resourced communities where opportunities were slim but found their inner potential and drive to break out to find their calling, inspired this research.

Over thirty years of my career, I have been an engineer, designer, entrepreneur, and educator. I was fortunate to have gone through such broad experiences in technology, business, and education. My current mission is to use this experience to nurture future innovators and entrepreneurs from the youth in remote and underserved communities by transforming them and, in turn, their communities.

Research

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Visiting Scholar & Tata Fellow

Asia School of Business

Professor of Practice & Founding Faculty

EnCube Labs

Research & Development

Ehime University

Visiting Professor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship

"The entrepreneurs I met, who grew up in under-resourced communities where opportunities were slim but found their inner potential and drive to break out to find their calling, inspired this research."

Research Publication

A New Approach to Nurturing Future Changemakers

This research presents a new approach to preparing the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs through maker education, design thinking, and entrepreneurship.

Developed in collaboration with researchers at Ehime University, Japan, the paper introduces the Zero2Entrepreneur (Z2E) Framework and explores how schools and universities can become the foundation of regional innovation ecosystems.

Read the complete research paper

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Research Publication

A Universal Part Library Scheme for Makerspaces

This research presents a Universal Part Library Scheme (UPLS) for makerspaces, Fab Labs, and Tinker Labs—an open-source, hierarchical standard for categorizing and identifying components across electronic, mechanical, and consumable categories.

Developed through the Zero2Maker initiative, the scheme uses a structured coding format and a reference library of over 200 parts to improve design sharing, inventory management, and cross-institutional collaboration in the academic maker community.

Read the complete research paper

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Thirty Years of Transformation

Over thirty years of my career, I have been an engineer, designer, entrepreneur, and educator. I was fortunate to have gone through such broad experiences in technology, business, and education.

My current mission is to use this experience to nurture future innovators and entrepreneurs from the youth in remote and underserved communities by transforming them and, in turn, their communities.

Zero2Maker Graphic Workbooks

Comic-style workbooks that teach engineering, design, and innovation through hands-on projects.

The Zero2Maker Graphic Workbooks bring STEM, design and entrepreneurship to life for school students. Through illustrated stories and step-by-step project activities, each workbook helps learners build practical skills in ideation, prototyping, 3D design, circuits and basic coding. These workbooks are ideal for classrooms, makerspaces, and after-school programs.

Students learn by doing: they read a comic story, follow guided challenges, prototype solutions and present results — building creativity, problem solving and confident communication. Want to see sample pages or request printed sets? Use the sample link (or contact us) to get started.

Current release includes: VIEWS — Engineering Drawing; Perspectives; Creating 3D Object with 2D Parts; 3D CAD; Designing Simple Machines; Introduction to Electrical Circuits; Intro to Coding; Ideation; Product System Design; User Experience Design; Storytelling.

Trust and Team

I came across this old video on how to hire your team members and cofounders.

Building the right team is fundamental to any successful venture. This video shares insights and strategies for identifying, selecting, and working with team members and cofounders who share your vision and values.

Pre-Entrepreneurship Development Framework

My experience with teaching creativity and technology to students from schools and universities from different parts of the world has convinced me that intelligence is uniformly distributed everywhere. That means that we are not developing the available human potential in most parts of the world, especially where it is badly needed. What if we could create problem-solvers and entrepreneurs in such places? How can we transform individuals and communities by creating entrepreneurs? That was the drive behind my work for the past eight years. This framework and training process to build the mindset and skill-set for entrepreneurship was developed through my research experiments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Asia School of Business. The experiments have shown that Pre-entrepreneurs, who are ready to take on their next steps in solution creation and venture building, can be nurtured. The process has been used in more than fifty workshops in seven countries, reaching more than two thousand participants.

Education

Master's degrees

M.S. Engineering & Management — Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Tata Fellowship. Thesis: "Catalyzing Entrepreneurship from the Ground Up: An Experiment in Small-Town India." Advisor: Prof Charles Fine (MIT Sloan).
M.S. Manufacturing Engineering — University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Thesis: "Tool wear estimation in turning through tool force analysis." Advisor: Prof Kourosh Danai.

Postgraduate Diploma

PG Diploma, Electronic Product Design — Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Final project: "Development of Portable Hand-Held Terminal for Field Data Collection." Advisor: Mr K. Krishnakumar.

Bachelor's degrees

B.E. Electronics & Communications — Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
B.S. Physics — Kerala University

Patents & Publications

Patents

2015 – Energy saving method for room level heating and cooling system
2012 – Heat exchanger for data center
2010 – Airflow sensor for filter blockage detection
2009 – Fan conducted noise reduction
2009 – Air flow controller for electrical equipment holder
2008 – Multi-stage blower
2007 – Pulsed thermistor sensor

2005 – Uniform heat dissipating and cooling heat sink
2005 – Intelligent networked fan assisted tiles for adaptive thermal management of thermally sensitive rooms
2004 – Air flow sensor using measurement of rate of heat loss
2001 – Intelligent internal fan controller
1997 – Digital, Back EMF, single coil sampling, sensorless commutator system for a DC motor
1996 – Self learning diaper wetness detector and toilet trainer

Publications

2020 – Incubating Future Innovators and Entrepreneurs
2019 – A Longitudinal Study among Young Latent Entrepreneurs in Rural India
2019 – Maker Education as an Early Intervention to Catalyze the Development of Pre-entrepreneurs in Underserved Communities

2019 – Scalable Makerspace in the Rural Community
2018 – Pre-Entrepreneurs-in-India | Poster
2018 – The Imapct and Ripple Effect of Maker Training

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Workshops Conducted Worldwide

Explore the global reach of workshops in Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship

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Some Cases / Video Testimonials

Zero2Maker Fitchburg

Students from high school and community college in Fitchburg attended a 2-day Zero2Maker workshop on design, creativity, technology, and fabrication. The teams created their final multi-disciplinary project, a toy for a pet.

Zero2Maker Kedah (Alor Setar, Malaysia, 2019)

We built maker labs in ten rural government schools in Kedah to study students' confidence and learning skill development. This nine-month experiment continued later in Mysore, India.

Innovation Intervention (AirAsia)

Seven workshops were conducted for AirAsia to introduce more than 200 AllStars to creativity, design thinking, and problem-solving to build an internal ecosystem of disruptive thinkers.

MIT–Make in India: Zero2Entrepreneur Workshop (2015)

A 4-week residential boot camp conducted in India for MIT students and Indian universities. Participants learned design, making, problem identification, solution development, and entrepreneurship basics.

Zero2Maker Ecosystem Development (Mysuru, India, 2019)

A 6-month experiment training rural school students (ages 13–14), establishing a maker lab, and mentoring them. Over 2,500 students were exposed to making and technology skills, showing major improvements in confidence and self-learning.

Innovation Intervention (UOB)

Trained almost 60 young management trainees from multiple Southeast Asian countries in innovation, disruptive thinking, problem-solving, technology, and entrepreneurship.