Poovaiah has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras, a degree in Product Design and Graphic Arts from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, USA and an M.Tech. degree from IIT Bombay.[4] At IIT Bombay, Poovaiah holds the D L Shah Chair for Innovation. He is the Coordinator of the 'e-Kalpa' project,[3] that is sponsored by the MHRD, co-director of ‘The Centre of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC)’, a collaborative initiative between IIT Bombay, the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore[5] and the principal investigator of the D'Source project.[6] Poovaiah has been instrumental in pushing for open sourcing of design[7] and design education in schools.[3]
^Design for Tomorrow―Volume 1: Proceedings of ICoRD 2021: 221 (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies). Singapore: Springer. 20 May 2021. p. 983. ISBN978-9811600401.
^Design for Tomorrow―Volume 3: Proceedings of ICoRD 2021: 223 (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies) (First ed.). Springer. 26 April 2021. p. 837. ISBN978-9811600838.
