Shivaprasad Khened

Director
Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai
 
Shri Shivaprasad Khened, an alumni of the prestigious Sainik School Bijapur, is
an Electronics and Communication Engineer who started his professional career
working with two multinational companies, Hewlett Packard and Intel before
joining the Government service in 1986 and ever since he has been working in
different capacity in major science museums and science centres across India.
Shri Khened has served as the Director of National Science Centre, New Delhi,
Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum, Bangalore and currently he is
serving as the Director of the Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai. Khened also has
the distinction of holding the additional charge of Director of the prestigious
National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (NGMA) a subordinate of the Ministry of
Culture, Government of India NGMA, during the period from February 2013 to
October 2018.
 
Shri Khened has Curated several science and technology related exhibitions and
has published more than 70 popular science and research papers in science
communication and history of science and technology in India and has also
presented papers in national and international conferences and seminars. He
has also published 5 exhibition catalogues and other monograms. He writes
extensively on various science and art issues in newspapers and also on his
Face Book posts. Shri Khened has an unique distinction of acting as the sole
India coordinator nodal officer (scientist) for the highly acclaimed exhibition
“Illuminating India: 5000 Years of Science and Innovation in India”, which was
presented at the prestigious Science Museum, London during the period
October 2017 to April 2018.

Shri Khened was responsible for the establishment of three new Science
Centres in south India namely; Regional Science Centre, Dharwad, Regional
Science Centre, Coimbatore and Regional Science Centre, Pilikula and he is
currently developing a Regional Science Centre in Kottayam and in Udaipur,
Rajasthan. He has also established two new Science and Innovation Activity
Centres for the Government of Maharashtra and is working on 2 more Science
and Innovation Activity centres. He was one of the team leaders responsible for
the curation and development- on turnkey basis - the National Museum of
Indian Cinema, which was opened by the Hon. Prime Minister of India in January
2018 at the Films Division, Mumbai. Khened has curated several well-
researched exhibitions some of the prominent ones include the Human Genome
and Beyond, Century of Nobel Prizes, life and works of Sir M. Visvesvaraya,
Ramanujan - the Man who Knew Infinity, Human Biology, Our Science and
Technology Heritage, Information Revolution ( it won the prestigious Dibner
award instituted by the Smithsonian Institution), Water the Elixir of life, Our
Science and Technology Heritage, Pulses: The Future of Food, Emerging
Technology, Our Body Guards etc.
 
He is serving as a member of several national committees of cultural and
scientific institutions, including member of the prestigious National Steering
Committee on Science Olympiads, National Screening and Evaluation
Committee, International Museum Exhibitions Committee, Executive Committee
of Nehru Centre, etc and he also served as the organising committee member of
the prestigious India Science Congress 2015, which was held in Mumbai.
 
Shri Khened was responsible in bringing internationally acclaimed exhibition
“Network of Innovation” from the Noble Museum, Sweden, to the National
Science Centre, New Delhi. He also has to his credit various national and
international art exhibitions, which were organised at the National Gallery of
Modern Art, Mumbai prominent among them include an exhibition
Deconstructed Innings: A tribute to Sachin Tendulkar, Amrita Sher Gill,
Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, and others.
 
Shri Khened has curated, designed and developed three international
exhibitions as a part of the Festival of India, on “Cricket Connects” in South
Africa (2014), Australia (2016) and Cricket Connects India-UK (2017), which
were organised in respective countries.
 
He is a recipient of the prestigious 16th NES, Jagadguru Shankaracharya, H.H,
Sri Jayendrasaraswathi, National Eminence Award in 2017 for science education.
He was nominated for the prestigious, United Kingdom (UK) Eastern Eye Arts,
Culture and Theatre Awards 2018 (ACTA Awards) for the Curation of the Cricket
Connects: India – England Cricket Relations exhibition, under the category of
Eastern Eye Community Engagement Award Category. Under his leadership the
Nehru Science Centre, was awarded the National Award (2017) for the best
Communication Campaign (External Publics) instituted by the Public Relations
Society of India.
He is also the recipient of the Smithsonian Institution fellowship.