vCardProf. Sugata Mitra

Prof. Sugata Mitra
Prof of Educational Technology

I am interested in self organising systems, particularly for primary education.

Research Interests

1978: The relationship between the structure and function of organic molecules
Through an interesting thought experiment and a large amount of computation showed that the properties of the Pthalocyanine group of molecules depend on their shapes more than on the constituent atoms. Later applied this thinking to automatic typographic design.
Ref: Crystal Structure Sensitivity of the Band Structure of Organic Semiconductors, S.C. Mathur and S. Mitra, J.Phys.C Solid State, Vol 12 No.2 1979 (UK).

1982: A correlation between location and sensitivity of human sense organs
A speculative concept connecting physiology and quanta that could be of seminal interest to robotics today.
Ref: A Correlation between the Location and Sensitivity of Human Sense Organs, A.K. Bannerjee and S.Mitra, Spec. Science and Tech. Vol 5 No2 pg 141, 1982 (Australia).

1983: A diagnostic method for computer programming training
A simple and powerful method that involves detection of bugs purposely put into a program. Currently used for software quality control in several companies including Motorola.
Ref: Sugata Mitra and R.S.Pawar, Data Training, Vol2, No3, February 1983 (USA).

1985: Distributed processing over Local Area Networks
One of the earliest methods for breaking down large computational and database problems into smaller segments for simultaneous processing by many small computers. Reduced the cost of database publishing hardware by several orders of magnitude.
Ref: Computers Today, October 1988, pg 73 (India).

1988: Hyperlinking
A concept for non-linear interconnection of “Hyper-screens” left over from application programs after they have completed execution. This gives a general framework for the development of almost all multimedia and virtual reality applications as well as a new and wider meaning to graphical user interfaces.
Ref: Imaginet: An Associative, Non-sequential multimedia Storage and Retrieval System
S.Mitra and Ajay Magon, Multmedia Computer and Communications: Technology, Application and Enterprise (INFOCOM ‘92), Tata McGraw Hill pg 20-30, November 5-7, 1992, Bombay (India)
Also: Sunday Magazine, August 11, 1993 (India).

1991: The Virtual Organism
A concept that extrapolates beyond the Graphical User Interface to schemes that interact with a user in an organic, multisensory manner. Integrates Database management Systems, Multimedia, Neural Networks and Expert Systems using the Left and Right Brain model.
Ref: Artificial Intelligence and India, IEEE Asia Pacific Horizon, Jan’93-Mar’93, Pg54 (India).

1993: Effect of damage on Neural Networks
Started in the late eighties, among the first workers to suggest that artificial neural networks can be used to gain an understanding of brain malfunction in diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Ref: Proc. 1994 IEEE/SMC Conference, Vol.1, Pg 989 (USA).

1994: Storage and Retrieval of Human Personality
Current work continuing on the intriguing possibility of a digital, multisensory personality system that would encapsulate the basic graphical, vocal, mental and attitudinal characteristics of a person.
Ref: Telegraph, Calcutta, Monday, May 29 1995 (India).

1996: The Cognitive User Interface
Using the psychological principles underlying human personality and communication, this is an attempt at constructing user interfaces that proact (instead of react) and adapt to human needs.
This work is continuing.

1997: Meaning in Binary Strings
Using simple analytical techniques, this is an attempt to determine where “meaning” lies in binary string representations of media objects.
This work is continuing.
Ref: Dataquest (India), May 31, (1998)

1999: Minimally Invasive Education
A set of experiments that set out to investigate the processes by which children self-instruct each other in skill areas. The experiments involve constructing outdoor Internet kiosks in rural and semi-urban areas, particularly where economically disadvantaged children live. The children are exposed to the technology with no instruction whatsoever. It is observed that they reach close to the levels of city children with no difficulty. Additional effects such as management skills, social skills, behaviour changes and acquisition of the English language has been observed as well.
This work is continuing.
Ref: Mitra, Sugata et al., (2005), Acquisition of Computer Literacy on Shared Public Computers: Children and the “Hole in the wall”, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 21(3), 407-426

Current Work

Educational Technology for remote and rural areas.

Selected Publications

More Publications

Projects

Future Research

Self organising systems

Postgraduate Supervision

Ph.D. supervision of students of 5 students.

Esteem Indicators

Top Four Esteem Indicators:

(1) 2006, invited member of the 11th Five Year Plan for India (board for Human Resource Development and the board for Research and Development). These are the highest level planning excercises done by the Government of India.

(2) Best Education Research Article in an Open Access Journal for 2005, The Communication of Research Special Interest Group of the Amwerican Educational Research Association, 2006.

(3) Invited keynote speaker, 4th Pan-Commonwealth Forum, Keynote, 1000 educatotrs, November 2006, The Commonwealth of Learning, Jamaica.

(4) The Dewang Mehta award for innovation in IT, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India, 2005.

__________

Keynote speeches- including LEA conferences

Invited speaker - LIFT II 2007 conference on technology and society, February 7-9, 2007, Geneva, Switzerland

Invited speaker - Templeton Foundation's Global Leadership Forum, December 2006, Nassau, the Bahamas

Invited keynote speaker – “4th Pan Commonwealth Forum”, November, 2006, Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Invited plenary speaker – “FAAPI conference of teachers”, August 2005, Santa Fe, Argentina

Invited keynote speaker – “Intel Innovation in Education”, April 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Invited keynote speaker – “Science and Mathematics Education for the 21st Century”, June 2003, Alexandria, Egypt.

Invited keynote speaker – “On line learning”, May 2002, Singapore.
Invited papers Invited speaker – “Global Education Conference”, December 2004, Edinburgh, UK.

Invited Guest speaker – “William H. Donner Foundation – Italian Embassy screening of the film “Hole in the Wall” – Washington DC, USA.

Invited Guest speaker – “PINC.5”, May 2004, Zeist, The Netherlands.

Invited Guest presentation – “Hole in the Wall”, March 2004, International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, USA.

Invited Guest speaker – “The consortium for School Networking”, March 2004, the World Bank, Washington DC, USA.

Invited Guest speaker – “Socio economic impact of ICT”, July, 2003, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia.

Invited Guest speaker – “UN Premiere – the Hole in the Wall”, February, 2003, The United Nations, New York USA.

Invited Guest speaker – “Man of Peace”, Feb 2003, the Together for Peace Foundation, Rome, Italy.

Invited Guest speaker – “World Education Markets conference” May 2002, Lisbon, Portugal.

Invited Guest speaker – “Educational Freedom”, March 2002, Newcastle, UK.

Invited Guest lecturer for the Professor B. Nag Memorial Lecture, March 2002, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

Invited Guest speaker – “Learning Technologies Conference” UNESCO, Jan 2002, Paris France.

Invited Guest speaker – “The Commonwealth People’s festival”, IDP Australia, October 2001, Brisbane, Australia.

Invited Guest speaker – “Australian International education conference”, Sydney, Australia, October 2001.

Invited Guest speaker – “Developing global capacity through international education”, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia, October 2001.

Invited Guest speaker –“Development by Design Conference”, MIT, Boston, USA. , 2001

Invited Guest speaker – “Visual Communication 101” conference, Synapse, June 2001, Goa, India.

Invited Guest speaker – “ICT workshop” Hong Kong Institute of Education, April 2001, Hong Kong, China.

Invited Guest speaker – “ORO Teachers Conference” Doors of Perception, January 2001, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Invited Guest speaker – “New Technologies for disaster and development conference” USAID, January 2001, Washington DC, USA.

Membership of learned societies Member, New York Academy of Sciences, USA
Member, Planetary Society, USA
Member, Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), USA
Editorships Gaurav Bhatnagar, Shikha Mehta, Sugata Mitra. (eds), (2002), Introduction To Multimedia Systems, San Diego, California and London: Academic

Membership of editorial boards

Membership of advisory or working groups Member of the Study Team on Human Resource Development (Educational Technology Expert), Government of India, 11th Five Year Plan.

Member of the Study Team on Research and Development, Government of India, 11th Five Year Plan.

UNDP Consultant on Multimedia, Indira Gandhi National Centre For Arts, India

Fellowships

Prizes The “Best Social Innovation for the year 2000” from the Institute for Social Inventions, UK, 2000

The “Man for Peace” award for 2002 from the Together For Peace Foundation, Italy, 2002;

Finalist, World Technology Awards, education category, World Technology Network, San Francisco, June, 2003;

The Telly Award of the International Cable Broadcasters Association for “The Hole in the Wall” (2004) documentary.

The Dewang Mehta award for innovation in IT, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India, 2005;

Best Education Research Article in an Open Access Journal for 2005, The Communication of Research Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, 2005;
Other Mitra’s work has been the subject of a full length documentary feature film ‘The Hole in the Wall’ (2003) produced and directed by Gil Rossellini and Global Vision and premiered a the United Nations and World Bank, USA. With a commentary by Arthur C. Clarke it has received more than 20 international awards at major film festivals.

A shorter documentary, also called ‘The Hole in the Wall’ (2004) was produced by Susan Baumel and Voyage Productions. This was also premiered at the World Bank and has been broadcast on many cable and satellite television channels, recently being awarded the Telly Award of the International Cable Broadcasters Association

The Asian Development Bank produced a documentary on my work called “Digital Dividends” (2001), watched widely in South East Asia

Influence on policy The Government of India’ s policy on the use of educational technology in remote and rural areas is derived from Mitra’s work.

The term “minimally invasive education” (MIE) was coined by Mitra and is now used universally to described the situation where education is carried out with the minimum of intervention.
Influence on practice The curriculae and pedagogy developed by Mitra in the period 1990-2005 has been used by NIIT Limited to train over 3 million people worldwide. One in every 5 IT professionals in India has been trained at some stage by NIIT.

The process and technology by which directories (such as phone books and Yellow Pages) are produced using Local Area Networks was developed by Mitra.

Patents

Indian Patent No. 217117
A new/improved cognitive
Kiosk for the use in rural, outdoor and tropical environment (2008)
Sugata Mitra, Vivek Rana

Indian Patent No. 217595
A fault tolerent computing system
Sugata Mitra, Sanjay Gupta, S. Minz

Background

Dr. Mitra has taught and researched computer applications for over 25 years. He was until recently Chief Scientist with NIIT Limited in New Delhi.

His contributions include a number of inventions and first-time applications. The database publishing industry in India and Bangladesh, as well as the first applications of digital multimedia and Internet based education in India, are attributed to him.

His experiments with unsupervised access to public computers by children in remote areas, often called the "hole in the wall" experiments are known througout the world.

His current interests include Children’s Education, Remote Presence, Self-organising systems, Cognitive Systems, Physics and Consciousness.

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the Theoretical Solid State Physics of Organic Semiconductors, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 1978.
• Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Physics with specialisation in Solid State Electronics, Acoustic Holography and Quantum Biology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 1975. First Class.
• Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) with honours in Physics from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, 1973. First Class with second position in the University.
• Indian School Certificate (I.S.C.) awarded by the University of Cambridge, UK from St. Xavier’s High School, Delhi, 1969. First Division.

Previous Positions

1990 - 2006 : Chief Scientist, NIIT Ltd., India’s largest multinational training and software services company. Heading the R&D Centre of the company and responsible for all innovations in computer applications, media and communications technology. Activities include management, research, teaching and writing. During this period (1990-2002), the company turnover increased from Indian Rupees (INR) 300 million to over INR 10 billion (US$250 million).

1987-1990: Director, Publishing Systems, United Database (India) Ltd., then India’s largest telephone directory publishing company. Heading all technical functions including research and development. Activities included management, research and systems development. During this period, the company turnover increased from INR 35 million to INR 750 million.

1983-1987: Head, Technology Division, United India Periodicals Pvt. Ltd., publishers of daily newspaper, the Patriot. Responsible for all digital technology including research and development. Activities included management, research, teaching, writing and systems development. During this period, the company turnover increased from INR 10 million to INR 30 million.

1982-1983: Manager, Product Development, National Institute of Information Technology.

1981-1982: Senior Scientific Officer, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Activities included research and teaching.

1980-1981: Research Fellow, Technical University of Vienna, Austria.

1979-1980: Research Associate, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Memberships

• Vice President, All India Association for Educational Technology, India. (1993-97)
• Member, Press Club of India
• Member, India Habitat Centre
• Member, New York Academy of Sciences, USA
• Member, Planetary Society, USA
• Member, Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), USA
• UNDP consultant, Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts, India (1995-97)

Honours and Awards

• The National Science Talent Scholarship, 1969-1978.
• The National Merit Scholarship, 1969.
• The Indo-Austrian Research Scholarship, 1980-1981.
• The Raizada award for the best paper of 1999 from the Computer Society of India, 1999.
• The “Best ICT story” award from the IICD at the World Bank’s Global Knowledge II conference in Kuala Lumpur, March 2000.
• The “Best Social Innovation of the year 2000” award from the Institute for social inventions, UK, 2000.
• The “Man for Peace” award for 2002 from the Together For Peace Foundation, Italy, 2002
• Finalist, World Technology Awards, education category, World Technology Network, San Francisco, June, 2003
• The Dewang Mehta award for innovation in IT, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India, 2005
• Best Education Research Article in an Open Access Journal for 2005, The Communication of Research Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, 2006

Languages

English, Bengali, Hindi and a bit of German

Informal Interests

Science Fiction, Astronomy and Astrophysics, bio-informatics and genetics.

Postgraduate Teaching

Educational Technology module in the M.Ed. programme.