Newcastle University

Introduction

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

Background

Prof. Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, UK.

He is the instigator of the Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiment, where in the year 1999 a computer was embedded within a wall in an Indian slum at Kalkaji, Delhi and children were allowed to freely use it. The experiment aimed at proving that kids could be taught computers very easily without any formal training. Sugata termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). The experiment has since been repeated at many places.

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

The Hole in the Wall experiment has left a mark on popular culture. Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup read about Mitra's experiment and was inspired to write his debut novel that went on to become the Oscar winning movie of 2009 - Slumdog Millionaire.

He is a PHD in Physics credited with more that 25 inventions in the area of cognitive science and educational technology. He was conferred the prestigious Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in Information Technology in the year 2005.

Starting with molecular orbital computation in the 1970s, Mitra discovered that the structure of organic molecules determine their function more than the constituent atoms (Crystal structure sensitivity of the band structure of organic semiconductors. S.C. Mathur and S. Mitra, Journal of Phys.C Solid State, 12, (2) (1979) UK).

After a Ph.D. in Solid State Physics from the IIT, Delhi, he went on to research energy storage systems, first at the Centre for Energy Studies in the IIT and then at the Technische Universität, Vienna, Austria. This resulted in a new design for Zinc-Chlorine batteries (A design for zinc-chlorine batteries. S. Mitra, Journal of Power Sources, 8, 359-367 (1982) USA).

His interests in the flow of electricity through biological systems, a consequence of his Ph.D. research on exciton dissociation in organic semiconductors, led on to a seminally speculative paper on why the human sense organs are located where they are (A correlation between the location and sensitivity of human sense organs. A.K. Banerjee and S. Mitra, Spec. Science and Technology, 5, (2), 141 (1982) Australia).

His interest in computer networking led him towards the emerging systems in printing in the 1980s. He set up India’s first local area network based newspaper publishing system in 1984 and went on to predict the desktop publishing industry (Compositors that compute, S. Mitra, Computers Today, May 1985, India). This in turn led to the invention of LAN based database publishing and he created the “Yellow Pages” industry in India and Bangladesh.

His interest in the human mind once again led him into the areas of learning and memory and he was amongst the first in the world to show that simulated neural networks can help decipher the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease (The effect of synaptic disconnection on bi-directional associative recall. S. Mitra , Proc. IEEE/SMC Conf., Vol.1, 989, 1994 USA).

He was amongst the first people in the world to invent Voluntary Perception Recording (a continuously variable voting machine) and a hyperlinked computing environment, several years ahead of the Internet. (Voluntary perception analysis - a new measurement device. S. Mitra, Media and Technology for Human Resources Development, Oct. 1989, India and Imaginet - An associative, non-linear, multimedia storage and retrieval system. S. Mitra and Ajay Magon, Multimedia Computer and Communications (INFOCOM ’92), Tata McGraw Hill pp20-30, (1992), Bombay, India).

Professor Mitra’s work at NIIT created the first curricula and pedagogy for that organisation, followed by years of research on learning styles, learning devices, several of them now patented, multimedia and new methods of learning. Culminating and, perhaps, towering over his previous work, are his “hole in the wall” experiments with children’s learning. Since 1999, he has convincingly demonstrated that groups of children, irrespective of who or where they are, can learn to use computers and the Internet on their own using public computers in open spaces such as roads and playgrounds (Mitra, Sugata, Ritu Dangwal, Shiffon Chatterjee, Swati Jha, Ravinder S. Bisht and Preeti Kapur (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. www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet21/mitra.html). His publication was judged the best open access publication in the world for 2005.

Since the 1970s, Professor Mitra’s publications and work has resulted in training and development of perhaps a million young Indians, amongst them some of the poorest children in the world. The resultant changes in the lives of people and the economy of the country can only be guessed at.

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
. Best book of the year award from Indian Council for Techical Education for 2007
. Honorary Doctorate from Delft Technological University, The Netherlands, 2011

. Special Achievement award from Learning Without Frontiers, London, 2011 

. The Klingenstein Award, Washington, 2011 

. Leonardo European Corporate Learning Award, 2012

.  Education Leadership Award, AdvancED, Washington, USA, 2012

Languages

English, Bengali, Hindi and a bit of German

Informal Interests

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

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

2000: India’s first infra-red and/or radio frequency digital speech delivery device
Led a team of researchers that built and deployed solid state, digital speech transmitters and receivers for a museum application. Visitors would “hear” exhibits describe themselves as they are approached. Currently deployed at Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India and at the Ramakrishna Mission, Delhi, India.

2001-2006: Deployment of outdoor rural kiosks for children
Funded by the International Finance Corporation, the Government of Delhi, the ICICI bank and the Government of India, constructed “hole in the wall” kiosks in remote villages of India, Cambodia and all over Africa. Over a five hundred computers now (2009) exist in these countries in the open and over 150,000 children use these for self-instruction and entertainment.

2007-2009: Design, development and deployment of Self Organised Learning Environments (SOLE) for children
Funded by the education fund of Orient Global, designed and constructed 12 SOLE facilities in disadvantaged areas of Hyderabad and Sindhudurg, Maharashtra, India. Over 6000 children use these facilities for self organised learning. Resulted are being tested in Newcastle, UK for possible use in the region.

2009: Conception and deployment of a Self Organised Mediation Environment (SOME) for children
The Oscar winning film 'Slumdog Millionaire' was based on a book by the same name inspired by Mitra's 'Hole in the wall' experiments. This was reported in the Guardian UK in February 2009 and resulted in a large number of volunteers willing to help with children in remote areas. Using Skype and a website www.solesandsomes.wikispaces.com a 'cloud' of mediators interact synchronously with children in Hyderabad and Shirgaon. Results are being tested.

 2011: Can children learn to read by themselves?

 Currently a visiting Professor at MIT, Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA on a research project.

 Current Work

Educational Technology for remote and rural areas. Implementation of SOLEs all over the world.

Future Research

Self organising systems, learning and consciousness

Postgraduate Supervision

Ph.D. supervision of students of 5 students.

Esteem Indicators

Top Four Esteem Indicators:

(1) 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.

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

(3) Awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Delft Technological University, The Netherlands, 2010

 (4) Invited to the join the MIT Media Lab, USA as visiting professor.

__________

Keynote speeches- including LEA conferences

PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO TOO MANY INVITATIONS - THIS SECTION IS NO LONGER UPDATED 

Sugata Mitra – Invited talks, keynotes, plenaries and workshops since 2000

2000

Date
Location
Organisation
Event

15-Mar-00
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
UN
Global Knowledge conference

4-Jun-00
Tokyo, Japan
Nekkei Shimbum
Lecture

25-Sep-00
Prague, Czechoslovakia
World Bank and IMF
Access and Empowerment

6-Nov-00
London, UK
Arts Council of England
OPEN creative laboratory

13-Nov-00
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Doors of Perception
Doors of Perception

2001




16-Jan-01
Washington, USA
USAID
New technologies for disaster and development conference, plenary

24-Jan-01
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Doors of Perception
ORO ORO teachers conference

24-Apr-01
Hong Kong, China
Hong Kong Inst.of Education
ICT workshop

4-Jun-01
Goa, India
Synapse
Visual Communication 101

22-Jul-01
Boston, USA
MIT
Development by Design

25-Sep-01
Sydney, Australia
Univ. of New South Wales
Developing global capacity through international education

3-Oct-01
Sydney, Australia
IDP Australia
Australian International education conference

4-Oct-01
Brisbane, Australia
IDP Australia
CHOGM - The Commonwealth People's festival

2002




13-Jan-02
Paris, France
UNESCO
Learning Technologies conference

5-Mar-02
Kolkata, India
Jadavpur University
Prof. B. Nag memorial lecture

16-Mar-02
Newcastle, UK
Univ. of Newcastle
"Educational Freedom" course lecture and the inaugural talk at the E.G.West Centre

15-May-02
Singapore, Singapore
VNU Business media
On line learning 2002, keynote

22-May-02
Lisbon, Portugal
World Education Market
Conference

29-Nov-02
Rome, Italy
Together for Peace Foundation
Screening and Man for Peace award, 2002

2003




2-Feb-03
New York, USA
United Nations, USA
UN Premiere hosted by Sashi Tharoor

20-Jun-03
Alexandria, Egypt
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Science and Mathematics Education for the 21st Century, keynote

25-Jul-03
Sydney, Australia
Univ. of New South Wales
Socio economic impact of ICT

2004




3-Mar-04
Washington, USA
IFC
Presentation

4-Mar-04
Washington, USA
World Bank
Consortium for School Networking

6-Apr-04
Cape Town, South Africa
Western Cape School’ Network & SchoolNet
Intel Innovation in Education, keynote address

9-May-04
Zeist, The Netherlands
PINC
PINC.5

20-May-04
Washington, USA
William H. Donner Foundation
Italinan Embassy screening

9-Dec-04
Edinburgh, UK
The British Council
Global Education Conference, Plenary address

2005




Aug-05
SantaFe, Argentina
The British Council
FAAPI conference of teachers, Plenary address

2006




12-May-06
Trondheim, Norway
Technical University of Norway
NKUL conference, invitation for keynote

26-June-06
Ragusa, Italy
Women’s development organization CORFILAC
Cheese Art conference, invitation for keynote

26-Oct-06
Turin, Italy
Slow Food
Terra Madre 2006, invited lecture

1-Nov-06
Ocho Rios, Jamaica
The Commonwealth of Learning
4th Pan-Commonwealth Forum, Keynote

23-Nov-06
London, UK
The Royal Holloway, University of London
Invited to deliver the First Cisco Lecture on ICT4D

8-Dec-06
Nassau, the Bahamas
John Templeton Foundation
Global Leadership Summit, Invited lecture

2007




7-Feb-07
Geneva, Switzerland
LIFT II
LIFT II 2007, Invited lecture

27-Mar-07
Kolkata, India
UKERI, British Council
Invited talk

25-June-07
Portsmouth, UK
University Faculty Learning and Teaching Conference
Invited plenary

2-Sep-07
Brazil
Annual International Congress on Distance Learning
Invited keynote

12-Sep-07
Oxford, UK
9th UKFIET
Invited plenary

27-Sep-07
Amsterdam, Holland
PICNIC 2007
Invited talk

29-Nov-07
Berlin, Germany
Educa, Berlin
Invited keynote

4 December 07
4 December
London
Invited talk at King’s College

2008




20 Jan 08
22 Jan
Munich
Invited keynote at DLD 2008.
www.dld-conference.com/

12 March 08
13 March
London
Invited keynote at the City and Guilds of London, presided over by HRH Prince Phillip.

14 March 08
15 March
Bucharest
Invited keynote at eTwinning in Romania.
www.etwinning.net/ww/en/pub/etwinning/index2006.htm

02 April 08
02 April
London
Invited talk at the ODL Event, University of London

03 April 08
03 April
Oxford
Invited debate at the Shock conference.
https://owa.ncl.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http:www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/shock2008

04 April 08
04 April
Oxford
Invited keynote at the Beyond Digital Natives conference.
www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/beyond2008

07 April 08
09 April
Bergen, Norway
Invited talk at the Digital Resources in the Classroom conference. scherlund.blogspot.com/2008/04/australasian-journal-of-educational.html

23 April 08
25 April
Copenhagen, Denmark
Invited keynote at UCLE’08 cms.ku.dk//upload/application/pdf/05e82675/Prof.%20Mitra%20Abstract%20for%20UCLE08.pdf

07 May 08
10 May
Winnipeg, Canada
Invited keynote at MADLaT, University of Manitoba www.madlat.ca/conference2008/keynote.htm

21 May 08
22 May
Stockholm
Invited keynote at University of Stockholm, SwedenThe Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Sida Civil Society Center, the Sida ICT network SPIDER and Stockholm University

26 June 08
28 June
Aarhus, Denmark
Invited keynote at EUNIS 2008. eunis.dk/

09 July 08
12 July
Rome, Italy
Invited talk at TTI/ Vanguard conference, Generation Techs, www.ttivanguard.com/generation/overview

27 October 08
31 October
Taipei, Taiwan
Invited keynote, ICCE2008
(www.apsce.net/icce2008/)

04 November 08
05 November
Odense, Denmark
Invited keynote at the Uddannelsesforum 2008 uddannelsesforum2008.emu.dk/english/about.html

12 November08
14 November
Barcelona, Spain
UOC UNESCO Chair in E-Learning’s 5th International SeminarInvited keynote

14 November 08
15 November
Norway
Invited keynote at NADE, Oslo

24 November 08
25 November
Helsinki, Finland
Invited keynote at the Finnish National Board of Education conference

28 November 08
30 November
India
Invited keynote at the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference, Hyderabad

02 December 08
03 December 08
Hong Kong
Invited by Bill Clinton to the Clinton Global Initiative as a panelist

2009




08 February 09
09 February 09
Bergen, Norway
Invited keynote at ICT conference, Norweigian Teachers Union, IMTEK and University of Bergen

10 February 09
12 February 09
Eindhoven, Netherlands
Invited keynote at the 10th National eLearning conference

26 March 09
27 March 09
Turin, Italy
Invited keynote on Digital Learners and the future of schooling, the Italian Foundation San Paolo

27 March 09
28 March 09
Florence, Italy
Invited keynote at the 16th Annual conference of the ICC International Language Network.

03 May 09
04 May 09
Kamloops, Canada
Invited Keynote and public lecture, Thomson Rivers University, Distance Educators conference.

20 May 09
20 May 09
London
Learning Futures National Meeting, invited keynote

20 May 09
20 May 09
London
Invited public lecture, British Computer Society

11 June 09
12 June 09
Rome, Italy
International Seminar on ICT in Education Networks, invited keynote


25 June 09
25 June 09
London
Invited lecture, Learning and Skills Improvement Service

01 July 09
01 July 09
London
Invited lecture, Guardian Newspaper, Open Internet Summit

30 Jul
30 Jul
Paris
IIEP workshop

10 Sep

Newcastle
Tyneside Rotary lecture

16 Sep

Coventry
BCS lecture

22 Sept
25 Sept
Cambridge
IRFOL conference keynote

1 Oct
4 Oct
Iceland
Keynote

5 Oct
6 Oct
London
Becta group 157

8 Oct

Tees Valley
Schools NE talk

9 Oct

Lancaster
Beaumont College

23 Oct

London
Finance IT network lecture

4 Oct
9 Oct
Brazilia
INTERDIDACTICA keynote

9 Oct

Chester Le Street
JISC event lecture

12 Nov

Newcastle
Tynemouth Rotary lecture

14 Nov
19 Nov
Doha, Qatar
WISE keynote

24 Nov
25 Nov
Paris
IIEP workshop

2010




12 Jan 2010
12 Jan
London
LATWF, Learning and Technology World Forum 2010 www.latwf.org/

14 Jan
14 Jan
Glasgow
KTP

15 Jan
15 Jan
Durham
Raising Aspirations workshophttp:www.rywu.org.uk/aspire/

18 Jan
21 Jan
Kent
Curriculum and Pedagogy workshophttp:www.pallabs.org/portfolio/timeline

29 Jan
29 Jan
Northumberland
School conferenceWhitburn Church of England School

7 Feb
8 Feb
Stockholm
International conference of teachersMunicipality Schools conference on ICT

20 Feb
20 Feb
Newcastle univ.
IDC conference

1 March
1 March
Dorchester
Conference and Community Lecture

12 March
12 March
Northumbria U
Conference 1
CETTIL cettil.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=139&Itemid=122

13 March
13 March
Northumberland U
Conference 2

Educating the global citizen 3rd Annual International Student Conference
www.northumbria.ac.uk/cetl_afl/cetl_ne/evconf/3rdannintstuconf

19 March
20 March
Hamburg
Conference17th ICC Annual Conference

23 March
24 March
Berlin
Microsoft conferenceMicrosoft’s 7th European Innovative Teachers Forum

25 March
26 March
London
Going Global4http:www.britishcouncil.org/goingglobal-gg4-new-models-of-learning.htm

27 March


30 March
30 March
Netherlands
Conference for primary educators


08 April
12 April
Malta
ECIS – European Council for International Schoolshttp:www.ecis.org/page.cfm?p=298

15 April
15 April
Paris
Conference

28 April
4 May
Brazil
Interdidacticahttp:www.interdidatica.com.br/

11 May
13 May
Madrid
Telefonica"Debate and Knowledge" program of Fundación Telefónica

13 May
17 May
Turin
Turin Book Fair – Lecture and Workshop


10 June
14 June
Maine
Conference and meeting with Seymour Papert

15 June
15 June
Newcastle
Schools NE

16 June
16 June
London
The Stone Club

22 June
22 June
Worchestershire
Conferenceconference on Learning Technologies

24 June
24 June
London
LSIS explorer event

1 July
1 July
Durham
Conference‘Heading for the Future’

8 July
8 July
Liverpool


12 July
16 July
Oxford
TED Global

4 August
11 August
Melbourne
Big Day Out

7 September
9 September
Nottingham
ALT-C
www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/

14 September
Launch of CSID, Aberdeen University, Keynote

25 September
Keynote, Education of Roma Children, Slovakia

22 Sept
23 Sept
Glasgow
Scottish Learning Festival

24 September
24 September
Gateshead
NE Headteachers meeting

29 Sept
2 Oct
Sydney
Conference
‘Hosting and Harvesting’
www.acel.org.au/conference/

11 Oct
15 Oct
Sydney
AIEC 2010

4 Nov
7 Nov
Nevada
38th annual Association for>Experiential Education conference in Las Vegas

19 Nov
20 Nov
Nice, France
ECIS

24 Nov
26 Nov
Birmingham
SSAT National conference

1 Dec
4 Dec
Berlin
OEB 2010

8 Dec
9 Dec
USA, California
Big Ideas Festival

2011

24 Feb
25 Feb
USA, Maryland
Annual National Conference of NAIS

PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO TOO MANY INVITATIONS - THIS SECTION IS NO LONGER UPDATED 

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

Co-Chair, ALT 2011, UK 

Fellowships

Mitra is a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International 

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, 2006
 
. Best book of the year award from Indian Council for Techical Education for 2007
. Honorary Doctorate from Delft Technological University, The Netherlands, 2011

. Special Achievement award from Learning Without Frontiers, London, 2011

. The Klingenstein Award, Washington, 2011

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.

Funding

2001-2005: World Bank/IFC USD 1.5 Million
2002-2005: Government of Delhi USD 200,000
2002-2005: ICICI Bank USD 100,000
2006-2009: Orient Global USD 200,000 (part of James Tooley's project)

2009: KTP with ICS Glasgow, GBP 60,000 from Scottish Government
2009: Donation of £1000 for children's development
2010: Donation of £5000 for children's development

2010: Melbourne government consulting GBP 10,000

 2010: Consulting for CetHums Foundation, Chile GBP 19,000

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

Projects

• Competition, Innovation and Change in Education Markets for the Poor in Developing Countries
  Project Leader(s): Professor James Tooley, Dr Pauline Dixon and Professor Sugata Mitra
• Competition, Innovation and Change in Education Markets for the Poor in Developing Countries
  Project Leader(s): James Tooley, Pauline Dixon, Sugata Mitra
• Developing the Potential of Retired Skype Mediators ("Sykpe Grannies")
  Project Leader(s): Jill Clark
• Orient Global Education Fund
  Project Leader(s): James Tooley and Sugata Mitra
  The OG Education Fund is directed by Prof. James Tooley and works in the area of improving school education in India
• SOLEs and SOMEs
  Project Leader(s): Sugata Mitra

Postgraduate Teaching

Educational Technology module in the M.Ed. programme.

• Mitra S. Self organizing systems for mass computer literacy: Findings from the “hole in the wall” experiments. International Journal of Development Issues 2005, 4(1), 71-81.
• Bhatnagar G, Mehta S, Mitra S, ed. Introduction To Multimedia Systems. London: Academic Press, 2002.
• Mitra S, Dagwal R. Limits to Self Organised Systems of Learning - the Kalikuppam Experiment. British Journal of Educational Technology 2010, 41(5), 671-688.
• Mitra S, Arora P. Afterthoughts. British Journal of Educational Technology 2010, 41(5), 703-705.
• Mitra S. Remote Presence: Technologies for 'Beaming' Teachers Where They Cannot Go. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence 2009, 1(1), 55-59.
• Mitra S, Dangwal R, Thadani L. Effects of remoteness on the quality of education: A case study from North Indian schools. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 2008, 24(2), 168-180.
• Kumar S, Mitra S. Self-Organizing Traffic at a Malfunctioning Intersection. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 2006, 9(4), 3.
• Mitra S, Kumar S. Fractal Replication in Time Manipulated One-Dimensional Cellular Automata. Complex Systems 2005, 16(3).
• Mitra S, Dangwal R, Chatterjee S, Jha S, Bisht RS, Kapur P. Acquisition of computer literacy on shared public computers: Children and the “Hole in the wall”. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 2005, 21(3), 407-426.
• Mitra S. The Hole in the Wall: Self-Organising Systems in Education. New Delhi & New York: Tata-McGraw-Hill Pub. Co. Ltd, 2006.
• Mitra S, Tooley JN, Inamdar P, Dixon P. Improving English pronunciation: an automated instructional approach. Information Technologies and International Development 2003, 1(1), 75-84.
• Mitra S. Minimally Invasive Education: A progress report on the “Hole-in-the-wall” experiments. British Journal of Educationa