Dr. Mitra works in the areas of Cognitive Science, Information Science and Educational Technology. He has been working on these areas as well as on Physics and Energy for more than 20 years.

His contributions include a number of inventions and first-time applications. Among other applications, he is credited with having started the database publishing industry (particularly the Yellow Page industry) in India and Bangladesh, as well as having implemented the first applications of digital multimedia and Internet based education in India. His experiments (often referred to as The Hole In The Wall experiments) with children and the Internet have been reported worldwide since 1999.

He was awarded the The best paper of the year award by the Computer Society of India in 1999, the best paper award at the Global Knowledge Forum in 2000, the Best Social Innovation of 2000 award by the Institute for social inventions (UK), the Man for Peace award in 2001 by the Together for Peace Foundation (Italy), and was a finalist for the 2003 World Technology Award for Education.

He was awarded the prestigious Dewang Mehta Award For Innovation In Information Technology 2005, by the Government of India.

He has many research publications and also writes extensively for adults and children.

Dr. Mitra has taught and researched at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, HCL Limited, The Technical University of Vienna, Austria and United India Periodicals. He has worked with NIIT Limited in its formative years and has created that organisations instructional development and R&D laboratories. He is currently Chief Scientist with NIIT.

Dr. Mitra is an advisor to a number of Government and other organisations in India, the USA and Australia. He was Vice President of the All India Association for Educational Technology, and is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences (USA), the Planetary Society (USA), the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, USA) and the Press Club of India.

He was born in Calcutta on 12 February 1952 and holds a Ph.D. in Solid State Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology. He lives and works in New Delhi, where his current interests include Childrens Education, Cyberspace, Remote Presence, Self-organising systems, Cognitive Systems, Physics and Consciousness.

Contact Details: Phone: +91 11 2658 1017-20 office, +91 11 2658 1002 office direct, +91 11 2658 1022 fax E-mail: sugatam@niit.com