Prof. Sugata Mitra is currently Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, UK.
He is also Chief Scientist, Emeritus, at NIIT.
He is the instigator of the Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiment, where in the year 1999 a computer was placed in a kiosk created 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, HIW has more than 23 kiosks in rural India. In 2004 the experiment was also carried on in Cambodia.
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 Q and A - this subsequently went on to become the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
Prof. Mitra is a leading proponent of MIE. He is a PHD in Physics and credited with more that 25 inventions in the area of cognitive science and education technology. He was conferred the prestigious Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in Information Technology in the year 2005.
(from Wikipedia)
