Currently, I am the Founder-Director of a not-for-profit Center for Career and Life Design Counselling, founded with a mission to assist and empower individuals, across all ages and socioeconomic background, to explore life and career opportunities in order to build a well-lived, joyful life.
I have more than 40 years of diverse experience
spanning across multiple disciplines, both in academia and industry, combining
teaching, research, consultancy and technology development in several organizations
of international repute. I was a Professor of Information Systems at the Indian
Institute of Management Calcutta for the past 21 years (2001-2022) and retired from
my service from 1st Dec 2022. Before IIM Calcutta, I was associated with:
• Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Japan (2000-01)
• PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd. (1995-2000)
• Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (1994-95)
• Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (1986-94)
• German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) Germany (1989-90)
• Jadavpur University, Kolkata (1981-1985)
• Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (1979-81)
I was also Founder-Director of the multi-disciplinary Social Informatics Research Group (from 2014), a Centre of Excellence under Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and working on problems at the intersection of digital technologies and development (within the broad umbrella of "ICT for Development")
As a part of my entrepreneurial initiative, I was Co-Founder-Director of Pervcom Consulting Private Limited (2005-2015), an ICT start-up working in the area of pervasive computing and communication systems. Pervcom is the first Indian company to design, develop and productize devices and system solutions for remote tracking, monitoring and management of objects, human beings and environment using RFID tags, Sensors and Actuators with wireless mesh networking technologies.
I am also a Co-Founder-Mentor of
Nexconnect Ventures Pvt. Ltd.
(2017 onwards), a social business venture seeking to address issues of social
exclusion by empowering communities by connecting them digitally. NexConnect is an
online interactive teaching -learning platform that connects quality teachers with
underprivileged learners from semi-urban and rural areas using audio-visual content
following board/course specific curriculum. Another initiative was
NCoRe
, funded by Ministry of Science and Technology, which is a community-driven
social engagement platform that empowers rural communities by connecting them
digitally with urban markets, government agents, trainers, investors etc.
I am a PhD in Computer Science from Jadavpur University, Kolkata and B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. I was a post-doctoral fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and a fellow of Japan Trust International Research Cooperation Program.