Sugata Mitra

Sugata Mitra is an Indian computer scientist, educational theorist, and Professor Emeritus at NIIT University in Rajasthan, India, best known for his pioneering “Hole in the Wall” experiment on children’s self-directed learning using public computers. A PhD in solid state/theoretical physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, he retired in 2019 as Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University, UK, where he led research on self-organised learning environments, internet-enabled learning, and minimally invasive education.

Mitra received the $1 million TED Prize in 2013 for his work on the School in the Cloud, extending his Hole in the Wall research into global, technology-supported learning environments for children. He is the author of The School in the Cloud: The Emerging Future of Learning, in which he explores the future of learning, self-organised learning environments (SOLEs), and minimally invasive education based on his long-running experiments with children’s independent learning using the internet.