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I am an Indian citizen and have been working as a Professor in the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, since 2000.  Prior to that, I held academic positions at the University of Alberta, Canada (1995-1999), University of Salford, Manchester, UK (1994) and the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK (1992-1994).  I completed my PhD in Information Systems at the Florida International University, Miami, USA (1989-1992) on the topic of "Social Construction of Geographic Information Systems".  My early postgraduate education was in India, doing a Master’s in Management Studies (1976-1981) at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, followed by a Master’s of Engineering in Industrial Development (1982-1983). While working in Alberta, Canada, I did an MA in Philosophy and while in Oslo, I have completed a Master’s in Public Health, registered at the University of Western Cape, South Africa.

This multi-disciplinary educational background has all sought to contribute to a broad and critical understanding of the social-political-cultural issues surrounding ICTs for Development (ICT4D), which I have empirically studied in multiple settings over these last 20+ years.  At Cambridge, the focus of my post-doctoral research was around the use of Geographical Information Systems for forestry management in India and Malaysia. The research at Alberta was around the study of global software development to India, involving various countries including Canada, UK, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. This study provided learning into what a country like India gained and lost in the process of building capabilities in global software development. This work also contributed to other studies in Iran and Costa Rica, countries which were seeking to emulate India in becoming a global software development hub. The work in Oslo has primarily been around action research studies on strengthening health information systems across more than 25 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, with a key focus on India.