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A Political History of Technology in India
The trajectory of new technologies in India from independence to the present
Presented by Carnegie India
Speakers
In post-independent India, technology has emerged as a crucial sector for the country’s development. Arun Mohan Sukumar will trace the history of India’s technological evolution from Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi and unpack the various success and failures that have played a pivotal role in transforming India into a leading power.
Rajeev Gowda, Jahnavi Phalkey and Susmita Mohanty along with the author, Arun Mohan Sukumar will be part of the panel discussion moderated by Anu Singh.
Speakers
Arun Mohan Sukumar
Arun Mohan Sukumar is a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and a junior fellow at the school’s Centre for International Law and Governance. He formerly headed the Technology Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.
Susmita Mohanty
Dr. Susmita Mohanty is a spaceship designer and the only space entrepreneur in the world to have started companies on 3 different continents. She is the CEO of EARTH2ORBIT, India’s first private start-up (2009-ongoing). She has co-founded two other companies, MOONFRONT in San Francisco (2001-07) and LIQUIFER in Vienna (2004-ongoing). Prior to turning entrepreneur, she worked for the International Space Station Program at Boeing in California and did a short stint at NASA Johnson. In 2017, she was featured on cover of Fortune Magazine. In 2012, she was voted into Financial Times’ list of “25 Indians to Watch”. In 2005, Susmita was honored on Capitol Hill in Washington DC with the International Achievement Award. Educated in India, France, and Sweden, Susmita holds multiple degrees including a PhD.
Rajeev Gowda
Professor Rajeev Gowda is a Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka and a Spokesperson for the Congress party. He has a BA from St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore, an MA in Economics from Fordham University and a PhD in Public Policy and Management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has been a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and taught at the University of Oklahoma. Until recently, he was Professor of Economics and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and a Director on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India. He has authored and edited books, scholarly articles and reports on policy issues. He has mentored start up companies and works on urban renewal and youth empowerment, among other areas of interest. He has been a Carnegie Council Global Ethics Fellow.
Jahnavi Phalkey
Jahnavi Phalkey is a filmmaker and historian of science and technology. Formerly at King’s College London, she is now the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru and Sir Asutosh Mukherjee Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies. She has been a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2013-14) following which she was on secondment to the Science Museum London as external curator (2013-2015).
Jahnavi is the author of Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth Century India (2013) and has recently co-edited Science of Giants: China and India in the Twentieth Century (2016). She is on the editorial board for the British Journal for the History of Science and History and Technology. She is director of the documentary film Cyclotron (2017).
Anu Singh
Anu Singh has a wide range of experience in the area of education. Most recently she has worked as associate dean of academic affairs for the undergraduate program at Ashoka University. Before that, at Pearson India, she was in charge of teacher training for Edexcel’s International Qualifications. She has also taught English at the British School in New Delhi for over 10 years. Her other area of work has been in the corporate sector, mostly in communications and content development, where she has worked for organizations such as Springboard Research, IDFC Projects, NIIT Ltd, and S. Chand Harcourt.
