About
[Created: Feb 4th, 2009. Minor editing done: Feb 5th, 2009.]
Hi, I am Atanu Dey. Thanks for visiting my blog on India’s economic development.
I work as an economist at Netcore Solutions in Mumbai.
You can contact me by writing to me atanudey at gmail.
A brief bio:
I am an economist with a background in development. I did my doctoral work at the University of California at Berkeley. My PhD thesis title was, “Universal Service Obligation Imposed Cross-subsidies: The impact on the demand for telecommunications in India.” Prior to going back to school, I worked at Hewlett Packard in the Silicon Valley in their computer systems division. (Building 44 in Cupertino, just in case you were wondering.)
While at UCB, I was also a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University 2001-02. During that time I developed a model for the development of rural India. The model is called “RISC — Rural Infrastructure & Services Commons.” I used the RISC acronym as a play on words, since Vinod Khosla co-authored the concept paper with me. (RISC also stands for “reduced instruction set computing,” something that SUN and HP had pioneered, and as is well-known, Vinod is a co-founder of SUN Microsystems.)
The reason I have some familiarity with computing is because I studied computer science at the post-graduate level. After an MTech in CS from IIT Kanpur, I had gone to do my PhD in CS at Rutgers University but I got out with an MS in CS because I liked the idea of working for HP in California.
Working for HP was fun but I was more interested in understanding why India was poor. After being with HP for seven year, I quit to wander around India, US and Europe. I did that for five years. It was a great learning experience for me and gradually I understood that economics informs the question of poverty better than any other discipline. Though rather late in life, I realized that I was an economist — all these years I had no clue that I was one because I had never been exposed to economics. During my extended sabbatical (or voluntary unemployment, if you will), I read a lot more than I used to and slowly it dawned on me that I had to study economics formally. It is a hard subject in any case, and on top of that, I am not disciplined at all. Getting a PhD in a subject is a good way to learn the subject. At the very least, you get a decent foundation.
I believe in foundations. If you have a good foundation, you can build excellent things.
Of course, it was not easy for me to get admission to a PhD program in a good university, considering that I had precious little (none actually, not to put too fine a point on it) formal exposure to economics in my previous academic training. But persistence matters. This is perhaps the only “entrepreneurial” thing I have ever done.
You may say that I have attention deficit disorder. I did my undergraduate from Nagpur University in mechanical engineering. Then I moved to CS, and then to economics after a few years of product marketing at HP.
In any event, after I finished my PhD, I toyed around with the idea of working for a consulting firm. I did not pursue it when I realized that it involves a lot of work on other people’s terms even though the money is good. Fortunately, I had work in short-term consulting which paid the bills. I was in no hurry to get a regular job. A friend, Reuben Abraham, then at Columbia University, introduced me to Rajesh Jain in April 2003. We all share a common interest in the use of technology in development.
(Reuben, it is still to early to tell if I should thank you or not. 
)
Rajesh Jain persuaded me to move back to India to work with him. What I admire about Rajesh is his capacity to work hard, think big, and his can-do attitude. I am not impressed with money because I don’t need much of it anyway — beyond a certain modest amount needed to live a rather frugal life. What impresses me is hard work and persistence in the face of adversity — two qualities that I don’t have.
I think I am plenty smart. But then you may ask the quintessentially American question: If you are so smart, why aren’t you rich? The answer is easy. To be rich, you have to be both smart and hard working. Unless of course you are completely corrupt — as big-time criminals and politicians generally are. (I realize that those two sets have considerable overlap.)
I am not rich because I don’t work hard. Let that be a lesson to you.
Well, kidding aside, I have worked with Rajesh since late 2003. This blog is his idea. I used to write a blog while at Berkeley — “Life is a Random Draw”. I have taken it down because it was getting spammed too much. This blog is broadly about economic development. More about the blog in the “Read this First” tab. (Under construction. Do visit in a couple of weeks.)
Living in India after living two decades in northern California is hard, especially so if the move is from Berkeley (where I spent the previous eight years) to Mumbai (a city with nothing to offer me.) After a little more than a year, I left Mumbai for Pune. Pune is better than Mumbai in some respects. I work remotely from home.
Well, that is about it. More to come.
Meanwhile, be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
Thanks! I was very much interested in knowing who you are
Now I don’t have to wait till you come to Mumbai or I travel to Pune…
Great Blog, Keep it up!
Atanu, you skipped over the details of your M.Tech. after your Bachelor’s in Nagpur.
Err…where does it say polymath, genious & highly opinionated b- ?
You prove that high IQ puts the constraint of intellectual space and therefore every now and then intellectual space gets exhausted. That will lead the person in search of an another search of an intellectual space. Your story is great and that. Do read the book “Puzzle people”. This is the autobiography of a great called Thomas Starzl. The man who did the first Liver transplant and won the Nobel prize.
Thanks Atanu Dey when I started to read you blog regularly, I had searched for hours some time to know about your education, work experience and where you comment etc.
It is quite nice to your simply motivating bio and the journey
Chandra
Hi Atanu,
Its nice to know about the real you. Very impressive!!! My buddy, who is a good friend of yours, referred me to your blog. I’ll look forward to reading your next posts.
In the meantime, I think you will find this online book interesting:
“My People, Uprooted: A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal” by Prof.Tathagata Roy.
Atanu
Nice to know about the specific details of your journey so far. I should I am not as impressed as others in the web, impressed, but not very. I am impressed as you are one of the very very few people who charted his own course, listening to your soul and understanding what you really are. It seems you didnt and you still dont worry about the “orthodox” perception of managing ones career. This needs I think a lot of courage and conviction.
But I am a little confused. Why dont you work hard, as you think hard work is. Even if you dont get rich, you should still work hard. Does this mean that you are still not doing what you are supposed to do in life?
Hi Atanu,
Nice to read your bio.Of course, I gathered bits and pieces about you from your blog posts over the past 2 years.
Some comments:
1.Surprised that you have not mentioned the conceptual work you have done on an ICT solution for India’s education needs. (Hopefully, you have gone way beyond the conceptual stage by now).
2.You say, ‘I am an economist with a background in development’. What do you mean by a ‘background in development?’
3.The question I always wanted to ask: What does an economist do at NetCore? I mean, I haven’t seen any other technology firms employ an economist.
Very interesting bio…mainly for your decision to take a 5 year sabbatical(or voluntary unemployment as you called it). Lots of people profess to “want” to do something like that, but not many have the courage/conviction/drive to actually do it.
I too am interested in knowing about your work so far on using ICT for improving India’s education. Also, I would like to mirror Kumar_N’s question on what exactly does your role as an economist at Netcore entail? I have never heard of similar positions in other IT firms and am therefore extremely curious to know.
All the best!
Atanu, I feel honoured to have heard (most of) this firsthand from you in person. A very succint and informative page.
hello atanu dey …. it was wondeful visting ur blog … hope to do so more often … loved ur blog about billions and the day of brahma … it was also interesting to see an advaitic viewpoint stressed throughout …. kudos
it might interest you to know that the chamaka prashna , usually chanted right after the sri rudram , contains a lot mathematical progressions esp arithmetic progressions ..
and as regards our present neglect of sanskrit and anything related to prehistoric india … here are my 2 cents ….
http://vivekamvairagyam.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/the-jungle-book-the-sanatana-dharma/
i would love to have ur thots on that ….
ps : btw how do i change passwords to ur site and are some of the old blogs closed to comments ?
thnx and gud luck
vivekam.vairagyam@gmail.com
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