Subham Basak

Subham is pursuing a DPhil in International Development at ODID as an Abdul Raufu Mustapha scholar. He is broadly interested in topics of Gender and ICTs, ICT4D, Poverty and Development and South Asian societies. His DPhil project investigates the gendered smartphone use patterns among the urban lower-income youth of Kolkata (India) within their socio-economic and geo-cultural gendered realities.

Having completed his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from IIEST Shibpur, Subham switched streams from STEM and pursued his master’s in social work (specialising in Livelihoods and Social Entrepreneurship) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai, India.

Subham has work experience in both the Engineering sector as a Project Management trainee and more recently, in the development sector as CSR Executive in NTPC Limited (a PSU of Govt. of India). He then took up a role as Research Officer in TISS Mumbai, researching the impact of NGOs implementing rural technologies in tribal areas of India. During his masters, he has fieldwork experience with school children in the slums of Mumbai, with livelihoods in the drought-prone regions of Maharashtra (India) and tribal regions of Nilgiri district in Tamil Nadu (India) and community organization for development in the rural hilly areas of Nepal. Through his master’s thesis, he aimed at understanding the interface between tea gardens and Self-Help Groups for the women tea garden workers of Jalpaiguri district in the state of West Bengal, India.

Subham has been awarded the Abdul Raufu Mustapha Departmental Scholarship by ODID to pursue his DPhil.