Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University in the UK. He works in the areas of Cognitive Science, Information Science and Educational Technology. In 1999, Sugata dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). He then watched kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other. In the following years he replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results that challenge some key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge.