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📄 CV

📧 Email: [email protected] | [email protected]

• LinkedIn: @SadaqatMulla
• ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9831-1867
• ResearchGate: Sadaqat Faqih Mulla

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📚 Education

University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India

Qualified National Eligibility Test for Assistant Professorship | Jun 2019
Percentile Score: 99.73

University College London-Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom

M.A in Education | Sep 2015 - Sep 2016

• Achieved Distinction grade.
• Research dissertation: Education, Inequality and Community: Understanding ‘voluntary tutoring’ – a case study in London under the supervision of Prof. Arthur Chapman

Visvesvaraya Technological University - S.D.M College of Engineering & Technology, Karnataka, India

Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics & Communication Engineering) | Jul 2007 - Jun 2011

• Achieved First Class with Distinction (GPA: 8.29)
• Research project: Analysis and Implementation of MIMO technology for effective LTE mobile communication under the guideship of Dr. Sreedhar Kumar Joshi

📈 EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Tata Institute of Social Sciences | Mumbai, India

• Teaching Faculty | Jul 2019-present
• Project Manager (Educational Technology) | Jan 2017-present

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd | Bangalore, India

• Systems Engineer and Team Lead | Dec 2011 - Jan 2016

🔎 RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

UNESCO | Paris, France

• Principle Investigator, GEM Report 2023 background research study for South Asia | Apr-Oct 2022 Formulated and presented the project proposal and secured funding. Led the South Asia background research study for Global Education Monitoring report 2023 with colleagues Bindu Thirumalai and Anusha Ramanathan, gathered data through mixed methods and conducted country case-studies for India and Bangladesh. Synthesized four country case-studies and identified South Asia regional trends in digital textbook innovations. Lead author of GEM Report 2023 background paper: State initiatives and innovations in technology enabled content for school education in South Asia: examining aspects of access, equity, inclusion and quality. Link

UNESCO MGIEP | International

• Contributing Researcher, Co-author | Jul 2018-Feb 2019 Collaborated with researchers from across the globe for a global literature review on digital Educational resources Participated and presented India case-study at the high-level consultation at Braunschweig, Germany. Conceptualized 8 Affordances framework, contributed India country case-study and co-authored the report Rethinking Pedagogy: Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education. Link

Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai, India

Co-Principal Investigator - IFP OER Project | Jun-Dec 2023

As Lead for Curation steered the overall digital resource curation efforts with 50+ experts and research associates across seven groups resulting in 800+ curated interactive resources. Co-developed a research-backed RAP rubric to guide OER curation process. Setup curation workflow from ideation to quality control and ensured timely deliverables. Advised and coordinated with state nodal agency for planning and execution of project deliverables across the state of Telangana, India.

Lead Technologist | Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx) | Jan 2017- May 2022

• Spearheaded design experiments to develop large scale enterprise EdTech solutions in resource constrained contexts in collaboration with Prof. Nagarjuna’s Gnowledge Lab, HBCSE-TIFR, Mumbai and MIT Open Learning team under the leadership of Profs. Padma Sarangapani (TISS), Eric Klopfer and M.S. Vijay Kumar (MIT, Boston).
• Led the technology team through design, development and deployment of a next generation learning platform - https://clixplatform.tiss.edu - in 500+ schools across India. I was responsible for two iterations of the software development life cycle (SDLC) using a design-based research approach. CLIx Platform is powered by gstudio NDF architecture developed by Nagarjuna and has been designed like a Lego board to create a DOER (distributed decentralized offline open educational resources) or internet-in-a-box through a mashup of FOSS applications.
• Led the technology team through the third SDLC, collaborated with various content teams and ensured compliance to open license mechanisms to launch the CLIx Open Educational Resources website (see https://clixoer.tiss.edu ) in Dec 2019 which remains one of the most visited educational websites of TISS.
• The innovative EdTech solutions played a pivotal role in winning two prestigious global recognitions for the project: UNESCO King Hamad Prize 2017 for the Innovative Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the field of Education and OER Collaboration Award for Excellence 2019 by Open Education Consortium. I was a significant co-author for both the award applications.
• Devised and established an end-to-end data workflow to capture, batch process, retrieve, and sync learning platform data from 500+ schools including those in remote areas to central server using django-python framework web apps, APIs, python and shell scripts, syncthing and docker technologies. Further, steered the team to process, automate,analyze and visualize learning platform data using R, Python and D3.js (see https://clixdashboard.tiss.edu and https://gstudio-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/).
• Collaborated with research teams at TISS and MIT to gather, process and analyze learning platform data from 300+ schools (stored as PostgreSQL, JSON and mongoDB databases) which contributed to project research report: Making EdTech Work for Secondary School Students & their Teachers: A Report of Research Findings from CLIx Phase I. Link

EDUsummIT | International

EDUsummIT 2022-23

As a member of thematic working group TWG-3 of EDUsummIT 2022-23 collaborated with an international group of researchers led by Profs. Don Passey and Jean Gabin Ntebutse, and contributed to research on the theme: Inclusion of excluded populations: access and learning optimization via IT in the post-pandemic era. Presented the paper in EDUsummIT 2022-23 held at Kyoto University, Japan on June 1-3, 2023. Link

EDUsummIT 2019**

As a member of the thematic working group TWG-7 of EDUsummIT 2019 worked with an international group of researchers led by Profs. Éric Bruillard, Sarah Prestridge and Fredric Litto, and contributed to research on the theme: Connected learning: online human interaction and interaction with digital resources. Link

🚀 Projects

I have worked in collaborative projects with academics, researchers and practitioners in the national and international settings such as NCERT (New Delhi), various SCERTs, HBCSE-TIFR (Mumbai), MIT (Cambridge, USA), UNESCO and UNICEF.

👨‍🏫 TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Tata Institute of Social Sciences | 2019-present

Courses designed, developed and taught: Multiple cohorts

• ET07-Emerging Technologies for Education (compulsory course for interdisciplinary MA in Education and Technology programme). Link
• CETECB02-Education, Technology and Society (transdisciplinary open elective course for students from any disciplinary masters degree at TISS)
• ESP14-Educational Technology - Designing Technology Enabled Learning Experiences (advanced specialization course for MA in Education programme)
• ES2-Technology for School Education (compulsory course for pre-service teachers Bachelor of Education programme)
• PS18-Designing Digital Tools and Resources (compulsory course for pre-service teachers Bachelor of Education programme)
• PC2-ICT Competencies for Lifelong Learning (professional competency building course for all Education related postgraduate/masters programmes)

Courses taught: Multiple cohorts

• ESP13-Educational Technology - Foundations (advanced specialization course for MA in Education programme)
• OC11-ICT and Education (advanced specialization course for MA in Education Elementary executive blended programme)

Online courses:

• As part of TISS - Open University, UK collaboration to explore Digital Badges in teacher professional development programmes, co-developed a multilingual MOOC course with Prof. Freda Wolfenden DB03ATLUOER-Active Teaching and Learning using OER Link. April 2021
• Co-developed an online course E09-ICT Lab in School. TISSx. Link. February 2021
• Co-developed a MOOC course COOLTOL01-Technologies for Online Learning in School Education that was taken by more than 1200+ learners. Link. August 2020

Research dissertation advisory/guideship: 2019-present

• Since 2019 advised eight students for their masters research dissertation broadly covering themes of technology integration in education, online learning, equity and marginalization, empathy, programme evaluation and inclusivity. Currently I am supervising two dissertations and a capstone project. Mentored four teacher education fellows from Afghanistan, Nepal and Maldives to conduct action research on active teaching-learning with OER as part of the MATPD project. Apr-Dec 2022
• Supervised two teacher educators from Afghanistan for postgraduate field-work research through a partnership funded by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan. Jul 2019-Jun 2020

💻⚙️ SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES

Technology:

A range of web technologies and SDLC processes (django-python, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, Markdown) etc; WordPress and other no-code stacks; Git version control system; Web scraping and working with APIs; Windows, Linux and Android variants of operating systems; online collaborative/productivity tools; UI/UX designing tools; project management tools; docker-container, virtual machine and local server setup.

Research:

Design Based Research with qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods; Computational and agent based modeling with NetLogo and other tools; statistical, network analysis and data visualization with R, Python, D3, Tableau etc; typesetting in LaTeX.

Languages:

Proficient - English, Urdu, Hindi, Kannada; Beginner - Arabic, French

Interests:

Poetry, learning languages, tinkering, cooking, digital interactive tools

🌱 PUBLICATIONS (selected, in order of significance)

1. Charania, A., Mulla, S., & Sen, S. (forthcoming in 2025). Constructive Teaching and Learning: Technology for School Education. In Routledge Book Series for Teachers and Teaching. London, New Delhi: Routledge.
2. Mulla, S., Thirumalai, B., & Ramanathan, A. (2023). State initiatives and innovations in technology enabled content for school education in South Asia: examining aspects of access, equity, inclusion and quality. In Background paper prepared for the Global Education Monitoring Report 2023. Retrieved from UNESCO website: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386084.locale=en
3. Mulla, S., & Nagarjuna, G. (2023). EdTech as an Empowering Tool: Designing Digital Learning Environments to Extend the Action Space for Learning and Foster Digital Agency. In T. Keane, C. Lewin, T. Brinda, & R. Bottino (Eds.), Towards a Collaborative Society Through Creative Learning. WCCE 2022. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology (pp. 69–74). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43393-1_8
4. CETE. (2023). Curating and Creating OER to Enable Active Learning and Professional Development in Teacher Education Institutions: A Policy and Practice Paper. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/cete-ppp
5. Shende, S., & Mulla, S. (2024). Teachers as Troubleshooters: Making ICT Lab in School an Active Space for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Proceedings of International Conference on Technology 4 Education 2023 (T4E2023), Mumbai, India. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13973682
6. Passey, D., Ntebutse, J. G., Mulla, S., Ahmad, M. Y. A., Cochrane, J., Collin, S., … Somasi, S. (2024). Populations Digitally Excluded from Education: Issues, Factors, Contributions and Actions for Policy, Practice and Research in a Post-Pandemic Era. Technology, Knowledge and Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-024-09767-w
7. CETE. (2023). ICT Infrastructure for Teacher Education Institutions: A Policy and Practice Paper. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/cete-ppp
8. CETE. (2023). RAP Curation Rubric to Evaluate OER’s Pedagogical Potential for IFP Devices: A Policy and Practice Paper. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/cete-ppp
9. Prestridge, S., Jacobsen, M., Mulla, S., Paredes, S. G., & Charania, A. (2021). New Alignments for the Digital Age: Insights into Connected Learning. Educational Technology Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-09968-5
10. Co-authored report UNESCO-MGIEP. (2019) Rethinking Pedagogy - Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education. New Delhi: UNESCO-MGIEP. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372786
11. Mulla, S. (2016). Education, Inequality and Community: Understanding ‘voluntary tutoring’ – a case study in London. MA dissertation thesis. University College London.

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