Indrajit Banerjee (10 November 1964 – 25 January 2019) was an author on media and communication and the director of the Knowledge Societies Division at

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

. He obtained a PhD with distinction from

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University () is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the Unive ...

Paris in communication and didactics in 1994. He served as the secretary-general of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in Singapore, from 2004 to 2009.

Education and career

Indrajit Banerjee was born and brought up in

Pondicherry Pondicherry, officially known as Puducherry, is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of the Puducherry (union territory), Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the southeast coast of Indi ...

, India. His early schooling was completed at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, where he left with a BA in Arts and Sciences in 1985. He moved to New Delhi, attending

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU; ISO: Javāharalāla Neharū Viśvavidyālaya) is a public research university located in Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university ...

where, in 1988, he left with a MA in French. He then moved to Paris, France, where he completed a Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies by 1990, followed by a PhD in communication and in

didactics A didactic method (from ''didáskein'', "to teach") is a teaching method that follows a consistent scientific approach or educational style to present information to students. The didactic method of instruction is often contrasted with dialecti ...

from the

in 1994. In 1995, Banerjee moved to

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Canada, where he worked for a year at

Université du Québec The Université du Québec () is a system of ten provincially-run public universities in Quebec, Canada. Its headquarters are in Quebec City. The university coordinates 1400 programs for over 100,000 students. The government of Quebec founded ...

as a post-doctoral research fellow in communication and media. Then, in 1996, he became Adjunct Faculty at the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

until 1998, when he accepted the position of associate professor at the School of Communication and Information at the University Science Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia. From 2001 to 2009, he held the role of associate professor at

Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1981, it is also the second oldest autonomous university in the country. The university is organised across numerous colleges and schools, includi ...

in Singapore and, in 2004, was also appointed as the secretary-general of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), an organisation he led until he left Singapore in 2009. Banerjee moved away from academia and joined

in their Paris headquarters in 2009 as the chief of information and communication technology in the Education, Science and Culture Section of the Communication and Information Sector. He was promoted within a year to become director in the Knowledge Societies Division within the same sector, a position he held until he died in 2019. As director, Banerjee's work was geared towards improving freedom of expression, access to information and education, and other themes aligned to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

Sustainable Development Goals The ''2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development'', adopted by all United Nations (UN) members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of these global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet" – wh ...

. His work towards the SDGs saw contributions in the area of inclusivity and providing access for people with disabilities, culminating in various projects and events, such as the 2017 True Colours Festival for Artistes with Disabilities featuring advocate

Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...

. From 2017 onwards, Banerjee also oversaw collaboration of UNESCO with

Inria The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name French Institute for Research in Comp ...

for the

Software Heritage Software Heritage is a non-profit organization which provides a service for archiving and referencing historical and contemporary software with a focus on human readable source code. The site was unveiled in 2016 by Inria and is supported by UNE ...

project with the aim of "collecting, preserving, and sharing the source code of all the software ever written." He was the recipient of the CIONET European Digital Leader of the Year award in 2017. He was a member of the

International Communication Association The International Communication Association (ICA) is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. ICA communicates within the association and with oth ...

, the International Association for Media and Communication Research and the

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is a major international membership organization for academics in the field, offering regional and national conferences and refereed publications. It has numerous members ...

Bibliography

* 1995: ''L’internationalisation de La Télévision et Les Problèmes de l’interculturel Une Étude de Cas Sur Canal plus et Son Développement International'' (A.N.R.T, Université de Lille III) * 2003: ''Rhetoric and Reality: The Internet Challenge for Democracy in Asia'', (Eastern Universities Press). * 2006: ''Public Service Broadcasting in the Age of Globalization'', (Asian Media Information and Communication Centre). * 2008: ''Media and Development in Asia: Regional perspectives'', (Asian Media Information and Communication Centre). * 2008: ''Asian Communication Handbook 2008'', (Asian Media Information and Communication Centre). * 2007: ''The internet and governance in Asia : a critical reader'', (Asian Media Information and Communication Centre). * 2009: ''Changing Media, Changing Societies: Media and the Millennium Development Goals'', (Asian Media Information and Communication Centre).

References

External links

UNESCO Site on Internet and the Radicalization of Youth, Speaker page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banerjee, Indrajit 1964 births 2019 deaths People from Pondicherry 20th-century Indian writers 21st-century Indian writers UNESCO officials