Utkarsh has been actively involved in multiple research organizations, exploring the fields of Development Economics, Tribal Economics, and Political Economy. Before joining the Ph.D. programme at IFMR-GSB, he worked with IIT Mandi from 2019 to 2020 on the ISB-DIRI project. He is passionate about using his research to develop innovative solutions for previously overlooked social and economic issues, especially those faced by people in rural and tribal regions of India. Through my experiences, he has become well-versed in qualitative and quantitative research methods.  

Professional Background:

1. Project Associate, IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh (May 2019 to June 2020)

Project Title: The Role of Aadhar at the Last Mile Delivery of Financial Services

Principal Investigator: Dr. Puran Singh

My Responsibilities included Literature Review, preparing Survey questionnaires, Planning Primary Data Collection, Recruitment of Field Investigators, Training Field Investigators, Digitizing the data collection process via survey tools like Kobo Toolbox, Onfield Data Collection monitoring, cleaning data, Analyzing Data, and Report Writing.

For the primary survey, we interviewed banking agents and their customers among the ten districts of the state. From them, details of BC operations, incomes, costs, issues faced, best practices followed, and financial literacy is captured through a structured questionnaire.

Other responsibilities for the execution of the survey included lesioning with the banking agents, managing the on-field execution of the survey at various locations, interviewing the banking agents and their customers, and capturing observations from the field.

• Paper Presentations: 

  1. 3rd Annual Conference in Economics and Finance, BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad.
  2. 4th International Conference on Digital Economy, IIM Raipur

  Summer School:

  1. Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, Computer Science, Social Science, Research Methodologies, IIIT Hyderabad, July 2022.
     • Topics learned include: text as data, website scraping, digital field experiments, machine learning, NLP, multimodal analysis, analysis of citizen-centric data, research methodologies, data and misinformation, and ethics

  
  
  

Utkarsh is passionate about life and interested in exploring the world around him. He has always been eager to acquire new knowledge, discover new places and understand the community’s issues. His curiosity has driven him to pursue various interests, from cars to learning about different cultures. He has a strong desire to make a difference and is excited to take on any challenge that comes his way. 

Academic Background:

1. MA in Development Studies(2017-2019). Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
2. B.E in Computer Science (2011-2015). School of Engineering and Technology, Jain University, Bangalore.
3. Diploma in Cyber Laws. Government Law College, Mumbai