Soumitra Dutta

‍It is a question Soumitra Dutta, former dean of Oxford Said Business School, asks time and again‚ in lectures‚ in interviews‚ in conversations with the business leaders and policymakers who seek him out. "Are we creating a better future?" 

Dutta was born in 1963 in Chandigarh․ He earned his first degree from IIT Delhi‚ graduating in 1985 with a Bachelor of Technology in electrical engineering and computer science․ He went to Berkeley for his PhD‚ which he earned in computer science and artificial intelligence․ This was the area where a number of people worked in obscurity․ They knew the technology was going to be powerful but they had no idea when everybody else would catch up․ 

Soumitra Dutta joined INSEAD as an assistant professor in 1989‚ and over the next 20+ years was dean of the technology and e-learning department‚ dean of executive education‚ and dean of external relations and corporate strategy․ In 2012‚ he left INSEAD for Cornell‚ where he was the founding dean of the SC Johnson College of Business․ In 2022, he began his tenure as the dean of Oxford Said Business School, a position he held till September 2025. 

None‌ of that‌ quite captures what is distinctive about him․ Dutta is‚ by instinct and temperament‚‌ a builder of frameworks‚ structures for‌ helping people see the world more clearly and act on what they see․ These include the influential Global‌ Innovation Index (GII) co-developed by him in 2007‚ now published annually by the WIPO‚ covering 139 economies‚ and the Network Readiness Index (NRI)‚ co-created by him and published every year by the Portulans Institute‚ a Washington DC non-profit led by him․ The NRI’s key pillars are technology‚ people‚ governance‚‌ and impact․  

Soumitra Dutta former oxford dean has also been an entrepreneur who has cofounded two tech startups. 

It is this combination - scholar‚ institution builder‚ entrepreneur - that gives his views on the future of AI and education particular resonance․ "AI will have a dramatic effect on universities in terms of staffing‚ students‚ courses‚ marking‚ everything… It is a mistake not to take these changes seriously․ We do not want to be the last to change," he has said. 

In his view‚ a degree is an insufficient product for the new AI economy․ "People are going to be looking for lifelong learning - a 30-year product‚ not a three year one"‚ he said․ As AI does more and more of our work, Dutta has often argued, education will place less emphasis on what you know‚ and more on your judgement‚ ability to reframe problems‚ and ability to make decisions in the face of uncertainty.