Rajesh S Upadhyayula is currently pursuing his PhD at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His dissertation is titled " Determinants of technological knowledge flows to firms in Industrial clusters: A study of external and internal linkages ". The dissertation focuses on software and electronics industry firms in both clusters and non-clusters in India. At UNU-INTECH, Mr. Upadhyayula finalized the first chapter of his thesis, which is a review of literature on clusters and knowledge transfer mechanisms to firms in clusters.

More broadly, he is interested in the study of technology change, competitive advantage of firms and regions, microfinance / small and micro-enterprise development and rural infrastructure. He recently presented a conceptual paper, " Social capital as an antecedent to absorptive capacity of firms " at the DRUID summer conference 2004. He has also co-authored (with Prof. M. S. Sriram) " Transformation of Microfinance in India: Experiences, Options and Future ", to be published in Journal of Microfinance .

Prior to embarking on his doctoral programmestudies, Mr. Upadhyayula worked as a project manager with Rural Non Farm Development Agency (RUDA), a micro-enterprise promotion agency of the state government of Rajasthan, where he carried out a number of studies on enterprise promotion for various agencies including the State Government, UNFPA, World Bank and UNIDO. He obtained his Masters in Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal in 1997 and a Bachelors degree in Engineering from Andhra University.

Contact information
Dorm 17 Room 19,
Indian Institute of Management,
Vastrapur, Ahmedabad
India
Tel: +91-79-26327719 (H)
Tel: +91-79-26324714 (O)
E-mail: rajesh_s@iimahd.ernet.in
Alternate E-mail: usrajesh@yahoo.com , usrajesh@gmail.com
Webpage: http://stdwww.iimahd.ernet.in/~rajesh_s/