Assistant Professor of Strategy at the Brandeis International Business School Preeta Banerjee has received a Fulbright award to research the development of technology entrepreneurship in firms operating in Kolkata, India, according to BrandeisNOW. The award, co-sponsored by the Indian government, will allow Banerjee to lecture at the University of Calcutta's Asutosh College during the spring 2012 semester. She will explore how entrepreneurs assemble resources in a scarce environment, particularly those lacking in adequate finances and other vital business resources, and the role that intellectual property rights play in facilitating entrepreneurial activity, as reported by BrandeisNOW.

In an e-mail to the Justice, IBS Dean Bruce Magid wrote, "We are immensely proud Preeta Banerjee received this award from the Fulbright Program. She has demonstrated outstanding passion for advancing understanding of entrepreneurship both inside and outside our classrooms."

"We look forward to learning from her research in Kolkata," Magid wrote.

In an interview with the Justice, Banerjee expressed what she hopes to accomplish through her research,

"I definitely want to get my hands in understanding how people are running their businesses and what the different contexts of business are because India is an emerging market and Kolkata is just burgeoning, whereas Boston is a very developed market; and so the types of technologies and the way they're developed, it will be very interesting for me to get my hands into that and see it firsthand."

The Fulbright program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to "increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries" according to the Fulbright Program's website.

"With this goal as a starting point, the Fulbright Program has provided almost 300,000 participants-chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential - with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns," according to the website.

According to its website, The Core Fulbright Scholar Program, under which Banerjee's research falls, sends 800 U.S. faculty and professionals abroad each year. Recipients lecture and conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.

According to BrandeisNOW, recipients of the Fulbright award are chosen on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as a demonstrated capability of leadership potential in their particular fields.

Banerjee's curriculum will include programs directed at recommending the potential ways in which university programs can train students how to leverage available resources-from networks, to money, to people-to further implement productive business ideas, according to BrandeisNOW.