Akhtar Badshah, executive director and co-founder of Digital Partners Global - a development organisation that showcases, assists and brings in funding to support good ventures -- sees "enormous potential" in digital technologies and the digital economy helping poor communities leapfrog out of poverty

 

Akhtar Badshah (47) is executive director and co-founder of Digital Partners Global. Located at the World Trade Centre in Seattle, this development organisation is currently being led by expatriate Indians.

 

For the past two years, Badshah has been part of the team that organises the annual Baramati Initiative meet in the small, dusty town of Baramati in Maharashtra. The goal: to discuss how ICTs (information and communication technologies) can be harnessed for development. Held at the end of May, these meets have drawn a wide range of people experimenting in this field.

 

The web venture that Badshah is associated with -- www.digitalpartners.org

-- is sometimes marketed as UN secretary general Kofi Annan's "favourite

site".

 

Badshah sees "enormous potential" in digital technologies and the digital economy helping poor communities leapfrog out of poverty. This year's meet drew in social entrepreneurs, members of the development community, ICT entrepreneurs, government officials and others.

 

An architect by training, Badshah studied in Ahmedabad and did his PhD in MIT where he taught architecture for eight years, focussing on urban development issues.

 

 

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