Adviser Panel

Anir Chowdhury

Mr Anir Chowdhury is the policy advisor of UNDP and the USAID-supported a2i Program, Prime Minister’s Office, Bangladesh. In this capacity, he leads the formation of an innovation ecosystem in Bangladesh through massive capacity development, policy formulation, institutional reform and a service innovation fund. His work on innovation in public service has developed interesting and replicable models of service delivery decentralisation, public-private partnerships and transformation of a traditional bureaucracy into a forward-looking, citizen-centric service provider.

Anir is a member of the Prime Minister’s National Digital Task Force, Education Minister’s National ICT in Education Task Force, Planning Minister’s National Information Management Committee, and Cabinet Secretary’s National Steering Committee on Civil Registry and Vital Statistics (CRVS). In his 23-year-long career, he co-founded several software and service companies in the US and Bangladesh focused on enterprise management and IT strategy for Fortune 500 corporations. He also co-founded a number of non-profit organisations focused on ICT4D, e-learning and open source technologies. Anir graduated magna cum laude in computer science and applied mathematics from Brown University and did post-graduate work on management, marketing and education reform in Harvard, Columbia and Boston universities. His interests include co-creation of e- and m-services, crowdsourcing, education reform, wide-scale adoption of open source and open content, public-private partnerships and youth development.

Shameem Ahsan

Shameem Ahsan is one of the foremost figures in the Bangladeshi ICT industry. Mr Ahsan is an ICT entrepreneur, widely recognised for his work to improve the reputation of the Bangladeshi ICT industry in the global space. He has played a pivotal role in the implementation of numerous major policy changes related to the ICT sector in recent years.

Mr Ahsan is a general partner for the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Fenox Venture Capital.  He is the only Bangladesh-based businessman who is a fund manager for a global company of such stature as Fenox, which is a USD 1.5 billion investment firm.

Currently, he is serving as the president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), the largest national trade body for IT and ITES of the country. He is serving as a director of the Federation of Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FBBCI), the top trade body in Bangladesh. He is a director of Agrani Bank, one of the largest banks in the country.

He is the co-founder and chairman of Bagdoom.com (Akhoni.com), one of the premier e-commerce sites in the country, as well as E-Generation Ltd, Benchmark E-Generation Ltd and Element 5 Ltd, amongst many others.

Shameem Ahsan has been lauded many times for his significant contributions to the growth and development of the ICT industry. He has received the “Best Young Entrepreneur of Bangladesh” award from the Prime Minister of Bangladesh at Dhaka Chamber of Commerce Business Award; he was voted “Top Outstanding Young Person in Bangladesh” by JCI and awarded for his contribution to the e-commerce sector by Computer Jagat. He is a member of the Prime Minister’s Digital Bangladesh Task Force, which is the highest policy-making body for monitoring and implementing the vision of digital Bangladesh and elevating Bangladesh to the status of a middle-income country.

Shameem Ahsan has played an instrumental role in the promotion of the Bangladeshi ICT industry overseas and has been working tirelessly to bring greater investment into Bangladesh. Through a series of speeches, keynotes and talks at various events all over the world, he has elevated the presence of the Bangladeshi ICT industry globally. ICT in Bangladesh is a booming sector and Shameem Ahsan is one of the pioneers leading this growth. With his vast experience and tireless dedication to the field of ICT, he is one of the major change makers guiding the technology sector of Bangladesh to global recognition and prominence.

Mridul Chowdhury

Mridul Chowdhury is the founder and CEO of mPower Social Enterprises Ltd that specialises in innovative use of ICT for development in domains of health, agriculture, education, resilience and livelihoods. mPower (previously ClickDiagnostics) was launched in the campuses of Harvard University and MIT after winning the MIT 100K Business Plan Competition in social enterprise track. mPower, in collaboration with development organisations, designs and develops solutions for using ICTs for greater impact. It also provides a platform to launch innovative ICT-based services that can be directly delivered to people.

As a company, mPower is home to a host of development practitioners, technology geeks, and social innovators from various domains, all working under the same roof with a common mission. mPower has spawned off innovations that have garnered many international and national accolades and recognitions, including USAID Global Development Award, USAID Mobiles for Development Award, National Mobile Application Award, two time winner of mBillionth Award and two time winner of Manthan Award.

Luna Shamsuddoha

Luna Shamsuddoha, chairman of Dohatec New Media (1992), is a software entrepreneur and the founder and president of Bangladesh Women in Technology.

Dohatec has developed several e-Governance projects, including e-GP portal and public procurement MIS. It developed the solution for Social Safety Net.  Dohatec handles Machine Readable Visa processing in India for Department of Immigrations and Passports for Bangladesh.  It provided the Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) System for the Royal Government of Bhutan. Clients include the Government of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bangladesh Army, the World Bank, and World Health Organization.

Dohatec is a certifying authority issuing digital certificates. They offer PKI tools and enablement solutions also.

She provided the multi-biometric voter registration solution for the Bangladesh Army in 2007 and 2008. Microsoft WPC 2007 recognised her. She received two awards for Software from Switzerland.  Dohatec has a big data analytics platform for custom uses. She is the managing director of Gvtele, an IGW.

She was a panelist in two sessions of the UN 59th Commission on the status of women and moderator of the UN’s online discussion of UN Women in 2015. She participated in the UN ITC Trailblazers Summit: Transformations in Sourcing from Women in São Paulo, Brazil in 2015 – a call for inclusion of women in public procurement.

BWIT is a forum for empowering women through technology, and encouraging women and girls in ICT entrepreneurship and to study and pursue careers in technology.   She is a member of the Council of Global Thought Leaders on Inclusive Growth, Lausanne and Global Role Model, Empowering Women IT Entrepreneurs Program Microsoft and Trestle Foundation. 

She serves on several boards – SME Foundation, Independent University Bangladesh (IUB) and Trustee for Under Privilege Children’s Educational Program (UCEP – an NGO). She is the former director of state-owned Agrani Bank Ltd, and a member of the Cyber Crime Act 2016 drafting committee and ICT review Committee.

She completed her masters in international relations and was lecturer at the Modern Languages Institute of Dhaka University.  She received several national and international recognitions and awards.   Among them are the “Leadership Award 2013” of Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network Award in Sweden and the World Women Leadership Congress and Awards Achievement Award 2015 in Mumbai, India.

Asif Saleh

Mr Saleh is the senior director of strategy, communications and empowerment for BRAC and BRAC International. He oversees advocacy, information and communications technology (ICT), communications and the social innovation lab. He is currently in charge of the empowerment cluster, which includes migration, human rights and legal aid services (HRLS), urban development programme (UDP) and skills development programme (SDP).

Prior to joining BRAC in 2011, Mr Saleh was the executive director at Goldman Sachs and also worked at GlaxoWellcome, NorTel and IBM. Upon his return to Bangladesh in 2008, he worked as a policy specialist for the UNDP-funded Access to Information Programme (A2i) at the Prime Minister’s Office. He is the founder of Drishtipat, a global organisation with chapters across the globe focusing on human and economic rights of Bangladeshis. Mr Saleh was recognised for his work by Asia Society’s Asia 21 programme in 2008, the Bangladeshi American Foundation in 2007, and was selected as an Asia 21 Fellow in 2012. He was selected to be a Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum in 2013.

Mr Saleh holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and an MBA in management from NYU Stern School of Business.

He is a member of the board of directors for BRACNet and IPDC, one of the oldest financial institutions in the country. He also chairs BRAC IT Services Limited. He is a board member of multiple non-profits such as 1 Degree Initiative, Spreeha, Institute of Informatics and Development. Mr Saleh is a member of the advisory council of Public Interest Registry and a 2013 mentor of the Unreasonable Institute.

KAM Morshed

Mr Morshed leads BRAC’s advocacy, partnership, and technology teams. He joined BRAC in October 2015. Previously, he led Bangladesh’s Policy, Innovation, and Communication teams at UNDP as an assistant country director for over 10 years. Additionally, he managed the UNDP-Government partnership and supervised various programme portfolios such as MDG, ICT4D, aid effectiveness, south-south cooperation, pro-poor trade, private sector, etc.  Mr Morshed designed and oversaw the implementation of many successful projects, among which Access to Information Programme (a2i) at the Prime Minister’s Office in Dhaka is the best known. He worked as a member of several national and international committees of senior leaders on issues such as financial inclusion and innovation to name a few.

He founded one of Bangladesh’s first export-oriented IT companies in 1993. He joined his alma mater as teacher in 1998. Before joining UNDP in 2005, Mr Morshed sponsored several start-ups including country’s first supermarket chain and the first consulting house specialising in business process re-engineering. He led and participated in several notable projects of national and international agencies and was published in peer-reviewed journals, newspapers and periodicals. His book, titled “Let’s learn Lotus 1-2-3 by ourself”, one of the first such books in Bengali, was published in 1993.

Mr Morshed received his masters and bachelor degree with honours from the Department of Finance and Banking, University of Dhaka in 1994 and 1993 respectively. His interests include innovation, behavioural insights, future casting, and social enterprises, to promote social justice.