Baharul Islam

DR BAHARUL ISLAM is the Chairman and CEO of SOUTH ASIA DEVELOPMEMT GATEWAY. Dr Baharul Islam has been working in the area of Information Technology policy and legal issues, Rural Development, Poverty Reduction, teaching and researching information society and emerging knowledge economy for more than a decade.

Dr Baharul Islam passed BA (English Hons) and MA (English) both with First Class from Aligarh Muslim University. He was awarded Majaz Gold Medal in MA for his outstanding performance. He also passed his LLB in 1995 and LLM from Strathclyde University (UK) in 2006 with First Division. He completed B.Ed. with First Class Fourth position from Assam University in 1997. He did his PhD in New Technologies for English language from Tezpur University in 1999 and completed his Post-Doctorate studies at the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok, Thailand) in 1999 with a Govt of India faculty fellowship from REC, Silchar.

Dr Islam started his career as a faculty in West Silchar College (Aug-Dec 1992) and then joined Dept of English Teaching at the Gauhati University in 1993. In Sept 1993 he shifted to Diphu Govt College as a Lecturer and later joined Regional Engineering College, Silchar (now NIT) in May 1994. He was on a foreign deputation in 1999-2000 as a Senior Lecturer at the Kigali Institute (Rwanda). He was promoted as a Reader in March 2002 at NCERT, New Delhi. Dr Islam was later appointed as an Associate Professor at the University of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in Nov 2003. In all he taught for more than 12 years in various universities in India and abroad.

He has also worked with the United Nations organizations in Asia and Africa. He has published widely with more than eight books and more than 30 papers/articles to his credit. He is a public speaker, debater, and communication specialist. He participated at the BBC World Debate in 2006 that brought him to international development limelight. He has traveled all over the world on international assignments and speaks more than eight international languages and foreign dialects.

Presently Dr Islam is on a diplomatic assignment with South Asian Regional Development Gateway as its Chairman and CEO since January, 2007. He was earlier working with the UN Commission for Africa (UNECA) and UN Economic Commission for Asia (ESCAP) on ICT policy and e-Government issues from August 2003 to December 2006. He has been involved in various UN projects in Asia and Africa and developed national and regional ICT policies and e-Government Strategies for many countries. He has written a chapter of the first Encyclopedia of Digital Governance being published in 2006.