Dr. Basheerhamad Shadrach is the Asia Coordinator for the World Wide Web Foundation, founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, for its Alliance for Affordable Internet program. In this capacity, Dr. Shadrach helps to build coalitions of private, public and civil society organizations to advance the shared aim of affordable access to both mobile and fixed broadband internet in Asia. Dr. Shadrach also advises the Indian Pubic Library Movement which he passionately helped to establish 2015.
Prior to this, Dr. Shadrach served as the Global CEO of the Telecentre.org Foundation that had its coalitions in over 50 countries around the world. Prior to that, Dr Shadrach worked for IDRC, Canada, managing ICT4D research grants in Asia, including the Mission 2007: every village a knowledge centre initiative of India led by Professor M S Swaminathan. During his tenure at IDRC, also as the global head of telecentre.org Academy program, Dr. Shadrach developed the ecosystem for training one million knowledge workers at the grassroots around the world. In partnership with ITU, Dr. Shadrach was the key person behind the lunch of the “Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign” which offered digital skills to over 1 Million women worldwide in March 2014.
Dr. Shadrach was the global coordinator of the Grassroots Caucus at WSIS in Geneva and Tunis. He also led the G8 DotForce funded, Open Knowledge Network in Asia. As the Global Head of Transparency International, Dr Shadrach helped to launch the first ever global knowledge resource on Anti-Corruption in the 11th IACC in Seoul in 2003.
In his three-decade-long career, Dr. Shadrach has also served in senior management capacities in a variety of organizations such as the British Council, Transparency International and OneWorld International. He has consulted for the ADB; DFID; ITU; UNDP; the Open University, Practical Action and Article 19 in the UK; Sukhuthai Thammarithat Open University, Thailand; and, the ICTA of Sri Lanka.
For his thesis on measuring the impact of rural information access initiatives, Dr. Shadrach has been awarded a PhD by Loughborough University in the UK.