Role of India Project Advisory Committee Members
The DEF-APC IMPACT India Project looks at the following role of the India Project Advisory Committee: 

1. PLANNING: The Committee Members provide guidance and inputs to the Project team from time to time in planning the various activity variables of the project. This includes planning for policy and implementation aspects of key activities as per project mandate and goals to contribute to the overall benefit to ultimate IMPACT beneficiaries. This also includes planning for research papers, reports, and issue papers.

2. IMPLEMENTATION: The Committee Members contribute timely inputs and interventions in implementation aspects of the project including  research, advocacy, policy, knowledge building and sharing components of the project. This may require their valuable presence in implementation stations (workshops, stakeholders meetings, advocacy campaigns and so on).

3. PROJECT OUTREACH & PROMOTION: The Committee Members will see enough reason and relevance to promote the cause and objectives of the project amongst relevant stakeholders. They may connect the Project Team with such stakeholders to strengthen the goals and outcome of the project for wider community gains on promotion and protection of human rights on the Internet.

4. SUB-COMMITTEES: It may be necessary to form Project sub-committees to strengthen the project. The Advisory Committee Members may develop sub-committees which have assigned tasks in specific areas on the basis of project activities and sub-activities.

5. MEETINGS: The Committee Members shall play the significant role in attending and contributing in the India Project Advisory Committee meeting which shall be convened every three months or as-per need as decided by the Project Advisory Committee​​ members.

6. OTHER TASKS: During the project period of 3 years, the Advisory Committee Members may require to contribute in other aspects of the project as and when arises without putting the Members in adverse and compulsorily obliging situations.

Project Advisory Committee Members

Ingrid Srinath, CEO, Hivos India Advisory Services
Ingrid Srinath is presently CEO at Hivos India Advisory Services – an international development organization guided by humanist values. Prior to HIVOS, she served on the advisory boards of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (UN-DCF), the World Economic Forum (WEF), Street Football World, Magic Bus and the Prajnya Trust and on the boards of the INGO Accountability Charter and The Rules. From 2004 – 2008, Ingrid was the CEO of CRY (Child Rights and You), where she led the national coalition that successfully campaigned to amend India’s constitution to make education a fundamental right. She served as Secretary General from 2008-12 at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and from 2013-14 as Executive Director of CHILDLINE India Foundation – a pioneering example of technology, activism and public-private partnership in action. Ingrid has led large teams across the world and been a passionate advocate for child rights, human rights and social justice movements.

Amitabh Singhal, Board Member, PIR (Public Interest Registry)
Amitabh currently sits on the Board of .ORG, the Public Interest Registry, based in Reston, Virginia. He is also the Director of Telxess Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd. and Vcon Services Ltd. He was a Founder and former President of Internet Service Providers Association (ISPAI) of India. He also was a founder, Board Director and CEO of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). He helped in conceptualizing and set up NIXI as a public private partnership between ISPAI and Department of Information Technology, Government of India and was involved in restructuring NIXI as an autonomous Registry and Regulator of the .IN Domain (Indian ccTLD), including its commercial launch, drafting and implementing the INDRP, and appointment of Registrars, etc. He is also associated with Internet Governance Group of the Department of IT. He contributed many articles over the years in various publications and journals, and was a speaker & presenter at various forums, including the IGF, INET and other national, regional and international forums.

Dr. Anja Kovacs, Researcher, Internet Democracy Project
Dr. Anja Kovacs currently directs the Internet Democracy Project in Delhi, India which engages in research and advocacy on the promises and challenges of the Internet for democracy and social justice in India and beyond. Anja’s work focuses especially on questions regarding the freedom of expression and the architecture of Internet governance. She is currently a member of the Investment Committee of Digital Defenders Partnership; of the interim Steering Committee of Best Bits; and of the Steering Committee of 1net. She has also worked as an international consultant on Internet issues, including for the UNDP Asia Pacific and the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Mr. Frank La Rue. She has also been a Fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India. She has lectured at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK and Ambedkar University, Delhi, India, and has conducted extensive fieldwork throughout South Asia. She obtained her PhD in Development Studies from the University of East Anglia in the UK and has been based in India since 2001.

Subho Ray, President, IAMAI
Subho Ray is presently working as the president of Internet & Mobile Association India (IAMAI). In his current role, has been instrumental in some crucial steps for the development of the digital industry. The main among these are instituting an accreditation process for interactive agencies, a credit recovery process for online publishers, organizing and getting recognition for the mobile value added services industry and for opening up the pre-paid instruments industry. Under Subho Ray’s leadership, IAMAI has also been recognized as the leader in all Internet and mobile value added services research in India. IAMAI has grown seven-fold in terms of membership and has been at the forefront of the advocacy for ecommerce, online advertisement, ICT for SMEs, internet penetration and an equitable business regime for mobile value added services industry. Before joining IAMAI, Subho was director for the ICT vertical at the Confederation of Indian Industry (India’s largest industry body) in New Delhi where he worked since 1998 with a 2 year stint at the Confederation’s London office.

Nikhil Dey, Founding Member, MKSS
Nikhil Dey is one of the founder members of the MKSS along with Aruna Roy and Shankar Singh. He has been a part of the organisation’s decision making collective and its numerous struggles of the poor for land, the payment of minimum wages, justice, and equality. He has also been a part of the organisation’s involvement in larger campaigns – most notably for the People’s Right to Information, the Right to Work, and the larger struggle for democratic rights.

Mishi Choudhary, Legal Director, SFLC
Mishi Choudhary is the Director of International programs at Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), New York and the founding Executive Director of SFLC India. She has an LLM from Columbia Law School where she was a Stone Scholar.
Prior to joining SFLC, Mishi was a litigator in different chambers in India with areas of practice covering Corporate and Commercial Law, Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, Information Technology Law, Trademarks and Copyrights. She is a member of the Bar Council of Delhi, licensed to appear before the Supreme Court of India, all the State High Courts in India, in the State of New York, before the Southern District of New York and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Rajnesh Singh, Regional Bureau Director for Asia-Pacific, ISOC
Rajnesh Singh is Regional Director of the Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau at the Internet Society where he oversees projects, initiatives and activities across the Internet Society’s functional and programmatic areas in the Asia and Pacific region, including Public Policy, Capacity Building and Internet Standards and Technology.
Prior to joining the Internet Society, Rajnesh played founding and leading roles in several technology and private equity investment firms, and still maintains varied business interests. In his professional capacity, Rajnesh has consulted on communications & power infrastructure, project management and business strategy for medium to large companies and organisations in the Asia-Pacific region. He has also held advisory roles across multiple sectors ranging from governmental organisations to sporting organisations and the private sector.
Rajnesh has worked extensively with the Asia-Pacific Internet community, and has held several leadership roles, including Founding Chair of ICANN’s Asia Pacific Regional At-Large Organisation (APRALO) and Chair of the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society. Rajnesh speaks multiple languages and is based in Singapore.

Saikat Datta, Editor (National Security), Hindustan Times
Saikat Datta is Editor (National Security) in Hindustan Times national newspaper. Prior to Hindustan Times, Saikat was associated with Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. He led a team of 40 journalists that covered politics, economy, lifestyle and editorials. He has written various stories on stories on security, strategic issues, the Indian Intelligence community and economic issues. He has also co-authored ‘India’s Special Forces’ A historical assessment of Indian Special Forces, Special Operations and their future in modern warfare. Saikat was also associated as an investigative journalist at Outlook where he covered Indian politics, economy, with a special focus on politics, corruption, transparency, defence, conflict and intelligence. He has won various awards in field of journalism – International Press Institute Award, National RTI Award (Journalism) and Jagan Phadnis Memorial Award for Investigative Journalism.

Shubhranshu Choudhary, CGnet Swara
Shubhranshu Choudhary is a Knight International Journalism Fellow working on project training citizen journalists in rural India. Choudhary was a BBC South Asia producer for more than 10 years. He also has served as a media trainer for the BBC World Service Trust, the United Nations and Indian universities. He produced the first television coverage of foreign militants operating in Indian Kashmir and conducted the first television interview with the chief commander of the Kashmiri militant organization. He was a TV and radio producer for the BBC’s South Asia bureau for eight years, and a reporter for The Guardian’s South Asia bureau for two years. He was a reporter for five years at the Hindi-language daily Deshbandhu.

N. Ramakrishanan, Executive Director, Ideosync Media Combine
N.Ramakrishnan is a development communications professional, trainer and author with more than a decade of experience in the development sector. He is also a cinematographer, editor, director, and technology enthusiast; and conducts workshops on community radio, developmental filmmaking and low cost radio and video technology.
With extensive experience in developing community-derived and community-oriented behaviour change materials, Ramakrishnan has worked on a number of behaviour change communication tools, including the National Award winning film Nirankush, on female infanticide in the Indian state of Rajasthan; and the acclaimed Growing Up/Badhte Hum/Time of Our Lives video module series on reproductive and sexual health for young people. Ramakrishnan works with Ideosync Media Combine, a communication for development organization based in the NCR of Delhi, India. He is currently engaged on several community radio and radio for development initiatives, including a cross border radio programme series on safe migration and HIV for Nepali, Garhwali and Kumaoni migrants.

Venu Arora, Founder/Director of Projects, Ideosync Media Combine
Venu Arora is a Specialist in participatory media. Venu Arora co-founded the New-Delhi based organization Ideosync Media Combine. Her work explores and emphasizes the innovations in participatory assessment. A scriptwriter, editor and National-Award winning director, Ms. Arora is also holds a MacArthur Fellowship.At Ideosync, Ms. Arora has been working on Community Media and Community Radio (CR) in partnership with local organizations, assisting in building local apacity for understanding the use of media as a tool for raising local issues and finding local solutions. It is about understanding how media- both radio and video- can be used to engage the audience in a participatory, inventive and creative manner.

Mahima Kaul, Head – Public Policy, Twitter India
Mahima Kaul, is the head of Public Policy at Twitter, India. She previously lead the Cyber and Media Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi and was also the editor of its monthly Cyber Monitor. Along with her role at ORF, she is the India correspondent for Index on Censorship, a UK based magazine that focuses on freedom of expression issues. She has also written for The Indian Express, Sunday Guardian, and Wall Street Journal and produced documentaries that have aired on PBS, Al Jazeera and CCTV. Earlier in 2012, she was awarded the Emerging Leaders fellowship by the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia, where she wrote and presented a paper on digital inclusion in India.
Previously, she has worked with Video Volunteers, a pan-India community media organization, and helped set up India’s first community media channel, India Unheard. She has also worked with the Digital Empowerment Foundation where she travelled around India, studying projects that use ICTs for social change.

Deepak Mahasewari, Head Government Affairs, Symantec
Deepak Maheshwari is a public policy and regulatory affairs professional with more than 15 years’ experience, especially pertaining to Information & Communication Technology and Digital Payments across organizations like Symantec, Microsoft, Sify and MasterCard. Presently, Mr. Maheshwari is heading Government Affairs department in Symantec. He has keen interest in the interplay of public policy, technological innovation and socio-economic development and has been associated with trade associations, academic institutes, NGOs and think tanks. In addition to an engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), he has law graduate degree.

Francesca Feruglio, Director of Programs & Operations and Co-founder, Nazdeek
Francesca Feruglio is Director of Programs and Operations and co-founder of Nazdeek. She is a human rights activist and researcher with experience in promoting human rights and ensuring social inclusion of discriminated communities and individuals. She spent several years working with international and grassroots organizations, both in Europe and in India, working on issues of discrimination of migrant workers, LGBTI people and ethnic minorities. At the Human Rights Law Network she contributed to the success of numerous landmark cases addressing violations of reproductive rights, food security and housing rights for women, Dalits and indigenous people, including Premlata w/o Ram Sagar & Ors. v. Govt. NCT Delhi W.P. Civ. 7687/2010 (2010), Dunabai w/o Vest Adivasi v. Govt. Madhya Pradesh & Ors W.P. (C) 2033/2011 and Haq Foundation v NCT Delhi & Ors W.P. (C) 2033/2011 . Francesca holds a BA in History and Anthropology from University of Padua, Italy and a LL.M in International Human Rights Law from the National University of Galway, Ireland. Her academic interests reflect her multidisciplinary background and range from issues of right to food and health to intellectual property rights, multiculturalism and globalization.

Rajen Varada, CEO, Open Knowledge Community
Rajen Varada is an ICT practitioner since 1995 and continues to be actively engaged in designing and implementing proof of concept solutions for rural development using technology and in particular ICT. He has developed solutions for health & early childhood care: (Sisu Samrakshak UNICEF), disaster: (SMS4help – Solution Exchange), district e-governance: (Parishkaram & Samadhan – Govt of AP& West Bengal) and most recently ‘Labnet” a migrant labour tracking and services portal. He is actively involved for the past nine years in study, evaluation and mentoring ICT innovations which impact the social sector. Rajen has been one of the thinkers behind movements like public sector software in India and actively support community ownership of technology – from community radio, community TV to open source applications.

Dr. Madanmohan Rao, Research Editor, Your Story
Dr. Madanmohan Rao is an author and consultant from Bangalore, specialising in knowledge management and mobile media. He is the editor of five book series including The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook and The Knowledge Management Chronicles. He is the co-founder of the Bangalore K-Community, a network of KM professionals. Madan is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit, and has given talks and lectures in over 75 countries around the world. He is research project director at MobileMonday and conference chair of the Innovation Africa Digital Summit. Madan was formerly the communications director at the United Nations Inter Press Service bureau in New York, and vice president at IndiaWorld Communications in Bombay. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with an M.S. in computer science and a Ph.D. in communications.

Basheerhamad Shadrach, Independent Consultant
Basheerhamad Shadrach is consulting for organisations of repute in Grassroots and Development Informatics; Access to Information; Freedom of Expression/Information; Public Access Policies; education; eGovernance and Pro-poor informatics.
Shadrach served as the Global CEO of the Telecentre.org Foundation. Prior to that, Shadrach worked for IDRC, Canada, managing ICT4D research grants in Asia, including the “Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre” initiative. For five years, Shadrach was the global head of the Telecentre.org Academy programme, where he developed the ecosystem for training one million knowledge workers at the grassroots level in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. In partnership with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Shadrach also helped to launch the Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign, which, since being launched in April 2011, has offered digital skills to over one million women worldwide.
Shadrach earned a PhD from Loughborough University in the UK, where his thesis looked at measuring the impact of rural information access initiatives, and currently serves on a number of advisory boards, including the Civil Society Advisory Committee at the Commonwealth Foundation.

Osama Manzar, Director, DEF
Osama Manzar is a convert social entrepreneur spearheading the mission to overcome the information barrier between India’s rural sector and the so-called developed society, through Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), the not-for-profit organization founded to accomplish the mission. Osama has been British Chevening Fellow in 2002 and recently in 2011 he was invited by US State Department for the “International Visitors Leadership Program”. He just released his 4th Book called “NetCh@kra: 15 Years of Internet in India”. He is a Member, Working Group, Internet Proliferation & Governance for Ministry of Communication & IT and was a Member, Task Force on Growth of IT, ITES & Electronics HW Manufacturing Industry, Ministry of Comm & IT, India. He is also a member of the Advisory Board for National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) under Department of Telecom, Ministry of Telecom & IT. At the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, for the Community Radio Licensing, Osama Manzar is a member of the Screening Committee.