Dr. Syed Iftikhar Shah

Experience

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  Freelancer (Offline)

  Aug 1998 - Aug 1999

  Freelancer (Offline)

  Designed, developed and implemented different commercial software systems for medical lab, inventory management, point of sale and financial accounting. Technical report writing and consultancy services for IT automation in different business sector.

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  PTCL

  Aug 1999 - Sept 2005

  Manager Software

  - Gathered user requirements about desired digitization projects in different divisions of this telecom company, like, customer billing, customer care, customer inquiry, finance division, HR wing, heath division, marketing, value-added telecom services, procurement, and store management, engineering department, etc.Developed software systems, performed quality assurance, Implementation and Maintenance of these telecom Software Systems, supervision of software development team, development of SOPs for software development and operations. Preparation of concept papers on IT matters, network designing. Actively involved in the procurement of IT equipment, arrangement of IT infrastructure including power supply, power backup. Developed and implemented following Telecom Information Systems:- PTCL Customer Feedback Management System / Hotline Compliant registration system- Conversation of fragmented and heterogeneous data regarding PTCL customer data into advanced DBMS and fetching of this processed data through user-friendly search engine interface.- Designed, Developed, implemented following Information Systems:o PTCL 17 Computerize Assistance Systemo PTCL Dynamic Web Portalo On Line Billing & Paymento PTCL Inventory Management Systemo PTCL Wireless Local Loop Sets Configuration softwareo PTCL Asset Management Systemo PTCL calling card Selling management systemo PTCL Human Resource Management Systemo Automation of PTCL H/Q Medical dispensary o PTCL attendance management systemo Bid proposals for ERP software and Data Center Show less

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  Saudi German Hospitals Group (Const. Div) Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

  Sept 2005 - May 2007

  IT Head/Manager IT

  - Overall responsible for Health Care IT systems projects initiation, end users' requirementelicitation, this requirement specification analysis, and SRS documentation, system design,development, testing, implementation, and support and maintenance.- Managed projects related to design and development of ICT Infrastructure of five stars smarthospitals building (consist of 2000 computer network nodes)- Responsible for configuration, testing, migration of legacy data, user coaching, training, implementation of off-the-shelf Financial ERP (e.g., Timberline), and design of dynamic reports (Crystalreports) as per the senior management's needs.Leading IT team other project sites in national and international and Network design, VOIP Configuration for voice communication. Installation and Configuration Of ERP Solution "Timberline Accounting Software". Supervision of IT Team at different sites. In charge of Procurement of IT equipment. Show less

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  Ministry of IT, Government of Pakistan

  Oct 2007 - Dec 2012

  Sr. Analyst/Senior Project Manager BS-20

  - Establishment of IDN ccTLD Dot Pakistan- IPv6 Transition - Prepared high-level software requirement specifications document that covers e-filing,human resource, finance, inventory, and project management modules and shared it withthe software vendor.- Assistance to business owners to sign-off SRS documents- Established competent forums like Change Control Committee to review defect report,deliberation, and their consensus on the possible solutions to these defects, and assigned their priority based on the defect's severity.-Performed active role in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and prepared a thorough report for the senior management for their perusalFormulation and review of IT policies and other strategies: Project Management of E-Government Projects including Planning, project evaluation and monitoring: Annual IT Development Budget including e-government: Team Building, HR Management and leadership: Coordination with other organizations/departments/MoIT attached Departments: Memberships & participation in Inter-Ministerial Committees, Task Forces, Working Groups, review, recruitment/Selection Boards and meetings regarding IT matters including Inter-Ministerial matters and provision of technical input on behalf of MoITFormulation of concept papers for the promotion of the local IT industry with aim to further enhance the IT and IT enabled Services' (ITeS) exports of the countryCoordination with International fora (including ICANN, Commonwealth Connects, WSIS, ITU and GAID etc) on latent ICT issuesImplementation of e-Government System named “E-Office Suite” at MoIT as a roll model so that it will be rolled-out in other federal ministries/divisions Have sound communications skills (Written & Oral) and ability to interact at senior management levels (Prime Minister, Ministers, Speaker NA, Federal Secretaries, Foreign delegates and other senior officers etc) Show less

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  ICANN

  Aug 2009 - Sept 2012

  Volunteer Consultant

  Work as Volunteer Consultant and drafted following policy /document and reports regarding IDN cc TLD and gTLDs Draft a policy document regarding procedure to Develop and Maintain the Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone in Respect of IDNA Labels for ICANN. Draft a report on IDN variant Issue in Arabic Script based TLDs document with the working group for ICANN.

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  Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication

  Aug 2012 - Sept 2018

  Director (IT) - MP-II (BS-21)

  Formulation and review of Digital policies and Strategies (Digital Pakistan Policy approved by the Cabinet): Formulation of E-government Master Plan and strategy Framework for deployment of citizen e-services:Project Management of E-Government Projects including Planning, project evaluation and monitoring: Annual IT Development Budget including e-government: - Performed a business analysis role in digitization initiatives of various federal ministries and their department who are responsible for the following sectors at the national level: IT, telecom, health, education, justice, police, land record, trade, agriculture, railways, R&D, immigration, identity management authority, investigation agency, construction, parliament, civil register, etc.Team Building, HR Management and leadership: Coordination with other organizations/departments/MoIT attached Departments: Memberships & participation in Inter-Ministerial Committees, Task Forces, Working Groups, review, recruitment/Selection Boards and meetings regarding IT matters including Inter-Ministerial matters and provision of technical input on behalf of MoITFormulation of concept papers for the promotion of the local IT industry with aim to further enhance the IT and IT enabled Services' (ITeS) exports of the countryCoordination with International fora (including ICANN, Commonwealth Connects, WSIS, ITU and GAID etc) on latent ICT issues: - Led a team to gather users' requirements from 37 federal ministries/divisionsLeading roll-out of e-Government System named “E-Office Suite” in the Federal GovernmentHave sound communications skills (Written & Oral) and ability to interact at senior management levels (Prime Minister, Ministers, Speaker NA, Federal Secretaries, Foreign delegates and other senior officers etc) Show less

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  Pakistan Computer Bureau (PCB), Ministry of IT

  Dec 2013 - Aug 2014

  Director General, BS-21 (Additional Charge)

  - Heading public sector IT initiatives of Federal Government particularly e-Office strategic planning and implementation in Federal Ministries/ Divisions.- Implementation of e-Office Suite strategy framework approved by MoIT- Deployment of multi-ministry e-office suite on data center- Establishment of e-Government Intranet for communication amongst the Federal Government- Completed pending activities of more than 14 PSDP IT projects for their closure with codal formalities- Manage all PSDP projects inventory and non-development inventory of both defunct entities EGD and PCB. - Supervise all E-government Projects Annual Budget Plan for the FY-2014-15 and its approval from the National Assembly Standing Committee and Planning Commission.- Manage more than 300 employees of both defunct entities PCB and EGD- Supervise the Audit team to settle the previous Audit paras and submitted responses to MoIT and AGP.- Organized “E-Government Forum” to create awareness about Government of Pakistan’s e-Government initiatives Show less

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  National Information Technology Board-NITB, Govt. of Pakistan

  Aug 2014 - Sept 2016

  Executive Director – MP-I Scale BS-22

  Heading Public Sector IT initiatives of Federal Government particularly e-Office strategic planning and implementation in Federal Ministries/ Divisions. Leading technical team to provide technical consultancy to all federal ministries/divisions in ICT matters. Preparation of concept paper on mega e-governance project, its Steering Committee framework, drafted PC-I and its approval from MoITOrganized a workshops on e-Governance for Good Governance and “e-Government Master Plan” in-coordination with NIPA, Korea to obtain valuable input on the e-Government Master Plan for the next 3-5 years from the relevant stakeholders.Leading team to develop, implement and maintain officials web portals, web-based and mobile applications of Federal Ministries/Divisions Show less

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  Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB)

  Jul 2017 - Jan 2018

  Managing Director - Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB)

  - Initiatives to increase Pakistan software export- Programs to boost Domestic IT Business- Capacity Building of IT companies at international standards and their technical exports- Encourage Pakistan’s participations in international events to attract foreign investments in the software and IT/ITeS Services- Provision of state-of-the art infrastructure along with required IT services to IT companies particularly SMEs for smooth development and operations of IT companies- Efforts to mitigate gap between Academia and IT Industry for production of quality software’s through professional IT graduates- Organize national and international IT industry meet-up - Maintain close liaison with relevant stakeholders particularly Pakistan Mission abroad to market software products of Pakistan’s IT Industry. - Provision of connectivity and data services with the Software Parks to local IT companies- Register IT Companies, Start-ups and Call centers as per Standards Operating Procedures.- Management of mega IT Projects (financial management, procurement and contract management etc.) to boost Pakistan IT Industry.- Management of PSEB HR teams located at Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar- Organize many events on IT matters Show less

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  European University

  Sept 2018 - Feb 2022

  Senior IT, Big Data, Digital Research expert, Policy, business analysis, and projects expert

  -Performed project manager role (as a partner) for the EU projects (DE4A, Co-Inform)- Assistance in the preparation of new project proposals within the consortium for onward submission to funding agencies like the EU.-Formulated a holistic framework to collect stakeholders requirements based on their business needs to develop AI-based fact-checking tools-Organized co-design, and co-creation workshops (face-to-face and online) to conceive, design, and develop software tools - Engage stakeholders to test the software prototypes/wireframes through the nudging technique in the workshop session exercises.-Published research articles in well reputed journals on big data ecosystem, e-government, cyber security, disinformation, and public policy. -working on EU project “Digital Europe for all – DE4A” and contributing to technical and semantic interoperability layers of Once Only technical solution for cross-border exchange of information with the EU Member States. - gathered user requirementsfrom the three pilots EU Member States in terms of eight use cases (registration of a company,application for admission in a university, change of address, etc.) for the cross-border exchangeof evidence b/w them. So that citizens (users) can be able to access digital public services.Use of open source tools (e.g. Protege, Vocbench , OWLGrEd) for Ontology engineering of EC projects semantic data models and to use of SPARQL to retrieve and manipulate the RDF data.-Created various reports, and dashboards in BI tools (MS Power BI, Tableau, etc.) for senior management, consultancy work, and for research articles.-Completed consultancy reports of European Commission and other EU MSs-Contributed to prepare DE4A Semantic Framework, and DE4A project Reference Architecture -Doing research in Big Data Ecosystem and targeting to propose a holistic data-centric framework for the next generation data-driven public sector organizations Show less

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  Digital Cooperation Organization

  Mar 2022 - now

  Director - Digital Research

  - To co-create and co-design toolkits, like the ICT Sustainability toolkit, AI toolkit.- building a digital transformation platform known as "DCO IMPACT" for a digital government solutions marketplace to foster partnerships and enhance digital transformation capabilities among DCO Member States. To conduct studies to understand how policies and regulatory frameworks are currently operating in DCO member states- To create a Framework for the research and innovation within DCO to boost the digital economy- Perform Research related activities in different key areas, Misinformation, Generative AI, Digital transformation to achieve the DCO mandate - Work to align data strategies, avoid overlapping of data protection regulations such policy guidelines for combating misinformation / disinformation to, interoperability frameworks to enable cross-border data flows, promote digital content development, work on digital trade agreements, and promote partnerships with the private sectors.- To develop trends centered reports on the digital economy, like the DCO Digital Economy Trends 2025, and 2024 Reports: https://dco.org/digital-economy-trends-2025-report/ Show less