LoH member Digital Empowerment Foundation, India

Osama Manzar works at the cusp of Rights, Access and Meaningful Content. He is a Senior Ashoka Fellow, British Chevening Scholar, International Visitors Leadership Program Fellow of US State Department and an Advisor to Women in Digital Economy Fund (WiDEF).
After half a decade of stint in tech journalism, he founded Digital Empowerment Foundation in 2002 working on “access to rights and rights to access” ending up digitally empowering more than 35 million people till date. He was instrumental in several policies and impact activities like India’s National Digital Literacy Mission, banning FreeBasics in India,and liberalising ISP licensing through PM-WANI in India. He has been on the boards and advisories of Women in Digital Economy Fund, APC, World Summit Awards, GNI, Barefoot College, Protsahan, MISSING, etc. and is profiled by The Hindu as “the man who travelled more than 10,000 villages”. He writes a regular column in Mint at Livemint.com and has authored several books including Internet Economy of India.