Reza Salim

Reza Salim, born in Bangladesh started his career with Social Research at the ground level to improve people and community's health status by developing information, communication and education materials; he was later responsible for NGO case study project which was also a comprehensive research program (Anubhav Series) financed by the Ford Foundation.

He initiated a rural Information Communication Technology for Development model project namely Amader Gram which means Our Villages [http://www.amadergram.org AmaderGram.org] in the southwest part of Bangladesh; this project is being implementing by the Bangladesh Friendship Education Society (BFES) - an NGO serving in Bangladesh for rural education, community development and civil society engagements in policy advocacy.

Through the Amader Gram Project Reza Salim is developing Knowledge Management tools appropriate for the project owners, the grassroots people of Bangladesh, that integrate ICTs as an important medium; Reza has developed the now practiced concept - KT4D (Knowledge Transfer for Development) - that includes empowerments issues for rural women.

Reza Salim served for many international development organizations in the field of ICTs and empowerment. He was the South Asia Regional Coordinator (Focal Point) for Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) for the year of 2002-2004. He also served for the Bangladesh national committee as Member Secretary for UN WSIS (Geneva 2003, Tunis 2005) which was headed by the government; Salim was involved in WSIS process from the beginning and organized many consultations in country and abroad. He was an active member from Asian Civil Society group in UN WSIS process.