{"id":3988,"date":"2017-01-31T14:27:26","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T14:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsa-global.org\/?post_type=person&#038;p=3988"},"modified":"2026-03-19T15:11:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:11:47","slug":"osama-manzar","status":"publish","type":"person","link":"https:\/\/wsa-global.org\/person\/osama-manzar\/","title":{"rendered":"Osama Manzar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Osama Manzar is a convert social entrepreneur spearheading the mission to <strong>overcome the information barrier between India\u2019s rural sector and the so-called developed society<\/strong>, through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defindia.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\u201dnoopener noopener noreferrer\">Digital Empowerment Foundation<\/a>(DEF) \u2013 the not-for-profit organization founded to accomplish the mission.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Osama has been British Chevening Fellow in 2002 and in 2011 he was invited by the US State Department for the \u201cInternational Visitors Leadership Program\u201d. He just released his 4<sup>th<\/sup> Book titled \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/netchakra.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\u201dnoopener noopener noreferrer\">NetCh@kra: 15 Years of Internet in India<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He is a member of the Advisory Board for National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN). At the Ministry of Information &amp; Broadcasting, for the Community Radio Licensing, Osama Manzar is a member of the Screening Committee.He has recently initiated a regional movement on<strong> \u201cHow Mobile can Empower Masses\u201d<\/strong> through <a href=\"http:\/\/mbillionth.in\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\u201dnoopener noopener noreferrer\">mBillionth Award South Asia<\/a>, recognising and mentoring Mobile Content, Application &amp; Services.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In <strong>2003<\/strong> he launched <a href=\"http:\/\/www.manthanaward.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\u201dnoopener noopener noreferrer\">Manthan Award<\/a>, <strong>India\u2019s first ever award for choosing the best e-content practices<\/strong>. Manthan Award has extended its reach to the Asia Pacific region recently and has accumulated more than 4000 best e-content practices in its nomination database.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Osama Manzar is e-Content <strong>Expert for India<\/strong> for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsis-award.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\u201dnoopener noopener noreferrer\">World Summit Award<\/a>(WSA), <strong>Grand Jury Member<\/strong> and member of the <strong>Board of Directors<\/strong>. In addition, he has been Jury Anchor for the Dataquest e-Gov Champion Award (2008), for Bahrain e-Content Award (2009), Sri Lanka\u2019s e-Content Award &amp; Bangladesh e-Content &amp; ICTD Award-National Digital Innovation (2010). He has been the moderator for e-North east Award Jury (2012). Further, he is the facilitator of the \u201cPearson Teachers Award\u201d (launched in 2012).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He has been a part of the Professional Social Entrepreneurship Program by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.social-impact.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\u201dnoopener noopener noreferrer\">Social-Impact International<\/a> and worked for Computerworld as assistant editor and for Hindustan Times as head of Interactive Media Division.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He is a physics graduate and holds a post-graduate diploma in Journalism. <strong>Osama has a credit of covering at least 200 ICTD case studies in India and South Asia<\/strong> and has traveled more than 2000 villages, including 30 countries. Osama is fluent in English, Urdu, Hindi and can read and write Arabic and Persian.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wsa-global.org\/india-national-contests\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">APPLY HERE FOR WSA INDIA!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12225,"template":"","class_list":["post-3988","person","type-person","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Osama Manzar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Osama Manzar is a convert social entrepreneur spearheading the mission to overcome the information barrier in India.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wsa-global.org\/person\/osama-manzar\/\" \/>\n<meta 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