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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Alkesh Kumar Sharma, a senior bureaucrat and currently Secretary to the Union Department of Electronics and Information Technology, on to the inaugural Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Leadership Panel. A 1990 batch Kerala cadre IAS officer from Rajasthan and a former Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Sharma is among the panel of 10 distinguished experts on digital governance nominated, along with Maria Reesa, Nobel Prize-winning journalist and Vint Cerf, a global pioneer and recognised as one of ‘the fathers of the Internet.’
Earlier assignments
An official spokesman said here that Sharma has earlier served the UN Development Programme (UNDP) as the national project director for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation. He was CEO and Managing Director of Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation with additional charge as Member-Secretary and CEO of the National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust.
His other assignments included as Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways; Director, Kerala Tourism; Managing Director, Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation; Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways; Managing Director, Kochi Metro; and Director on board with Bharat Petroleum, Keltron, Western India Plywoods, Apollo Tyres, Geojit BNP Paribas; and Indian Rare Earths. For five years from 2004, he was actively engaged with the central initiatives, such as city development plans and mainstreaming urban poverty into inclusive urban planning during his stint as the Director, Ministry of Urban Development Ministry
Other members on Panel
Meanwhile, the IGF Leadership Panel also has five ex-officio members on board, including Amandeep Singh Gill, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology. The members have been appointed for a two-year term during the 2022–23 IGF cycles, the spokesman for the UN was quoted as saying. The Panel was constituted based on recommendations in the Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, and is mandated to deal with ‘strategic and urgent issues’ on the Internet. It also provides strategic advice to the IGF, which strives to bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals on policy issues on the Internet in both the public and private sectors.
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