Mr. Omar Mansoor Ansari is Afghanistan’s senior entrepreneur and researcher in ICT. He has a strong interest in technology, startups and public policy, engaging in Internet governance activities globally. Representing private sector from the developing and post-conflict Afghanistan, he has been actively involved in the WSIS process since 2003 and in the IGF since 2012, where he organized workshops on Afghanistan, emerging technologies, and open source.
Mr. Ansari worked as the Co-founder/ Executive Director of Afghan Computer Science Association (ACSA), and Founder/ Editor-in-Chief of the Computer Science bimonthly, 1999-2008. He worked with Microsoft and International Development Research Center (IDRC), 2004-2008, on software localization. Omar is a recipient of Localization Champion Award 2008 by Microsoft Corporation, and Best Young Leader Award 2014 by Youth Relations Center. He led Afghanistan’s IT Industry Development Policy formulation project, and led the Kabul chapter of The Founder Institute, a Silicon Valley based idea-staged accelerator.
He has been working for fifteen years in youth employment, technology, Internet, entrepreneurship, institutional buildup, public policy, strategic planning, campaigning and PR. He has a broad perspective on Internet governance issues within the country, and within the Central Asian and MENA regions. Recent activities that contribute to his interest in the IGF MAG include working towards holding National Afghanistan IGF, and Regional Central Asian IGF, and founding initiatives such as TechAfghanistan, a technology information and resource portal; TechLabs, a mobile technology development program; TechWomen Afghanistan, a network of women in tech; TechDera, a community technology center— all platforms for technology development and promotion, business acceleration, education and networking.
Omar is the full time President of TechNation, a Kabul based tech and startup support company, Chairman of the National ICT Alliance of Afghanistan (NICTAA), the country’s largest consortium of ICT players, and is an elected Board Member of the World IT and Services Alliance (WITSA). Omar has been advising the Government of Afghanistan, Ministry of Communications and IT, Ministry of Trade and Commerce, USAID, US Department of Commerce, The World Bank and the European Union on various ICT4D strategies, plans and programs.