Osama Manzar works at the cusp of Rights, Access and Meaningful Access and Connectivity for poverty alleviation. 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). Osama Manzar was also the finalist for Social Entrepreneur of The Year Award - India 2022, a joint endeavor by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation.

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, liberalising ISP licensing through PM-WANI in India, and initiated fight against misinformation with WhatsApp and institutionalised the same having created a cadre of more than 500 women fact checkers across rural india.

He has been on the boards and advisories of Women in Digital Economy Fund (WiDEF), APC, World Summit Awards, GNI, Barefoot College, Protsahan, MISSING, etc. and profiled by The Hindu as “the man who travelled more than 10,000 villages”.

He writes regular columns in Mint at Livemint.com and has co-authored more than 20 titles, including Internet Economy of India and NetChakra.

https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/fellow/osama-manzar

https://www.thehindu.com/society/osama-manzar-the-man-who-travelled-to-10000-villages/article65881643.ece/amp/

https://www.livemint.com/topic/amp-osama-manzar

https://www.defindia.org/osama-manzar-13/