Prof. Salma Abbasi

PhD, FRGS, FCMI, Chairperson and CEO, eWorldwide Group

Dr. Salma Abbasi is the Founder, Chairperson and CEO of the eWorldwide Group, an international social enterprise focusing on innovation, sustainable development and security, working with Governments and Development agencies to achieve the SDGs.

A former Senior Vice President, Chief Quality Officer for Lucent Technologies, she has over 35 years’ experience in the field of technology, innovation and customer centric design. Dr. Abbasi is a graduate of Civil Engineering (BSc), Electrical Engineering (MSc) and a PhD in Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Development. This diverse engineering and technology background has given Dr. Abbasi a unique foundation to innovatively resolve complex problems at both the strategic and tactical levels, in the Public and Private Sectors.

In addition, Dr Abbasi is activity engaged as an Advisory Board member for several international organizations, focusing in the space of innovation, development, education and cyber resilience.

She is also a member of a series of UN and IEEE committees, contributing to the development of new policies, industry standards and guidelines in the broader context of online safety, internet addiction from social media, gaming and gambling and ethical AI for humanity and social good.

As Chairperson of the eWorldwide Group for 19 years, Dr. Abbasi is using her vast international experience and knowledge, along with her global network to leverage best practices to develop unique multi-sector, multi-stakeholder partnerships and engagements. She has successfully created strategies initiatives that integrate policies, stakeholders and promote innovations focusing on ‘win-win’ scenarios, thus laying the foundation for inclusive and sustainable knowledge economies, which in turn holistically drive the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Most recently, Dr Abbasi has developed a robust agriculture transformation initiative, powered by innovation and ICTs which is creating resilience, reducing avoidable deaths and addressing food security at the grassroots level across the rural farming communities. This has dramatically impacted the poorest of the poor, disrupting embedded power structures, while nurturing a new generation of agric. entrepreneurs, technopreneurs and SMART village clusters across the entire ecosystem, resulting in local economic growth.

She advocates ‘The only way to develop a truly resilient knowledge economy is to engage and equip local start-ups, entrepreneurs, SMEs, and MSMEs with holistic capabilities through ‘right skilling’, while promoting digitization, the green economy, social entrepreneurship and innovative financing, to create the foundation for sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development’