Having done his Engineering from MNIT, Allahabad, Dr. Sharma had many offers from companies ranging from private companies like TCS to government organizations like ISRO, BARC, HAL etc. He did his Doctorate in “e-Governance, a new management tool for better performance in government to citizen transactions : a case study of Rajasthan” from Rajasthan University.
Elaborating on his early professional journey, Dr. Ashwini says, “I in college aimed for going abroad and due to this desire, I opted for ISRO Ahmedabad. But there people with Physics as a background were more in demand, that’s when I decided to move to BARC Mumbai. From there I joined Instrumentation Ltd based out in Kota. Here I worked on many projects. I remember we successfully handled a major automation project for BPCL, Mumbai and NOCIL Thane.” The project MIS developed for BPCL Mumbai and NOCIL Thane was amongst the first automated project implemented indigenously at such a large scale.
Later he also visited Toshiba Japan for development and testing of interfacing software in Assembly of 80286. Dr. Ashwini Kumar Sharma has widely traveled to many countries like USA, Australia, Israel, Taiwan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, JAPAN etc. He has visited Estonia as member of Indian Delegation for study of e-Governance projects from 5th June to 11th June, 2011, sponsored by Ministry of Communication and IT, GoI.
The journey in Rajasthan started with his posting in RIICO Limited wherein he was on deputation to BIP, STP-I Jaipur. Here Dr. Sharma was the computer cell recharge. He implemented the finance disbursement and recovery Software in the entire department. He worked as the Executive Director/ Managing Director, RajCOMP and Director (Technical) a Govt of Rajasthan Public Sector for almost 7 years and supervised execution of multiple e-Governance and IT Projects like State Data Center, State Service Delivery Gateway, e-District, State Wide Area Network, On line activities of Rajasthan Public Service Commission etc.
It is under his leadership that the company signed an MOU with Tally and implemented in the departments. He has contributed immensely for implementation of State Data Centre (SDC), State Wide Area Network (SWAN), Common Service Centre (CSC), State Service Delivery and other State’s Mission Mode Projects (MMPs). He was the part of the team which started the Rajasthan’s first Data Center. This has resulted in offering a reliable and secure infrastructure for hosting and managing e-Governance applications for the different departments and deliver services quickly and effectively
After completing a successful tenure at RajCOMP, Jaipur, Dr. Sharma moved at a bigger role. He is currently working as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT). NIELIT’s 28 Centres are conducting long term courses at graduate and post-graduate level in niche areas such as, Electronics Design & Technology, and Embedded Systems, etc, which are normally not offered by Institutions in the formal sector. Here his efforts are focused on increasing Digital Literacy.
NEILTIT started with Course on Computer Concepts (CCC) which is designed to aim at imparting a basic level IT Literacy programme for the common man. This programme has essentially been conceived with an idea of giving an opportunity to the common man to attain computer literacy thereby contributing to increased and speedy PC penetration in different walks of life. Elaborating on the need for the program, Dr. Ashwini explains, many state governments including Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, have made it mandatory for candidates to pass CCC both for promotions or new appointments. Last year alone some twelve 4 lakhs employees in the country gave the examination.”
Another major project that his team at NEILIT is working on is NPR i.e. National Population Registration which is almost a 300 crore project. Here NEILIT is responsible for Data Digitization activities, which are being outsourced to private agencies (Managed Service Providers), selected through a tender process.
Indeed Dr. Ashwini Sharma is a man who was born with the genes of sagacity, vocation and audacity. He is a multi faceted personality who is working tirelessly with a single aim of creating a Digital Literate country.
