Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) has welcomed Dr. Javed Ashraf as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO), who joins the leadership team of the authority at what it described as a pivotal moment in the journey of Pakistan towards a digital and citizen centric nation. Dr. Javed is a digital transformation leader with more than 24 years of experience across national digital infrastructure, enterprise technology, cybersecurity and institutional governance. His career spans three domains, which are defence sector technology leadership, banking and financial services, and national digital public infrastructure, and the authority said that this range of experience is what he brings to the role.
He has held senior leadership positions at several institutions, including Chief Information Officer (CIO) at National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NADRA Technologies Ltd. and CTO of State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan. A defining milestone of his career has been leading the architecture, design, development and implementation of the National Data Exchange Layer (NDEL) of Pakistan. NDEL is now being advanced into its second iteration under the name WASL, which is a foundational component of the digital public infrastructure that the authority is spearheading, and his earlier work on the first version gives him direct knowledge of the system on which the next phase is being built.
Dr. Javed holds a PhD in Computer Software Engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) and a CIO certification from National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He has served on the boards of NADRA Technologies Ltd. and Power Information Technology Company (PITC). He has also served as Convener of the Working Group of the Prime Minister Task Force on Digitization of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), a role that connected him with one of the largest efforts to move a government department onto digital systems in the country.
According to PDA, his appointment improves its technology leadership and delivery capacity as it advances the National Digital Masterplan of Pakistan, with a focus on secure, interoperable and accessible digital services. The authority said that it is delighted to welcome him to the team. With Dr. Javed as CTO, the leadership of PDA now includes an executive who has worked on the design of national data exchange systems, on the technology of a large identity authority and on digitization programmes in the tax system, which are the areas that the authority has identified as central to the next stage of its work.
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