Wadhwani Foundation announces appointments of Chief eLearning & eContent Officer and Chief Technology Officer

Company Brief

Bangalore, July 7, 2014

The Wadhwani Foundation today announced the appointment of Bhasker Sharma and Clark Quinn to key positions of Chief Technology Officer and Chief eLearning & eContent Officer respectively. These senior appointments at the Foundation are strategically linked to its growing global footprint and strengthening plans towards leveraging digital technology to create disruptive models for entrepreneurship education and workforce training & development. The proven strategic and execution driven technical skill-sets that Bhasker and Clark bring to the Foundation will enable innovative models for delivery of entrepreneurial and workforce education by integrating technology into curriculum in a blended learning format.

Speaking about these recruitments, Dr. Ajay Kela, President and CEO, Wadhwani Foundation said “Technology is the backbone of the Wadhwani Foundation’s strategy to not only achieve global scale but also transform learning by making it easy, accessible and affordable. To achieve these objectives the Wadhwani Foundation is pleased to have on board two seasoned and complementary technologists, Bhasker Sharma as Chief Technology Officer based out of India and Clark Quinn as Chief Learning Architect based out of U.S. With their years of experience managing education technology, the Foundation hopes to accelerate scaling and accessibility of its entrepreneurship, skilling, and disability initiatives, globally. Bhasker Sharma with a passion for the disabled will also be leading the Foundation’s Opportunity Network for the Disabled. I am delighted to welcome Clark and Bhasker to the Wadhwani Foundation family.”

Former Director with Alcatel Lucent, Bhasker has a strong experience of project & program management with a track record of meeting commitments. Commenting on his appointment, Bhasker Sharma said “Having spent over 30 years in the technology industry, a career shift to the Wadhwani Foundation to utilize my technical, operational & managerial skills and experience in the non-profit space is an exciting opportunity. The vision and scale of the Foundation's initiatives such as NEN, SDN and OND provides a canvas to leverage technology and build a scalable platform towards hybrid delivery of learning content for workforce and skills development. I am also looking forward to building on the current base of the OND initiative and help scale it to mainstream the hiring of young persons with disabilities”

Bhasker is adept at building long lasting relationships with customers and partners and has a good understanding of the non-profit space through involvement with a couple of trusts as a volunteer and trustee.

Internationally known speaker and author, Clark comes with deep cognitive background, covering game design, mobile learning, adaptive systems & content architecture, combined with broad technology experience in which he applies to the corporate, government, education, and not-for-profit sectors. Recognised as the eLearning Guild’s first Guild Master in 2012, he has held management positions at Knowledge Universe Interactive Studio, Open Net, and Access CMC, and academic positions at the University of New South Wales, the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center, and San Diego State University’s Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education, before coming on board. An equally excited Clark Quinn said, “I am excited to apply my background in designing engaging and effective learning to the Wadhwani Foundation’s goals on impacting job creation. The Wadhwani Foundation has an impressive track record of success in establishing new Initiatives, and I look forward to a challenging and exciting assignment”.

Clark Quinn has been helping organizations deliver strategic learning technology solutions for over three decades. He earned his Ph.D. in applied cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego, and has led the design of mobile, performance support, serious games, online learning, and intelligent learning systems.

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