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Born August 24, 1981 (age 35) ( 1981-08-24 ) Education MS (Software Project Management)
BS (Computer Science)
BSc (Economics) Alma mater FAST-NUCES
Government College University (Lahore)
Crescent Model Higher Secondary School Known for Technology based Police Reforms in Punjab, Pakistan Awards Innovation Hero (2012)
Young Development Leader (2016) | ||
Burhan Rasool Basra (born August 24, 1981) is a Pakistani e-governance expert heading the software engineering unit of the Punjab Information Technology Board. Rasool was involved in the creation of a monitoring platform based on smartphones that helped control the 2012 Dengue epidemic in Punjab, and in the computerization of police stations in the province.
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Education
Burhan obtained a Bachelors in economics at Government College University in Lahore. He received both his Masters degree in software project management in 2010 and Bachelors in computer science from the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences in 2005. He was elected president of alumni body of the university in 2009, which he now serves as board member.
Academic career
Burhan served as an Advisor on e-governance at the Center for Technology in Governance at the Information Technology University, where a team of developers working under him developed a technology platform through which citizens could easily access declassified government data, called Open Data Initiative. In the same capacity, along with his team of developers, he worked on a smartphone-based monitoring & evaluation platform called DataPlug that helps non-coders create Android apps via a web interface, enabling them to create small surveys supported by pictorial evidence and GPS location.
Burhan has taught courses to computer science undergraduates at FAST-NUCES. In 2008, he worked as a senior research officer under the supervision of Fakhar Lodhi, an academician and software engineering expert.
Work at the Punjab Information Technology Board
In 2011, Burhan joined the Punjab Information Technology Board, a body set by the Punjab Government dedicated to provide IT services and infrastructure to the government and businesses. Burhan joined the board as a joint director in November 2011 and was promoted to general manager in November 2015; as of 2016 he heads the software engineering unit at the board. Burhan was involved in the computerization of police stations in the province of Punjab. This computerization is claimed to have made the police force more efficient and accountable. One of the key initiatives of the project is the biometric citizen's verification which a handheld device that uses computerized national identity card, biometrics and proof of registration information. The device uses a SIM card for connection, can be used anywhere in the country, and is currently being used at police checkpoints all over Punjab. 52,606 requests have been received from around 962 devices until October 31, 2016. The device has also been used for the biometric verification of spectators in the Zimbabwe cricket tour in 2015.
During the 2012 outburst of Dengue in Punjab, Burhan is credited to have done most of the coding required to develop a smartphone based monitoring system for tracking all anti-dengue activities across Punjab. The system has been used on over 1500 smartphones. This application helped report 670,000 activities in less than 2 years. It also generates an epidemic outbreak alert using SatScan.
Awards
Burhan received the Innovation Hero Award Punjab for his efforts in developing the smartphone-based monitoring platform to combat dengue epidemic in 2012. In August 2016, he received the Young Development Leader award by the Planning Commission Pakistan.