Dr. Sahdev Singh has more than 25 years international experience of applied research, development sector consultancy, academic outreach, graduate level teaching and public sector capacity building through several universities in USA, Thailand and India, and FAO-UN. He has written one policy advocacy book on ICT for agricultural development in the Asia-Pacific countries, 8 technical book chapters, and more than 50 research papers and case studies in various international journals, international conference proceedings, and UN reports. As a certified trainer from ILO-UN (Turin-Italy), he has trained more than 1000 project and development management professionals from various countries. He has traveled extensively around the world on professional consultancy missions and as invited conference speaker. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Agricultural Growth of Rural India (AGRI), a Delhi-based NGO, and as Senior Advisor for Green Agri Miles, Ltd. Delhi. Most recently, he served as the Director of the Institute of Agribusiness Management (IABM-NOIDA), India and as the Managing Director of the Alternatives International-Thailand, a professional network for international capacity building programs in the Asia-Pacific countries.
From 2004 to 2009, as Head in the international training unit of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)-Thailand, he was responsible for designing, promoting, implementing, supervising and managing international training and study visit programs in various fields such as agribusiness management, agricultural and food engineering, natural resources management, disaster management, climate change, rural development, project management and applied ICT. Over the last 10 years, he has organized more than 100 regional activities for more than 1000 participants from various Asia-Pacific and African countries. During this period, he also served as Affiliated Faculty in various academic units of AIT to design graduate level curriculum, teach and supervise student research.
During 2003-04, he served the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI), FAO-UN Regional Office in Thailand as its Assistant Executive Secretary. His primary responsibilities were managing the Secretariat, working with international donors and designing/implementing capacity building programs for national agricultural research institutions of region’s 20 developing countries. From 2002 to 2008, he was the regional coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Agricultural Research Information System (APARIS) to promote knowledge sharing and research collaboration in agriculture and food sector.
From 2001 to 2003, as Research Specialist and Affiliated Faculty Member, he managed the Information Systems Unit of AIT's Aquaculture and Aquatic Resources Management (AARM) program, conducted research, training and consultancy in the area of aquaculture engineering, and taught graduate and short-term training courses in various programs of AIT. He also completed two successful competitive research grants.
After his return to Thailand from USA in 1999, he worked as a Technical Specialist and Lecturer in the Chemical Engineering Practice School of the King Mongkut University of Technology Thonburi-Bangkok for two years, where he taught 80 graduate students the computer applications for fluid systems and trained them in technical English writing and presentations, and conducted his research through competitive grant funding.
After a BEng in Mechanical Engineering (1983) from India and MEng in Agriculture & Food Engineering from AIT (1987), he obtained his MS and PhD degrees in Biological Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech, USA (1996). He joined as a non-tenured Faculty Member the Department of Biological Resources Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA for three years to teach undergraduate and graduate courses, conduct competitive grant research, and provide consultancy services to state government agencies of Maryland, USA.
Dr. Singh is 50 years old and serves as resource person and invited speaker in activities organized by international organizations such as AIT, FAO, CGIAR, GFAR, ADB, ADBI, UN-ESCAP, UN-ISDR, IFAP, WFP, WITFOR and UNDP, and the private sector corporations such as Pentasoft and Thai Oil. He has been a scholarship-student throughout his formal education life and has membership in several professional associations. He served as the Assistant Editor of the International Agricultural Engineering Journal and is a Board Member of the Asian Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture (AFITA), a network of national and international institutions to promote knowledge sharing using ICT.