Dr. Alwyn Didar Singh a former civil servant of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), was till recently posted as Secretary to Government of India in the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs.  Prior to this he was till November 2009, Member (Finance), [Additional Secretary to Govt. of India], National Highways Authority of India, Department of Road Transport and Highways at New Delhi. He was earlier Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Heavy Industries and before that in the Ministry of Commerce (Foreign Trade). Dr Singh has hands-on experience in the area of E-Commerce and E-Business, having been Managing Director of two Information Technology enterprises in the State of Punjab, India where he was instrumental in establishing an IT Park and satellite earth station at Mohali in the late 90’s.
 

Alwyn Didar Singh did his schooling from St. Xaviers Delhi and Bachelors and Masters from St. Stephens College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters in Development Administration from Birmingham University, UK and has the distinction of having done the first PhD in India on the Policy and Administration of e-Commerce.

Dr. Didar Singh is an international expert in e-Commerce and ICT development and has done several studies in the area of ICT strategy and e-Commerce for international agencies, including the International Trade Centre; World Health Organization; and South Centre, Geneva as well as the Commonwealth Secretariat, London. He has presented a number of papers and made presentations at Conferences on the subjects of E-Commerce and Trade both in India and abroad. Besides designing an e-Business strategy for 14 countries of the Caribbean commissioned by the Commonwealth and CARICOM Secretariats, he also prepared the background paper for the ITC-Seco Seminar on e-Trade at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) at Geneva in December 2003. He authored (with Dr. Madanmohan Rao) a book on e-Trade for the WSIS summit at Tunisia. Singh is a regular contributor to the ITC Executive Forum series. Dr. Singh’s book on 'e-Commerce for Managers' was published by Vikas in 2003 and his major treatise 'E-Commerce in India: Assessment and Strategies for the Developing World', was published in 2008 by LexisNexis Butterworths, New Delhi.

Alwyn Didar Singh is married to a top ranking International Diplomat/Professional, Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, who is with the WHO Regional Office in India. One of their daughters Sonalini, earlier with the World Bank in Washington, is now doing her PhD from London and the second daughter Naina, a lawyer with an LLM from London University, is now married and resident in London. Their son Nishant after doing a Management degree from Bangalore is working at New Delhi with UMTC, a subsidiary of IL&FS.