Dr Avik Sarkar is an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) at NITI Aayog. NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India Aayog) is a premier policy think-tank of the Government of India. Dr Sarkar is in-charge of the Data Analytics Cell at NITI Aayog developing roadmap for use of data, analytics and artificial intelligence for Governance and Policy making along with providing analytical insights for policy making across sectors like Direct Benefit Transfer, Innovation, Digital payments, Healthcare/Nutrition, Agriculture, etc. Dr Sarkar is engaged with the Energy Vertical at NITI Aayog instrumental in the various long term planning of future energy needs of India through initiatives like integrated energy modelling, energy data management, etc. Dr Sarkar has recently been nominated among the “Top 10 Data Scientists in India” in 2017 by the Analytics India Magazine.
Dr Sarkar has over 15 years of experience across different aspects of data analytics, statistical modeling, data/text mining across companies like IBM, Accenture, Nokia, NASA, Persistent Systems, etc. In his last role at Accenture Consulting in Singapore, Dr Sarkar contributed to various data and analytics related engagements with Singapore Government like efficient reporting and resolution of municipal issues, evaluation and monitoring of secondary school education, improving operational efficiency in immigration and customs. While at IBM, Dr Sarkar made significant contributions towards developing the Monte Carlo Simulation of SPSS and the Predictive Maintenance and Quality solution for the manufacturing sector. Dr Sarkar holds a PhD from The Open University, UK, Masters from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Bachelors from Calcutta University. Dr Sarkar has authored several technical publications and technology patents.
