Khalid Sherdil

Khalid Sherdil (Late)

Khalid Sherdil, the founding member of Burki Institute of Public Policy at NetSol (BIPP), was among the precious lives lost in the Pakistan International Airlines plane crash of 22 May 2020.

Khalid Sherdil, was serving as the CEO of the Punjab Urban Unit as his last assignment. At the Unit his most noteworthy achievements was the launch of the Punjab Spatial Strategy, amongst other achievements. As the founder of Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Punjab, he played the most crucial role in organizing PDMA as the coordinating authority that provides a platform for all departments to come together and strategize the preparedness and response to a disaster. As the founder and the first Director General of PDMA, Khalid Sherdil worked on Pakistan's largest ever calamity, the massive Floods of 2010. Mr. Sherdil had also rendered services to provide relief and rehabilitation in the difficult times followed by the Turkish Earthquake, Sindh Floods 2011, and Sialkot Tornado 2011. Besides Dengue, Khalid also wrote a technical report for Ontario Government on West Nile virus, a mosquito vector epidemic. He was also the Project Director of the Model Villages Project ($20 million) in which 22 villages equipped with schools, technical training centers, dispensaries, parks, solar electricity, bio-gas were constructed in flood-susceptible areas of Punjab. Mr. Sherdil also led the project for disbursement of flood-damage compensation ($325 million in form of debit cards) to over 1 million flood-affected families of Punjab. He was a member of Pakistan's Core Committee for Environment and Climate Change, and had represented the country at COP 16 Cancun, Mexico. Mr. Sherdil had also served as the Deputy Secretary for Information Technology Department, and for Agriculture Department, Government of the Punjab. His interest in Agriculture stemmed from his family farm where he cultivated wheat and rice along with Bio-Fuels. He also served as Assistant Commissioner of Murree and Lahore Cantt. Khalid Sherdil had Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Computer Science from McGill University, Canada and Washington University, USA respectively. He also held a Liberal Arts Bachelors in Physics from College of Wooster, USA. Khalid was an Electrical Engineer from Washington University, and was pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Computer and Environment Science at the Western University, Canada. His research interests included Complex Adaptive Systems by Multi-Agent- SWARMS in Cloud Computing and in the application of technology to environmental and sustainable development. Khalid Sherdil had twelve research publications in international conferences and journals. He also ran Pakistan's largest arts website Artspak.com and was a Fellow of LEAD International, UK. Before his demise he was involved with a pictorial book on the 'Model Villages and the Rural Life of Punjab.