Safwan Shah is an industry expert in payments, transaction processing and self-service delivery systems.

From 1999 to 2008, Safwan was the President of Infonox, the market pioneer and leader in delivering multiple, end-to-end, payment services to casinos, banks, retail and money transfer businesses. Under Safwan’s entrepreneurial leadership, Infonox developed and successfully operated financial payment platforms that touch over 100M consumers and settle over $20 billion annually. In 2008, Infonox was acquired by TSYS (NYSE:TSS) as the best in class technology platform for expanding their global payment processing and merchant acquiring business. Before Infonox, Safwan held research positions at BioServe Space Technologies (a NASA center for commercial development of space) and was an integral part of a number of landmark experiments that have been flown in the US Space Shuttle Program.

As early as 1997, in the pure Internet, social media space, Safwan Shah co-founded Chowk (www.chowk.com). Chowk, which means town square or intersection, remains the premier social website used by English speaking people of India and Pakistan for discussion and dialog on political and social issues. Several million people annually visit Chowk and it is recognized as the independent voice of reason and peace in the region.

Safwan has a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from University of Colorado at Boulder. His current focus is in the area of social media and in providing strategic advisory and consulting services to several Silicon Valley companies.