Washington, Nov 20 (IANS) Indian-American Sonal Shah, who heads Google.org's global development efforts, has been included in a three-member panel that will craft the hi-tech policy priorities of US president-elect Barack Obama's administration.

Shah has been included in a Working Group on Technology, Innovation & Government Reform, one of the seven set up "to develop the priority policy proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration".

The other six Policy Working Groups will focus on: Economy, Education, Energy and Environment, Health Care, Immigration, and National Security.

Besides Shah, the technology group includes Blair Levin, a managing director of Stifel Nicolaus who serves as the firm's principal telecom, media and tech regulatory and strategy analyst, and Julius Genachowski, co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital, a special advisor at General Atlantic, and a member of various boards of directors and advisors.

A member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project Advisory Board, Shah heads Google.org's global development efforts. Prior to joining Google, she was vice president at Goldman, Sachs and Co. developing and implementing the firm's environmental policy.

She is also the co-founder of Indicorps, a US-based non-profit organisation offering one-year fellowships Indian-Americans to work on development projects in India.

Shah also worked at the Centre for American Progress on trade, outsourcing and post conflict issues and the Centre for Global Development on development policy issues.

Other panels are:

Economy: Daniel K. Tarullo, Professor of Law at Georgetown University. He teaches and writes in the areas of banking law, international economic regulation and economic policymaking.

From 1993 to 1998 he was, successively, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and Assistant to the President for International Economic Policy.

Education: Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Centre for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network.

Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school reform, teaching quality and educational equity.

Energy and Environment: Carol M. Browner, the longest serving Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who served from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, she served as Florida Secretary of the Environment.

Browner is a founder and principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm and of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory firm that focuses on emerging markets.

Health Care: Former Senate majority leader Senator Tom Daschle, an advisor to the law firm of Alston and Bird, where he provides strategic advice on public policy issues such as climate change, energy, health care, trade, financial services, and telecommunications.

Immigration: T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Dean of the Georgetown University Law Centre and Executive Vice President of Georgetown University since July 2004, and Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, Professor and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School.

National Security: James B. Steinberg, dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Clinton (1996-2000).

Also on the panel is Susan E. Rice, who served most recently as a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Obama for America campaign while on leave from the Brookings Institution where she is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development Programmes. Rice currently serves on the Obama-Biden Transition Project Advisory Board. 




Click here to send Gifts to India