Indian-American Sonal Shah to craft Obama's high tech policy

WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama's Transition Team have announced leaders for a series of Policy Working Groups for the Presidential Transition that includes Indian-American Sonal Shah of Google to craft the incoming administration's high tech policy priorities.

The focus of the Policy Working Groups will be to develop the priority policy proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration.

The groups will focus on the following areas: Economy, Education, Energy and Environment, Health Care, Immigration, National Security, and Technology, Innovation and Government Reform" the Transition Team has said in a statement.

Obama has named two telecom industry and policy veterans and a leader of Google's philanthropy arm to craft the new administration's high-tech policy priorities.

"The policy working group on Technology, Innovation and Government Reform will develop... proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration," according to the President-elect's transition website.

Shah heads Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org's global development efforts, and has a lengthy resume on international development issues including being a vice president at Goldman, Sachs and Co. prior to joining Google.

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

Sonal worked at the Department of Treasury from 1995-2002 on various economic issues and is on the Obama-Biden Transition Project Advisory Board.