Levin, Shah, Genachowski to Examine U.S. Tech Policy for Obama

By Ira Teinowitz

The Obama transition office today named its team that will look at the country’s tech policy needs. Again it’s tapping some veteran former Federal Communications Commission officials.

The transition earlier named a workforce team to look at each federal agency’s needs and budget. The new policy team will take a broader look across agencies at immediate needs for tech policy.

Heading the tech team is Blair Levin, chief of staff to former FCC chairman Reed Hundt. Mr. Levin, who has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the FCC chairmanship, is a media and tech analyst for Stifel Nicolaus and a managing director there.

Also named were Sonal Shah, who heads Google.org’s global development efforts, and Julius Genachowski. Mr. Genachowski is one of the leaders of the overall transition team and has been mentioned as a likely candidate for the chief technology officer post that the president-elect wants to create. Mr. Genachowski is co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and a former FCC counsel. He had been a senior exec at Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp.

While the transition office named the leaders of its workforce teams looking at the FCC, it also announced it was adding Dale N. Hatfield as part of the FCC team. Mr. Hatfield is a former chief of the FCC’s office of engineering and technology.