Sonal Shah Directs Office of Social Innovation & Civic Participation
By Jawahar Malhotra

From left: Swapan Dharyawan, VP India Culture Center; President of the GOPIO, Chandrakant Patel; President of the India Culture Center, Keshu Patel; Executive Director of the Indo American Chamber of Commerce Jagdip Ahluwalia; Sonal Shah; President of IAPAC Gitesh Desai; President of the Gujarati Samaj Anand Patel and Ravi Arora, President of India House Council at a reception last Saturday.

HOUSTON : Not surprisingly, the banquet hall at India House was packed last Saturday afternoon, September 5, with nearly 400 people. Those who came could be grouped by categories: those who had grown up with Sonal, those who knew the family and those who had heard of her achievements and wanted to hear her first hand.

In any case, people milled around her in the lobby, after a few Indian pakoras and masala tea and pressed her hands, smiling, asking about her work, getting a picture with this woman with green eyes like her mother, Kokila, as proud father Ramesh Shah beamed close by. She obliged, the blue kameez setting off her eyes and her easy smile.

Sonal Shah, the Director of the newly formed Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation was a bit bewildered by the crowd, but touched by the outpouring of affection from them. “It’s good to be back home,” she said in her opening remarks, “where my family is.” She was appointed to her position in April 2009 after working on the Obama-Biden Transition team after leaving the Global Development Initiatives, a philanthropic arm of Google. With a Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Chicago and a Masters from Duke University , Shah was well suited for her position. Asked if she missed the work at Google, she said that she could certainly make much more money there, “but the time had come for me to serve my country.”

So it was just pure coincidence that the Indo-American Political Action Committee learnt that Shah was visiting her parents over Labor Day weekend and asked if she would come to speak to this crowd of mostly desis, including special guest Deputy Indian Consul-General D.K. Sharma and his wife Santosh, and a smattering of mainstreamers on a Saturday afternoon to highlight what the next generation of desi Americans could do, given half a chance.

The President of the IAPAC, Gitesh Desai was certainly impressed as he lauded Shah in glowing and honorific terms for her strides forward. “She is a natural born leaders,” he said, “Her humanity and integrity inspires everyone. She is simply a wonderful human being.”
In turns, the incoming President of IAPAC, Ramesh Anand; the Executive Director of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce; Jagdip Ahluwalia, the President of the India Culture Center , Keshu Patel; the President of the Gujarati Samaj Anand Patel and the President of the GOPIO, Chandrakant Patel felicitated Shah for her work.

Shah wasted no time in explaining the geography of the political landscape her agency works in and showed how quickly she had grasped the territory. “It is a time of crisis in this country. State budgets are strained and the non-profit sector is trying to fill the gaps,” she explained. That’s where her agency intends to pick up with an agenda to harness the power of the people by encouraging social entrepreneurship and making sure that non-profits and the government work together. “We want to find things that work,” she said stabbing the air with her finger, “and cut out those that don’t.”

The solutions to social problems would come from the communities as the OSICP would seek out results driven programs. Its role will be defined and limited, locally driven from the bottom up, flexible and to foster civic participation, but not duplicate efforts, rather to support those efforts that are working.

With a budget of $50 million, the OSICP intends to drive resources to the programs and non-profits that are successful by using the money for growth capital combined with matching funds. “We want to create better public-private partnerships, like Cisco which is helping with healthcare in Michigan,” she said of one example, “We want to use open-source programs to allow people to work with us through our website www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Strengthening-Civic-Participation/.”

After Shah finished her explanations, she turned to the crowd and asked for their questions. Many came forward and she respond to them the best she could, even the one that asked if she met President Obama every week, although many remained focused on the healthcare program that is at the top of the Obama administration’s agenda. As the event closed out, Shah met with the scores of people who flocked to say hello to her. She was once again among those who knew her well, who had seen her grow up in Houston and who were proud of the local connection they now had in Washington, DC .

Sonal Shah is Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, White House Domestic Policy Council.