George Sadowsky, Global Internet Policy Initiative, Washington, DC, USA

George Sadowsky received an A.B. degree in Mathematics from Harvard College and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from Yale University.

After spending 1958-1962 as an applied mathematician, his career concentrated on applying computers to economic and social policy, leading academic computing and networking organizations, and making the Internet useful throughout the world. During 1966-1970 he founded and directed the Computer Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington; from 1970-73 he did economic research at the Urban Institute leading to his Ph.D,. dissertation on the subject of micro-analytic simulation of the household sector.

During 1973-86 at the United Nations, he supported the transfer of information technology to developing countries. He has done work in over 40 developing countries and continues to do so. Among other things, he introduced the use of microcomputers for census data processing in Africa in 1979, and he worked in China for about 6 months supporting 1982 Population Census activities.

From 1986 to 2001, he directed academic computing and networking activities, first at Northwestern University and then at New York University. He has been a consultant to the U.S. Treasury Department, the Congressional Budget Office, and a number of foundations. He is a Board member of AppliedTheory Corporation. and was a Trustee of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN) and the New York State Educational and Research Network (NYSERNet). He is actively involved in World Bank activities as coordinator of the Technical Advisory Panel for the infoDev program, as well as UNDP and USAID activities. In 1994, he and Larry Landweber formulated the USAID's Leland Initiative for Internet connectivity in 20 African countries, and he has followed up with assignments in Ghana and Madagascar. He has been a member of the Internet Society Board of Trustees during 1996-1999 and 2000-2001 and has served as Vice President for Conferences (1996-1998) and Vice-President for Education (1998-2001). He headed a group of ISOC volunteers who defined and conducted the ISOC Network Training Workshops from 1993 through 2001. He has written and lectured extensively on ICTs and development.

Early in 2001, he became the Executive Director of the Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI), which has active ongoing Internet policy reform projects in 14 developing countries. In addition, he serves as the Senior Technical Adviser within USAID's recently announced dot-GOV program for the Internews Consortium, providing ICT policy assistance to the developing world.

Please refer to his web site, http://pws.prserv.net/sadowsky/, as well as the GIPI web site, http://www.internetpolicy.net, for further information.