Appointed by President Obama

President Barack Obama recently appointed Phoebe Yang (CLAS ’91 and AAPAAN member) to the National Broadband Plan team. She sent us this note:

Just a note to let you know that I am pausing from the private sector to accept a short-term appointment to serve in the Obama Administration, as Chief Counsel of the National Broadband Plan team that is creating a strategy to expand broadband access throughout the country as part of the economic recovery efforts.

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress authorized the creation of a National Broadband Plan to "seek to ensure that all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and [to] establish benchmarks for meeting that goal." The plan will be submitted to the President and Congress in February 2010 and is viewed by consumer and industry groups alike as the most important communications priority today, akin to infrastructure projects such as railroads, telephones, and highways from previous generations.

I am very excited about this mission, and I believe -- if planned and executed appropriately -- it will have a long-term impact on the economy, jobs, small business, education, health care, and Homeland security, and it will position our nation for the future. This work leverages much of my previous professional experience in the media industry as well as in law, and it enables me to contribute in some small way to our economic recovery efforts. If you are interested, there is a great deal of information about the project on www.broadband.gov.