Board Members

Bradford R. Kane is Chief Executive Officer of the ICWFD. With a background in technology and advocacy initiatives on bridging the Digital Divide, broadening the reach of broadband and wireless connectivity to underserved communities, advancing e-health, and deploying economic development tools, Brad has infused ICWFD with his own brand of energetic leadership, vision and spirit.  Also an attorney, Brad began his career working in Congress, where he served as Legislative Counsel to Congresswoman Cardiss Collins (D-IL), and as Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Competitiveness, focusing on the expansion of equal economic opportunity for minority-owned and women-owned businesses, among other issues. He also served on the President's Health Care Task Force, and as Executive Director of both the Coalition on Media Concerns and the Work Opportunity Response Commission. Brad has previously served as Deputy Secretary for Information Technology and Deputy Controller in the State of California government.

Dr. Asad U. Shah is the Chairman of the Board of the ICWFD.  A social entrepreneur who not only recognized the barriers to education and ICT in the developing countries but provided new ways to give free access to the highest quality content and skills for 21st century employment to the underprivileged countries. Dr. Shah has over 20 years experience in international consultancy, working with UN agencies, public and private sectors.  His forte is electronic trade facilitation, e-government and education. He is also the founder and CEO of one of the largest offshore software development houses (www.paplion.com). A graduate from University of Houston USA, he Initiated a global workforce and human resource development program that is one of a kind.  Dr. Shah has also provided real life and tangible technological solutions to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals and as someone who hails from a developing country but who has been exposed to ICT in work and experience; he is able to give the developing countries perspective as well as a multidisciplinary perspective to the Commission.

Jim Kohlenberger is a Member of the Board of Directors of ICWFD.  Mr. Kohlenberger serves as the Executive Director of the VON Coalition and a former White House senior technology policy advisor.  At the White House he helped formulate U.S. policy on technology, telecommunications, and the Internet. Specifically, he worked to help pass the Telecommunications Act of 1996, help shape the administration's hands-off approach to the Internet and e-commerce, and help spearhead administration efforts to bridge the digital divide and connect every classroom to the Internet.  He now runs his own consulting practice.

John Gage is a Member of the Board of Directors of ICWFD.  Mr. Gage is Chief Researcher and Vice President of the Science Office for Sun Microsystems, an international information technology company based in California.  He was one of the founders of Sun, in 1982, when a group of students and professors from Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley joined to create open systems in hardware and software.  He has served on the Boards of Trustees of the United States National Library of Medicine, FermiLabs, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, NetDay, Schools OnLine, United States National Research Council, the Internet Society (ISOC) and other scientific and educational groups.  Mr. Gage also serves on the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security, the Board of Advisors of the United States Institute of Peace, the National Academy of Sciences, and the International Advisory Board of the Malaysian Multimedia Corridor.  He attended the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Ms. Sadaf Shah is a Member of the Board of Directors of ICWFD. Ms. Shah is an accomplished marketing professional with over 12 years of professional and academic experience.  She is the former Country head for Trade Info Net and Project Coordinator for Time Life Inc. ( a division of Time Warner AOL) in Pakistan.  In addition to her position as Secretary, Ms. Shah acts as the Commission’s Director of Strategic Alliances.  She also sits on the board of RESCUE an NGO focused on Education and poverty alleviation. She received a Masters degree in Business Administration from Punjab University in Lahore, Pakistan, and Bachelors of Arts degrees from Kinnaird College in Lahore, Pakistan.

Nadir Shafi is a Member of the Board of Directors of ICWFD.  Mr. Shafi is currently Vice President at Wells Fargo Bank in San Jose, California.  Prior to this he worked at J. Tim Lynch & Co., CPA as Business Development Manager, Marketing Director and Director of Technology. He has a Masters in Business Administration from Indiana University and Lahore University in Pakistan.  He has an International Diploma in Computer Sciences from the National Computer College in London, UK.

Dr. Eugenia Soboleva Member of the Board of Directors of ICWFD Dr. Soboleva is a Director at Quality Austria, a training, certification and evaluation organization in Vienna, Austria. Formerly she was European Quality Director and the European Auditor for Quality with the Austrian Quality Foundation. She received PhD in Chemistry from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, in Moscow, Russia. She has also worked at the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, and has extensive experience with UN agencies (FAO, IAEA, UNIDO, UNODC, UNEP, WHO, WTO, ITC etc), private companies and governments.

  Dr. Dennis Anderson is a Member of the Board of Directors of ICWFD. Dr. Anderson is Professor of Information Systems at Pace University. He has served as Associate Dean from 1999 to 2007. He also served as Director of the University's Center for Advanced Media, which conducts research, education and training in the area of multimedia technologies. The center's work focuses on e-business, web development and web design and spans the spectrum from art to high technology.  He is an information technologist who believes in the advancement of society through the application of Information and Communication Technologies.

Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Mathematics Education from Columbia University. He also received an Ed.M. in Instructional Technology and Media from Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition, Anderson holds an M.S. in Computer Science from New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and his B.A. in Computer Science from Fordham University. He also completed an executive-education program in E-Commerce at Columbia University's School of Business and a professional program in multimedia at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an alumnus of Harvard University's Institute for Management and Leadership in Education Program '05.

Dr. Anderson has presented at numerous international conferences in the areas of computer science, information systems, and distance and mathematics education. His research interests lie in the information and communication technology, information policy, global digital divide, human-computer interaction, new-media technologies and e-commerce. He has received numerous grants including National Science Foundation grants. He has served as a reviewer/referee for numerous grants, fellowships, and publications.  He has been named to the roster of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board's Fulbright Senior Specialist program as an expert in information technology. He has served as a member of several advisory boards of organizations and conference boards including

• Billion Minds Foundation, Senior Adviser
• NYC Department of Education, Advisory Council for Career & Technical Education
• Fulbright Academy of Science and Technology, International Advisory Council
• mouse, Adviser
• UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development, High-level Adviser
• Microsoft Faculty Advisory Board & Imagine Cup Advisory Committee
• World Summit Awards 2007 Grand Jury
• ACM Computers in Entertainment, Editorial Board
• CIO Executive Programs, CXO Media Inc.
• Fulbright Peer Review Committee
• Computerworld Strategic Programs, IDG
• ISACA Education Board
• AMCIS 2004, Program Guide Chairman
• International Conference on E-Banking and Global Marketplace 2003, Conference Chairman

He has served as a judge for the New York City Science and Engineering Fair, the 2005 & 2007 Imagine Cup, the Computerworld Honors Program, the Fulbright Senior Specialist Program Review Committee, and the Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards and a reviewer for the New York State Education Department's Institutional Accreditation.  He also belongs to professional organizations including the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE-Computer Society, and the Association for Information Systems.

In 2004, he was appointed as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society, in Graz, Austria. Recently, he was also a Visiting Professor at the Université de Mons-Hainaut’s Waroque Business School, Belgium, where he gave lectures on e-commerce and emerging technologies.