Palak Shah is the Social Innovations Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), which works for the respect, recognition, and inclusion in labor protections for domestic workers and other vulnerable workers. Work as we know it is dramatically changing, spurred on by the on-demand economy. Mobile apps and platforms have enabled people to earn money performing small tasks, giving someone a ride or delivering a product. But is this the future of work we hoped for? If it isn’t, who decides what work should look like in the future? How can we shape work in the new economy to work for all of us, not just the billion-dollar companies and investors of Silicon Valley?
Palak Shah is the social innovations director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Palak leads NDWA’s experimental and market-based approaches to improve working conditions, services and employment opportunities for domestic workers. Palak was previously a member of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s Administration, serving as a member of the governor’s budget team and then as the Commonwealth’s Deputy Director of Performance Management.