Palak Shah

Palak Shah is the Social Innovations Director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Founding Director of Fair Care Labs. In these roles, Palak leads the domestic workers’ experimental and market-based strategy to improve the lives of domestic workers. Her main focus is on raising market norms and standards, partnering with the private sector, and building scalable and sustainable business ventures.

National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is one the country’s most dynamic and successful social change organizations. NDWA is the nation’s leading organization dedicated to advancing the rights, protections, and opportunities for domestic workers across the United States. NDWA has been at the forefront of efforts to revitalize and reshape the labor, women’s, and broader progressive movements for the 21st century. Fair Care Labs is the innovation arm of the domestic worker movement. Our mission is to shape the future of the care industry and emerging care markets. Our main focus is on raising market norms and standards, partnering with the private sector, and building scalable and sustainable business ventures. We pursue cross-disciplinary social innovations using market-based, entrepreneurial and collaborative strategies that ultimately aim to improve the quality of care and the quality of domestic work jobs in the home.

What would an equitable on-demand economy platform look like? 
What are the specs for platforms that treat workers with dignity and respect? Palak Shah, of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, will share the lessons and strategies from the original ‘gig workers’ —the millions of women who work in the shadows as cleaners, caregivers, and nannies. Palak will describe how the new on-demand economy is disrupting the informal care markets and what one of our most powerful social movements is doing about it. She will offer a set of guiding principles on how we can build sustainable platforms that work for all us.