Taking Politics Online

Indian outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services is providing one of its software engineers gratis to work with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for the Study of Information Technology and Society on a Web-based application intended to promote the political process and civic involvement online. "My hope is to figure out whether it's possible to create mechanisms for online discussions that could become part of policy-making processes," says Peter Shane, director of the institute. Tata says the project ultimately will help its clients, because challenging research assignments teach its engineers to really think outside the box.