Although its people are mainly Muslim, Malaysia is notably diverse.  Many communities of faith live together in relative harmony.  Yet ethnic tensions and decades of authoritarian rule have undermined national unity and a sense of shared purpose.  Since the watershed election of 2008, a revived political opposition and an active civil society have increasingly challenged the divisive politics of race and religion in Malaysia.  But severe obstacles still thwart full democratization and genuine pluralism. 

In his talk, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad will analyze the complexities of Malaysia’s race-based political system, the prospects of the country’s multiracial opposition, and what these dynamics imply for the future of democracy in Malaysia.

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad was elected to the Selangor State Assembly in Malaysia in March 2008 as a candidate of the opposition People’s Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Rakyat).  His roles in Keadilan include membership in the party’s National Youth Executive Committee.  In 2006-08 he served as private secretary to Keadilan’s de facto leader at the time, Anwar Ibrahim. 

Nik Nazmi is a columnist at the Malaysian Insider and the founder of SuaraAnum.com, a web magazine for young Malaysians.  He has been widely published in, and interviewed by, Malaysian and international media.  He read law and earned his LLB (Honors) from King's College, University of London.  While in London he joined British Muslims in protesting the occupation of Palestine and the war in Iraq.  His undergraduate work was done at the UEM Foundation College in Selangor, where he was elected president of the Student Council.  His secondary education was at the Malay College of Kuala Kangsar, which has been called “the Eton of the East.”  During his student career, he was active in multiple extra-curricular settings, including Muslim and social-service organizations and English-language debating teams.  He was born in Malaysia in 1982.

Carolyn A. Mercado is a senior program officer with The Asia Foundation in the Philippines. In this position she manages the Law and Human Rights program. She assists in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of other selected activities within the Foundation's Law and Governance program and handles mediation and conflict management, and other forms of dispute resolution processes. She has also served as a temporary consultant to the Asian Development Bank on the Strengthening the Independence and Accountability of the Philippine Judiciary project and the Legal Literacy for Supporting Governance project.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Mercado was an intern with the Center of International Environmental Law in Washington. Previously, she served consultancies in Manila for the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Maritime Organization, NOVIB, and the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources. She has served as lecturer on environmental law at Ateneo de Manila University, San Sebastian College of Law, and the Development Academy of the Philippines. She also previously served as executive director of the Developmental Legal Assistance Center, corporate secretary of the Alternative Law Groups, and as a legal aide to a member of the Philippine Senate.

Education: B.A. in political science from the University of the Philippines; LL.B. from the University of the Philippines College of Law. She was also a Hubert Humphrey Fellow in international environmental law, University of Washington and a European Union Scholar in environmental resource management, Maastricht School of Business in the Netherlands.

CO-SPONSORED BY SEAF

On Thursday, September 24, 2009, the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center will be convening a Silicon Valley Leaders Forum. 

This public forum will bring together area researchers and thought leaders to discuss the turbulent changes the Valley is experiencing and address the question of whether the fundamental drivers that have enabled the region to be an innovative and entrepreneurial world leader will continue to be in play in coming years. 

This event will serve as the kickoff for SPRIE's latest research project on Silicon Valley's next phase of transformation, a further and updated exploration of the ideas in The Silicon Valley Edge.

The first part of the day will feature a lineup of Silicon Valley luminaries, and the afternoon will close with a panel focused on changes in the venture capital industry. 

Lunch will be served and paid registration is required for this event.

Schedule:

Keynote speakers:

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John L. Hennessy joined Stanford's faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering. He rose through the academic ranks to full professorship in 1986 and was the inaugural Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 1987 to 2004.

From 1983 to 1993, Dr. Hennessy was director of the Computer Systems Laboratory, a research and teaching center operated by the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science that fosters research in computer systems design. He served as chair of computer science from 1994 to 1996 and, in 1996, was named dean of the School of Engineering. As dean, he launched a five-year plan that laid the groundwork for new activities in bioengineering and biomedical engineering. In 1999, he was named provost, the university's chief academic and financial officer. As provost, he continued his efforts to foster interdisciplinary activities in the biosciences and bioengineering and oversaw improvements in faculty and staff compensation. In October 2000, he was inaugurated as Stanford University's 10th president. In 2005, he became the inaugural holder of the Bing Presidential Professorship.
 

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James C. Morgan is chairman emeritus of Applied Materials.  He previously served as chairman of the board from 1987 to 2009 and as chief executive officer from 1977 to 2003. Prior to joining Applied Materials as president in 1976, he was a senior partner with WestVen Management, a private venture capital partnership affiliated with the Bank of America Corporation. Prior to WestVen, he was with Textron, a leading diversified manufacturing company.

With one of the longest tenures of any FORTUNE 500 CEO, Mr. Morgan has an extensive history in business and philanthropy.  Mr. Morgan is a recipient of the 1996 National Medal of Technology for his industry leadership and for his vision in building Applied Materials into the world's leading semiconductor equipment company, a major exporter and a global technology pioneer which helps enable the Information Age. Awarded by the President of the United States, the Medal of Technology recognizes technological innovators who have made lasting contributions to America's competitiveness and standard of living.  Among his many honors, Mr. Morgan is a recent recipient of the prestigious Semiconductor Industry Association Robert N. Noyce Award, the highest honor bestowed by the SIA, for outstanding achievement and leadership in support of the U.S. semiconductor industry, and the Spirit of Silicon Valley Lifetime Achievement Award from the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, for his ethics, community engagement and business success.

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John Seely Brown is the Independent Co-Chairman of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation.  In addition, he is a Visiting Scholar and Advisor to the Provost at USC.

Prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)--a position he held for nearly two decades.  While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, knowledge management, complex adaptive systems, and nano/mems technologies.  He was a cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL).  His personal research interests include the management of radical innovation, digital youth culture, digital media, and new forms of communication and learning.  

John, or as he is often called--JSB-- is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS and a Trustee of the MacArthur Foundation.  He serves on numerous public boards (Amazon, Corning, and Varian Medical Systems) and private boards of directors.  He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and was awarded the Harvard Business Review's 1991 McKinsey Award for his article, "Research that Reinvents the Corporation" and again in 2002 for his article "Your Next IT Strategy."  

In 2004 he was inducted in the Industry Hall of Fame. 

With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000) that has been translated into 9 languages with a second addition in April 2002, and with John Hagel he co-authored the book The Only Sustainable Edge which is about new forms of collaborative innovation.  It also provides a novel framework for understanding what is really happening in off-shoring in India and China and how each are inventing powerful news ways to innovate, learn and accelerate capability building.

JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences.  In May of 2000 Brown University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree.  It was followed by an Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics conferred by the London Business School in July 2001. And in May of 2004 he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Claremont Graduate School. In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from University of Michigan and delivered their commencement speech. 

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Doug Henton has more than 30 years of experience in innovation and economic development at the national, regional, state, and local levels. Doug is nationally recognized for his work in bringing industry, government, education, research, and community leaders together around specific collaborative projects to improve regional competitiveness.

Doug is a consultant to the California Economic Strategy Panel, California's state economic strategy process linked to innovation, industry clusters, and regions. He has worked extensively in California to help develop regional economic and innovation strategies for Silicon Valley, Sonoma, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, San Diego, the Central Valley, and others. He was primary consultant to the Fresno's Regional Jobs Initiative, which used the clusters of opportunity methodology to identifying promising areas for development. Doug has also consulted with the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, advising on economic development strategies. He has worked with the Great Valley Center on identifying promising areas for economic development, including renewable energy. In addition, Doug has worked with Next 10 on the continued development of the California Green Innovation Index.

He has also been consultant to several other state and regional agencies and organizations, including the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Chicago Metropolis 2020, the Potomac Conference, and Arizona Partnership for a New Economy. He has assisted Oregon with its current strategy for economic development, and has advised governors in New York, Ohio, Washington, and others on their economic and workforce policies.

Doug holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Economics from Yale University and a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Venture Capital Panelists:
 

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Neal Bhadkamkar is a co-founder of Monitor Venture Partners, L.P. (MVP), an early stage venture capital fund affiliated with The Monitor Group. MVP invests in seed and first round companies that are commercializing technologies in markets where Monitor Group's knowledge and client base can be used to reduce market risk. He is currently on the boards of Nanostellar, a catalyst company based on nano-scale materials design, and Verdezyne, a "green chemistry" company based on synthetic biology. He is also a board observer at Matisse Networks, which designs, manufactures and sells metro-area Ethernet switches based on Ring Optical Burst Switching.

Prior to establishing MVP, Neal was VP of Engineering and Manufacturing at Zowie Intertainment, an Interval Research spin-off that made "smart-toys". At Zowie he oversaw the design and manufacture of custom ASICs, firmware, game software, plastic parts and the final product using a supply chain that spanned five countries. Before Zowie, Neal was at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, initially as a member of the research staff and later as the head of Interval's commercialization activity, in which role he managed the transition of research projects into commercial ventures. Earlier in his career Neal was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and with the Monitor Group, and was a Research Associate at the Harvard Business School.

Neal has a PhD. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Neal lives in Palo Alto, California with his wife and three children.

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Bob Patterson is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist with Peninsula Ventures. He is now pursuing on a full time basis a career begun in the 70's while practicing international corporate law with Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. Educated in Physics and Nuclear Engineering at  UCLA and the U.S. Navy, before attending Stanford Law School and the Stanford GSB Executive Program, his legal and business career has focused on technology based entrepreneurship and the study of the science of capital formation for entrepreneurial based businesses, both domestically and internationally.

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Marianne Wu is a Partner at MDV where she focuses on Cleantech investments. These typically involve significant technology or business model breakthroughs applied to large, evolving markets such as solar, biofuels and chemicals, clean coal, energy efficiency, smart grid, and water treatment and management. She leverages over 15 years of technology development and business experience to help entrepreneurs build meaningful, successful businesses. At MDV, she is on the Board of Laurus Energy and works closely with Zeachem and Catilin. 

Marianne has been named one of Top 10 Women in Cleantech and one of Silicon Valley's Women of Influence. She is on the Advisory Committees of the Cleantech Open, Western Governors' Association, SdForum and Astia. She is a member of the Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association (HYSTA) VC Group and Environmental Entrepreneurs.

Prior to joining MDV, Marianne was VP Marketing at ONI Systems where she was responsible for product strategy and market development. Earlier in her career, Marianne was a consultant at McKinsey and Company where she advised major technology clients on strategic and operational issues. Marianne has conducted state-of-the-art research in materials, devices, and systems at Stanford University and started her career as a design engineer at Nortel Networks where she developed high-speed networking technologies. 

Marianne earned both her doctoral and master's degrees from the School of Engineering at Stanford University and her bachelor's in Applied Science at the University of British Columbia.