Walter W. Powell is Professor of Education and affiliated Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. where he is Director of the Scandinavian Consortium on Organizational Research, and Co-PI, with Nathan Rosenberg, of the KNEXUS Program on the Knowledge Economy.

Professor Powell works in the areas of organization theory and economic sociology. Author of many books and articles, heis most widely known for his contributions to institutional analysis, including a forthcoming edited book, How Institutions Change.

Powell is currently engaged in research on the origins and development of the commercial field of the life sciences. With his collaborator Ken Koput, he has authored a series of papers on the evolving network structure of the biotechnology industry.This line of work continues his interests in networks as a form of governance of economic exchange, first developed in his 1990 article, "Neither Market Nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization," which won the American Sociological Association's Max Weber Prize and has been translated into German and Italian. Powell and Koput and their research collaborators have developed a longitudinal data base that tracks the development of biotechnology worldwide from the 1980s to the present. With Jason Owen-Smith, Powell is studying the role of universities in transferring basic science into commercial development by science-based companies,and the consequences for universities of their growing involvement in commercial enterprises.

This talk presents initial evidence from a large cross-section of household data for rural Indian households on factors which may explain the low levels of education in this economy, particularly for girls. While much of the existing literature emphasizes low returns relative to the high opportunity costs of educating girls, the data suggest that much of the variation in enrollment rates across the economy are explained by village-wide factors, factors which are not restricted to village-level differences in the quantity and quality of schools. Anjini Kochar is Assistant Professor of Economics, Stanford University, Department of Economics. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a M.A. in International Relations, also from the University of Chicago. Her research is on micro-empirical aspects of households behavior in developing economies, focusing in particular on the South Asian economies. Her most recent work has been on the effect of health on savings, and on the intra-household division of incomes.

The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is Pakistan's best reputed and only private management school. Operating within the environment of a government run university system, LUMS has used innovative strategies in marketing, research and consulting to reach its globally renowned status. Wasim Azhar, Dean of LUMS, will present a case study on its strategies. Dr. Wasim Azhar has taught at Wake Forest University, Swarthmore College, Kean University and the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. He has also worked as Marketing Analyst for Exxon Corporation in the USA. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), American Marketing Association, American Production Inventory Control Society (APICS), American Mathematical Association and MENSA. His research interests include issues in business policy, marketing strategy, and negotiation dynamics. Dr. Azhar received his Ph.D. and MSc from the University of Pennsylvania, MBA from Wake Forest University, and MSc from University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore.

David W. Brady is a political scientist whose work encompasses American politics and legislative bodies, international political trends, and comparative politics. Brady holds the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy endowed chair at the Graduate School of Business and is a professor of political science in Stanford University's School of Humanities and Sciences. A dedicated and popular teacher, Professor Brady is a past recipient of Stanford's Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Teacher Award, presented for his work with undergraduates, and of the Robert K. Jaedicke Silver Apple Award, presented by the Stanford Business School Alumni Association for his participation in alumni activities.

Brady recently served as an associate dean for academic affairs at the Business School and continues to serve as director of the School's programs in executive education. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and senior fellow by courtesy at the Institute for International Studies, both on campus. David is also co-director of the University's Social Science History Institute and associate director of the University's Public Policy Program. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the advisory council for the Kansai Silicon Valley Venture Forum.

His publications include Change and Continuity in House Elections (eds. with J. Cogan), Stanford University Press (2000), Revolving Gridlock, Westview Press (1998); "Congress in the Era of the Permanent Campaign," Brookings Review, forthcoming 2000; "The Roots of Careerism in the U.S. House of Representatives," Legislative Studies Quarterly, (1999); "The SNTV and the Politics of Electoral Systems in Korea," in Electoral Systems in Asia (University of Michigan Press (1999); "Out of Step, Out of Office: Legislative Voting Behavior and House Election Outcomes," in Change and Continuity in House Elections, Stanford University Press (1999).

S.B. Woo is a physicist and former Lieutenant Governor of Delaware. He was born in Shanghai, China, and came to the United States from Hong Kong at the age of eighteen. He received his B.S., summa cum laude, in mathematics and physics from Georgetown College in Kentucky and his Ph. D. in physics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1964. His other experiences include being trustee of the University of Delaware, an Institute Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. As OCA's (Organization of Chinese Americans) National President in 1991, his vision was to help make the Asian- American an equal partner in the making of the American Dream. After politics, Dr. Woo returned to University of Delaware to teach Physics. He enjoys greatly using the methodology of physics to do research in economics, education and national technology policy. He is currently working on a project called The 80-20 Initiative.

The fact that software companies can be started with little more than a few programmers and their PCs has generated great interest in countries around the world looking for ways to get into the high-tech boom as part of their economic development strategy. Avron Barr and Shirley Tessler have been studying the Korean software industry in the context of their ongoing research on the worldwide software industry, looking for strategies that might help Korea develop her competitive strengths. They have looked at all aspects of the industry: software education, financial institutions and new business creation, habitat for startup companies, the domestic market, and global niche strategies. A summary of their findings and some possible recommendations will be discussed. Since 1994, Avron Barr and Shirley Tessler have been conducting SCIP's study of the worldwide software industry with Professor William F. Miller. They are also the principals of Aldo Ventures, Inc., a strategy consulting firm for software organizations. Avron studied Computer Science at Stanford, edited the four-volume Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, co-founded a Silicon Valley software start-up in 1981, and served as Marketing Director for a software publisher. Shirley also studied Computer Science at Stanford, and has an MBA from Wharton. She spent 16 years in corporate finance and M&A before joining Aldo Ventures in 1991. Together they have consulted with dozens of software companies and IT shops on the commercial application of advanced software technology and on the software industry.

Through interviews with and analysis of the portfolio of French VCs in Silicon Valley, Professor Ferary is examining ties between VCs and entrepreneurs based on nationality, education and professional background. He describes how French venture capitalists use the French network in their businesses and how they try to get inside others' social networks to increase their resources and accumulate social capital. An exchange theory based on the gift exchange theory can be used for understanding VC behavior and relations. Currently a visiting scholar at Stanford's Sociology Department, Michel Ferary is an assistant professor at Essec School of Management in Paris, France. He earned a PhD in business administration from HEC (France) and worked for three years as a consultant in financial services for Andersen Consulting and Gemini Consulting. In addition to current work on French VCs in Silicon Valley, Professor Ferary's research focuses on the function of social networks in the financial risk evaluation done by bankers.