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Few realize that foreign donors currently disburse funds of at least $ 50 million annually on behalf of the integration of the ASEAN region.  This amount is more than the triple the size of ASEAN’s official annual budget of $ 14 million.  Goals of this foreign support include speeding the establishment of a customs unit, strengthening regional intellectual-property regimes, and empowering civil society to further ASEAN’s plan to create a fully integrated regional community by 2015.  The “ASEAN-US Technical Assistance and Training Facility” alone has a budget of US$ 20 million for the period 2008-2012.

Few also realize the extent to which ASEAN’s far-reaching dependence on donor support—financial help and expert advice—has diminished the organization’s ownership of the regional integration process.  In this lecture, Prof. Dosch will argue that foreign donors have begun to steer Southeast Asian regionalism. 

What motivations and assumptions inform the support of Southeast Asian integration by foreign donors?  Do they cooperate—or compete—in pursuit of this goal? Do the projects they favor reflect one-size-fits-all formulas that neglect the extreme political and economic diversity of Southeast Asia?  The talk will address these and other rarely asked questions that challenge the conventional image of ASEAN as a model of successful external diplomacy for regional development.

Jörn Dosch is Chair in Asia Pacific Studies and Director of the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Leeds, UK. He was previously a Fulbright Scholar at Shorenstein APARC and an assistant professor at the University of Mainz, Germany. Dosch has published some 70 books and academic papers on East and Southeast Asian politics and international relations  Recent titles include The Changing Dynamics of Southeast Asian Politics (2007) and “ASEAN's Reluctant Liberal Turn and the Thorny Road to Democracy Promotion,” The Pacific Review (December 2008).  He has also worked as a consultant for UNDP, the German Foreign Office, and the European Commission.  Recently he evaluated the European Union's cooperation programs with ASEAN and several of its member states.  His 1996 PhD in political science is from the University of Mainz.

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Jörn Dosch Professor of Asia Pacific Studies Speaker University of Leeds, United Kingdom
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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.

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Carolyn Mercado Senior Program Officer Speaker The Asia Foundation
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The POSCO NGO Fellowship Program which has been generously supported by the POSCO TJ Park Foundation of Korea is terminated as of August 2009. A consortium, consisting of Columbia University, Indiana University, George Washington University, Stanford University, and the University of British Columbia, has hosted thirty Korean NGO fellows for the past three years. Professor Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC, has been the Chair of the Fellowship committee.
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Shorenstein APARC/Asia Foundation Visiting Fellow
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Sudarno Sumarto is the Shorenstein APARC / Asia Foundation fellow for 2009-10.  He has a PhD and an MA from Vanderbilt University and a BS from Satya Wacana Christian University (Salatiga), all in economics.  Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC he was the director of SMERU for nearly 10 years. SMERU is an independent institution for research and public policy studies which professionally and proactively provides accurate and timely information, as well as objective analysis on various socioeconomic and poverty issues considered most urgent and relevant for the people of Indonesia. The institute has been at the forefront of the research effort to highlight the impact of government programs and policies, and has actively published and reported its research findings. The work expanded to include other areas of applied and economic research that are of fundamental importance to contemporary development issues. He was also a lecturer at Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), Bogor, Indonesia.

Sumarto has contributed to more than sixty co-authored articles, chapters, reports, and working papers, including "Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Indonesia," in Beyond Food Production (2007); "Reducing Unemployment in Indonesia," SMERU Working Paper, 2007; "Improving Student Performance in Public Primary Schools in Developing Countries:  Evidence from Indonesia," Education Economics, December 2006; and “The Effects of Location and Sectoral Components of Economic Growth on Poverty: Evidence from Indonesia.” Journal of Development Economics, 89(1), pp. 109-117, May 2009.  As well as conducting research and writing papers, Sumarto has worked closely with the Indonesian government, giving advice on poverty issues and government poverty alleviation programs.

Sumarto has spoken on poverty and development issues in Australia, Chile, Peru, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Japan, Morocco, Thailand, and the United Kingdom, among other countries.

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Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow
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Hirofumi Takinami is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2009-10 and 2010-11.  He is currently undertaking a collaborative research with Professor Phillip Lipscy, one of the faculty of Shorenstein APARC and Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, on the financial crises in Japan and the U.S.

Takinami has been working for the Japanese government for 16 years.  He served, among others, in policy coordination and management positions notably in the public finance area, including Deputy Cabinet Counselor in charge of coordinating domestic and economic policies at Cabinet Secretariat; Director for Office of Planning and Personnel Management, Deputy Budget Examiner on social security expenditures and Deputy Director for Legal Division at the Ministry of Finance.

In addition to positions related to domestic policy, Takinami also worked internationally, attending as one of Japanese delegates to meetings, including Ministerial-level, of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM).  While sent to the Ministry of Justice, he served as Special Advisory Staff to the Director-General of Criminal Affairs Bureau, addressing international economic crimes. 

Takinami graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1994, earning a Bachelor of Law.  In his first dispatch to the United States by the Ministry of Finance, he received a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago in 1998 with a major in finance and public finance.

Takinami was born and raised in Ono, Fukui, the prefecture next to Kyoto, known for producing many CEO's in Japan.  He is proud of inheriting the virtues of "dilligence, honesty and gratitutde" of this snowy country.

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In the 1950s the North Korean people lived through the cataclysm of the Korean War and the ferment of postwar reconstruction. Rare photographs have now emerged that help shed light on this turbulent era. In an audiovisual presentation, Chris Springer shares some of these photos from his new book North Korea Caught in Time: Images of War and Reconstruction.

The images depict the devastation wreaked by U.S. bombing, the destitution faced by civilians, the operations of the North Korean army, and the reconstruction of shattered cities. Also shown are senior politicians who were later purged and erased from the official record. Chris Springer will explain the photos’ varied origins (from both official and amateur photographers) and discuss what the images reveal about North Korean history.

California-born Chris Springer is the author of North Korea Caught in Time (2009) and Pyongyang: The Hidden History of the North Korean Capital (2003). He also curated the 2002 exhibition Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Budapest, Hungary. His research focuses on North Korean domestic history. He has visited North Korea three times.

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Stanford University
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Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-0771 (650) 723-6530
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2011 AHPP/CEAS Visiting Scholar
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Dr. Brian Chen is currently a visiting scholar with the Asia Health Policy Program and Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University. He was recently Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center's 2009-2010 postdoctoral fellow in Comparative Health Policy. As a visiting scholar, Dr. Chen will conduct collaborative research about health of the elderly and chronic disease in China.

As an applied economist, Chen’s research focuses on the impact of incentives in health care organizations on provider and patient behavior. For his dissertation, Chen empirically examined how vertical integration and prohibition against self-referrals affected physician prescribing behavior. His job market paper was selected for presentation at the American Law and Economics Association’s Annual Meeting, the Academy of Management, the Canadian Law and Economics Association, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, and the First Annual Conference on Empirical Health Law and Policy at Georgetown Law Center in 2009.  The paper was also nominated for best paper based on a dissertation at the Academy of Management.

Chen comes to the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center not only with a multidisciplinary law and economics background, but also with an international perspective from having lived and worked in Taiwan, Japan, and France. He has a particularly intimate knowledge of the Taiwanese health care system from his experience as an assistant to the hospital administrator at a medical college in Taiwan.

During his past residence as a postdoctoral fellow with the Asia Health Policy Program, Chen conducted empirical research on cost containment policies in Taiwan and Japan and how those policies impacted provider behavior. His work also contributed to the program’s research activities on comparative health systems and health service delivery in the Asia-Pacific, a theme that encompasses the historical evolution of health policies; the role of the private sector and public-private partnerships; payment incentives and their impact on patients and providers; organizational innovation, contracting, and soft budget constraints; and chronic disease management and service coordination for aging populations.

Dr. Brian Chen recently completed his Ph.D. in Business Administration in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. He received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1997, and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1992.

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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:

8:00 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.Registration
8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

"Stanford and its (changing) relationships with Silicon Valley"

  • John Hennessy, President, Stanford University
9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.

"Change is the Medium of Opportunity: Channeling Silicon Valley's Strengths to Lead on the Challenges of the 21st Century"

  • James C. Morgan, Chairman Emeritus, Applied Materials 
10:30 – 10:45 a.m.Break
10:45 -11:45 a.m.

"The Entrepreneur and The Cloud—Silicon Valley Rejuvenated"

  • John Seely Brown, Independent Co-Chairman, Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation 
11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.Lunch
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

"Silicon Valley's Innovation Engine:  Are We a Resilient Region?"

  • Doug Henton, Chairman and CEO, Collaborative Economics, and lead for the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network 2010 Index of Silicon Valley
2:00 – 3:30 pm

Venture Capital Panel 

  • Neal Bhadkamkar, Monitor Ventures
  • Bob Patterson, Peninsula Ventures 
  • Marianne Wu, Mohr Davidow

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.

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John Hennessy President, Stanford University Speaker
James C. Morgan Chairman Emeritus, Applied Materials Speaker
John Seely Brown Independent Co-Chairman, Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation Speaker
Doug Henton Chairman and CEO, Collaborative Economics Speaker
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Silicon Valley is increasingly invested in clean technologies and is already looked upon as a global leader in new technological development. As happens with most new technologies in their infancy, Silicon Valley's focus is currently on component manufacturing. However, a difference from earlier technology cycles is the upfront impact of globalization, especially the emergence of China and India as providers of skilled labor and large markets.  Accordingly, the globalization of cleantech could follow some well-trodden paths and some new ones:

  1. As manufacturing gets modularized, firms such as Applied Materials might shift component work to East Asia. Some of this is already happening.
  2. System integration and other service provision might increasingly be provided by the large Indian system integrators. As of 2009, however, there is little evidence of this happening.
  3. Firms in Europe and East Asia have been investing in cleantech for some time now, and might participate in technological leadership. 

In each case, we are interested in exploring the time-frame and the driving forces.   These will typically be outcomes of a mix of regulatory, domestic market and skills issues.

The conference, the fifth in the annual series on the Globalization of Services, will likely host about 20 academics and 40 corporates, as with past events. 

Presentations are planned by firms in Silicon Valley in the fields of component manufacturing, systems integration and service provision; by overseas service providers on how outsourcing in these areas improves outcomes in terms of strategic direction, efficiency, cost-savings and accountability; by OEMs on supply-chain linkages with service outsourcers; and by venture capitalists and consultants on how their work helps the process of outsourcing cleantech services.

Registration is required for this event ($30 by Dec. 4, $45 late) and includes continental breakfast, lunch and free parking. Use the RSVP link at the top of the page to register.

Information on the previous Globalization of Services conference, including presentations, is available here.

8:00Registration and Breakfast
8:30Welcome and Objectives
Rafiq Dossani
8:35-9:15

Keynote: Fostering the Green Economy--The Case of California
Ricardo Martinez Garcia, Deputy Secretary, California Environmental Protection Agency

9:15-10:30Panel: Cleantech technology trends
Marc Hoffman, Glacier Bay | Ajit Nazre, Kleiner Perkins | Swaminathan Venkataraman, Standard & Poor's
Lead discussant: Professor Dimitris Assimakopoulos, Grenoble School of Management, France
10:30-10:45Break
10:45-12:30Panel: Software and services
Chris Farinacci, Hara.com | Matt Denesuk, IBM | Sai Gundavelli, Solix
Lead discussant: Professor Petri Rouvinen, ETLA Finland
12:30-1:45Lunch
1:30-3:30Panel: Manufacturing
Charles Consorte, Zeptor | Chris D'Couto, Neah | Marc Hoffman, Glacier Bay
Lead discussant: Professor Margot Gerritsen, Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University
3:30-3:50Break
3:50-5:30Panel: Globalization
Rafiq Dossani, Stanford | Joe Muscat, Ernst and Young | Bob Nelson, Akin Gump | Sean Wang, ITRI | Tomoya Yamashiki, Toray Industries (America) Inc.
Lead discussant: Henry Rowen, Stanford University

 


This conference is the 5th annual "Globalization of Services" conference, made possible through the generosity and efforts of ETLA, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, the University of Colorado, Denver and Wipro.

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Gundavelli Solix
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Donald K. Emmerson
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The 2008-09 academic year was a busy time for the Southeast Asia Forum (SEAF).  A dozen on-campus lectures by Southeast Asianists from Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand, and the United States ranged from country-specific topics such as labor resistance in Vietnam, political opposition in Malaysia, and the 2009 elections in Indonesia, to broader-brush treatments of Southeast Asian identities and modernities, regional repercussions of the global economic slowdown, and the wellsprings of “late democratization” across East Asia.

The lecture on “late democratization” was delivered to a capacity audience by the 2008-09 National University of Singapore-Stanford University Lee Kong Chian (LKC) Distinguished Fellow, Mark Thompson.  Mark is a political science professor in Germany at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.  He and another 08-09 SEAF speaker, Australian National University Prof. Ed Aspinall, jointly with State University of New York-Albany Prof. Meredith Weiss, will lead a 28-30 August 2009 workshop in Singapore under the auspices of the NUS-Stanford Initiative (NSI).  The workshop will review and analyze the record and prospects of student movements in Asia.  Attendees will include authors of chapters of a book-in-progress stemming from the research and writing on democratization done by Thompson during his fellowship at Stanford.

A second NSI awardee this past academic year was the 2008 NUS-Stanford LKC Distinguished Lecturer Joel Kahn, professor of anthropology emeritus at La Trobe University, Melbourne, who gave three talks at SEAF this year: 

His insightful interpretations of identity and modernity in Southeast Asia may be heard via the relevant audio icons at the links above.

Off-campus lectures involving SEAF included three panel discussions convened to launch Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia (introductory chapter and information on ordering the title are available), published by Stanford’s Shorenstein APARC and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, in 2008-09.  The book was edited by SEAF Director Donald K. Emmerson.  

Hosting these launches in their respective cities were ISEAS in Singapore, the Asia Society in New York, and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.  Panelists at these events included Ellen Frost (Peterson Institute for International Economics), Mike Green (Georgetown University School of Foreign Service), Alan Chong Chia Siong (NUS), and Joern Dosch (Leeds University).  

Another panelist was John Ciorciari, a Shorenstein Fellow at Shorenstein APARC in 2007-08 and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 2008-09.  In 2009, despite the U.S. recession and a correspondingly competitive academic marketplace, he published several Southeast Asia-related pieces, completed and submitted to a university press the manuscript he had worked on at APARC, and won a tenure-track assistant professorship at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Policy starting in September 2009.  Congratulations, John! 

Apart from speaking at the launches of Hard Choices, Don Emmerson gave papers on Indonesian foreign policies and Asia Pacific regionalism in Jakarta and Manila, and discussed these and other topics at events in Chicago and Los Angeles among other venues.  At two conferences in Washington,D.C. on a proposed U.S.-Indonesian “comprehensive partnership,” he addressed what such a relationship could and should entail.  In Spring 2009 at Stanford, he served as faculty sponsor and lecturer in a student-initiated course on Thailand.  His interviewers during the year included the BBC, Radio Australia, The New York Times, and various Indonesian media.

SEAF organized its final on-campus event of the 2008-09 academic year in June 2009 — an invitation-only roundtable co-sponsored with the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council.  Nine scholars met with three current American ambassadors to Southeast Asian countries for off-the-record conversations on seven topics of mutual interest regarding the region and its relations with the United States.

None of the above could have happened without the talent, friendliness, and all-round indispensability of SEAF’s administrative associate, Lisa Lee.  Thank you, Lisa!

Prospect:  2009-2010

As of June 2009, SEAF anticipated hosting, directly or indirectly, these scholars of Southeast Asia during academic year 2008-09:

  • Sudarno Sumarto is the director of the SMERU Research Institute, Jakarta.  He will be at Stanford for the full academic year as the 2009-10 Shorenstein APARC-Asia Foundation Visiting Fellow. While on campus, Sudarno will do research and write on the political economy of development in Indonesia.  He is likely to focus within that field on the economic consequences of violent conflict, policy lessons to be drawn from the record of cash-transfer welfare programs, and whether and how such aid has affected its recipients’ voting behavior. 
  • James Hoesterey will spend academic year 2009-10 at APARC as the year’s Shorenstein Fellow.  He will revise for publication his University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral dissertation in anthropology on “Sufis and Self-help Gurus:  Postcolonial Psychology, Religious Authority, and Muslim Subjectivity in Indonesia.” Jim researched this topic in Indonesia over two years of fieldwork focused on the outlook and activities of a popular, charismatic, media-savvy Muslim preacher, Abdullah Gymnastiar.  Jim’s aim is to understand and interpret how a new generation of Muslim preachers and trainers in Indonesia has found a marketable niche and acquired personal and religious authority by combining piety with practical advice. 
  • Thitinan Pongsudhirak is an associate professor in international relations at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, where he also heads the Institute of Security and International Studies.  He will be at Stanford in Spring 2010, one of four visiting experts from overseas in a new joint effort by the Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies to bring “high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of Stanford.” 

Together with SEAF, the Center for East Asian Studies and the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law will co-host Thitinan during his stay.  While at Stanford he will lecture and write on Thai politics and foreign policy, among other possible topics.  His op ed in the 18 April 2009 New York Times, “Why Thais Are Angry,” may be accessed at the New York Times.

Christian von Luebke, a 2008-09 Shorenstein Fellow, will remain at Stanford in 2009-2010 as a visiting scholar on a German Science Foundation fellowship.

He will enlarge, for publication, the focus of his doctoral dissertation, on the political economy of subnational policy reform in Indonesia, to encompass the Philippines and China as well.  To that end, he did preparatory fieldwork in Manila in Summer 2009.

SEAF is happy to congratulate all four of these 2009-2010 scholars for winning these intensely competitive awards!  

In addition to sponsoring the lectures these scholars are expected to give, SEAF will host a full roster of occasional speakers from the United States and other countries in AY 2009-2010.  These speakers will analyze and assess, for example, the (in)efficacy of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s welfare programs in Thailand, the role of intra-military tensions in propelling Asian transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule, and aspects of Japan’s occupation of Southeast Asia during World War II that need reconsideration.

As for the 2009-10 iteration of the NUS-Stanford Initiative and its fellowship and lectureship awards, as of June 2009 this prospect was on hold pending clarification of NSI’s financial base, which has been affected by the global economic downturn.  Whatever the status of NSI in 2009-10, SEAF’s speakers, whether resident on campus or invited for one-time talks, should make up in quality for the modest shortfall in quantity—not filling one slot for a visitor—that the possible absence of an NSI-funded scholar would imply.

Controversy:  “Islamism” and Its Discontents

SEAF expects to learn in 2009-10 of the publication of one or more books written wholly or partly at Stanford under its auspices.  One of these titles is Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam.  It is set to appear by November 2009 and can be ordered now from Stanford University Press at http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=11926.  

In this volume, SEAF’s director debates a friend and colleague, Middle Eastern and Islamic studies expert and Hofstra University anthropologist Dan Varisco.  They disagree over the meaning of the term “Islamism” and the (un)desirability of its use in discourse about Muslims and their faith.  Of particular sensitivity in this context is the (mis)use of “Islamism” to describe or interpret instances of violence that have been or may be committed by Muslims in the name of Islam.  A dozen other experts on Islam, mostly Muslims, contribute shorter comments on “Islamism” and on the positions taken by Emmerson and Varisco.  If one early reviewer turns out to be right, “this lively work will be a great help for anyone concerned with current debates between Islamic nations and the West.” 

At Stanford in February 2009, Don Emmerson conveyed his and Dan Varisco’s views to a standing-room-only lecture and discussion hosted by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies entitled “Debating Islamism: Pro, Semi-pro, Con, and Why Bother?” (audio recording available).  One listener later commented anonymously on the talk.  Also relevant, in the context of larger questions regarding how best to convey Muslims’ lives and religion to non-Muslims, is Jonathan Gelbart's article "Who Speaks For Islam? Not John Esposito".

Don does not know the authors of these posts; ran across their comments by chance while cyber-surfing; and does not necessarily endorse their views, let alone views to be found in the sources to which these comments may be electronically linked.  But the blog and the article do contribute to a debate whose importance was illustrated at the very end of Stanford’s 2008-09 academic year by Barack Obama’s own treatment of Islam and Muslims in the unprecedented speech that he gave at Cairo University on 4 June 2009.  After he spoke, in conversation with an Indonesian journalist, Obama promised to visit—actually, to revisit—Jakarta on his next trip to Asia.  That stop is most likely to take place before or after he attends the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in nearby Singapore in November 2009.  Viewers interested in a commentary can also read Don's Obama's Trifecta: So Far, So Good.

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