Between four and five thousand years ago, elephants were found in China as far north as the location of present-day Beijing. Today, wild elephants are confined to a few protected enclaves along the southwest border. To some degree, this retreat was due to a long-term decrease in the mean annual temperature, but the most important cause was the destruction of habitat by Chinese-style agricultural development. Mark Elvin uses the pattern of retreat of the elephants as a means of defining to a first degree of approximation the complementary pattern of the spread of forest clearance for farming in China across space and time, and to discuss the economic and other causes for the historical deforestation. Mark Elvin is Research Professor of Chinese History at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU, and Emeritus Fellow of St. Anthony's College, Oxford. He is author of The Pattern of the Chinese Past (1973), Another History: Essays on China from a European Perspective (1996), and Changing Stories in the Chinese World (1997, among other works. Elvin was educated at Cambridge University and Harvard.

A pioneering Japanese-English simultaneous interpreter will entertain and enlighten you with the tales of some delightful events where humor has successfully transcended cultural barriers, or some embarrassing ones when the speakers and/or interpreters fell flat on their face. A product of the U.S. occupation of Japan and American tax-payers money later, Muramatsu has served countless international conferences and encounters by any other name, including the first nine G-7 Summit meetings of heads of state and government. (The first, in 1975, at Rambouillet, was G-6; guess who wasn't invited to the dinner.) Meticulously avoiding divulging any state secret or materials for tabloids, he has written essays, books, and given lectures on fascinating episodes that make us laugh and then think the tricks in breaking linguistic and cultural barriers. Born in Tokyo in 1930; worked first as a clerk-typist and then as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Tokyo 1946 through 1955; trained as one of the first eight Japanese simultaneous interpreters by the U.S. State Department, serving some thirty Japanese productivity study teams that toured the U.S. 1956-1960. Tried a new career as an economic researcher with the U.S.-Japan Economic Council in Washington, DC predecessor to the Japan Economic Institute of America). Went back to professional interpreting by returning to Japan in 1965, relinquishing his green card, and established Simul International, Inc., the first professional organization of, by and for interpreters in Japan. After 33 years as its president, then chairman, and also president of the Simul Academy, semi-retired into an advisory, albeit full-time, status in 1998. His clients include Pres. Reagan, Pres. Kennedy, Sen. Kennedy, Professors Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Peter Drucker,Japanese prime ministers from Tanaka to Nakasone, India's Prime Minister Rajif Gandhi, Britain's Prince Charles, Jeffrey Archer, Arthur C. Clarke, Ralph Nader, Betty Friedan, and Yasser Arafat.

When Taiwan's government launched Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park Project in 1979, the objectives were three fold: to revitalize the country's economic growth, to establish its indigenous high-tech base, and to slow down the (then) serious brain drain problem. After extensive consultations, study tours, and careful evaluation, a strategy was adopted to emulate Silicon Valley. The key ingredients of the strategy were to establish favorable investment and living environments for high tech entrepreneurs, to lure back some expatriate brain power, and to train more science and engineering graduates. The initial plan involved a 10-year, $500 million government fund to develop a nearly 600 hectare science park in Hsinchu, where two prestigious universities and a government funded research institution already were located. The Taiwanese government established a Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park Administration in 1979 to execute this plan. What has happened during the past 20 years? The current status of the Hsinchu Park will be presented to substantiate the original plan and strategy. Dr. Irving T. Ho currently serves as Chairman of the Board of EiC Corp. His distinguished career includes serving as the first Director General of the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, President and CEO of International Integrated System, Inc., Vice Chairman of Taiwan's National Science Council, and senior manager and award winning researcher at IBM's East Fishkill Laboratory. Holder of 34 US patents, Dr. Ho received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Prior to joining RAND in 1989, Dr. Swaine was a consultant in the business sector, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and a research associate at Harvard University. Dr. Swaine holds a Ph.D. and Masters in Political Science from Harvard University and a Bachelor's degree from George Washington University. He specializes in Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian international relations.

Pieter P. Bottelier recently completed a 28-year tenure at the World Bank. He served in various senior managerial and advisory capacities for programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America. His most recent positions were, until December l998, Senior Advisor to the Vice President, East Asia and Pacific Region, and Chief of the World Bank's Resident Mission in Beijing (1993-97). He now teaches at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, and is associated with the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington DC. He is the author of many articles on China. He studied economics and banking at the University of Amsterdam and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The role of location is gaining attention as a contributor to firm and industry competitiveness. A number of researchers have linked innovation and productivity to the geographic clustering of firms. While a variety of industry clusters in the United States and abroad have been studied, seldom have they been considered within the context of global competition. Global competition complicates the location decision. Drawing on extensive evidence from the hard disk drive industry, including information on the complete population of firms since the industry's inception, this presentation offers a framework for understanding the dynamics of industry location in international competition. David McKendrick is Research Director of the Information Storage Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego. His current research focuses on the role of location in competitive advantage, the effects of geographic dispersion on innovation and learning in multinational corporations, and the evolution of international competition. Prior to joining UCSD, he taught in the business schools at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Texas at Dallas. He received his Ph.D. in business from the University of California, Berkeley.

There are several technology parks in India funded by both the state and the private sector. They have been widely criticized for offering either a poor habitat for technology development or for being too expensive. Mr. Vaghul heads India's largest development bank, ICICI. ICICI has newly promoted Knowledge Park in Hyderabad to uniquely focus on business R & D. Mr. Vaghul will explain the rationale for and development of Knowledge Park in the context of India's technology development. Narayanan Vaghul, a distinguished financier and currently a visiting professor at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, is chairman of ICICI Limited. Mr. Vaghul has had a long, distinguished career as a banker. After qualifying as a B.Com. and Chartered Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers, he started his career in 1957 with the State Bank of India. In 1974 he left SBI (as Chief Officer, personnel) to join the National Institute of Bank Management where he soon rose to the Chief Executive position of Director. Thereafter, he worked with two of the largest Indian commercial banks, Central Bank of India as Executive Director (1978-1981) and Bank of India as Chairman & Managing Director (1981-1984). From 1985 to date Mr. Vaghul has been Chairman of ICICI Limited. Mr. Vaghul's pioneering vision and stellar contribution to Indian industry was acknowledged when Business India, a leading Indian business magazine, selected him as Businessman of the Year (1992).

This is a time of tremendous opportunity, but to remain competitive every business is finding it necessary to be much more entrepreneurial. At SRI International, this has resulted in a new model for research and development with a focus on creating and delivering high-value solutions to the marketplace. For example, SRI spins off three to five new high-technology companies each year. This talk will review key elements of our model and the entrepreneurial process needed to successfully form high-technology companies within a relatively large R & D organization. The issues and challenges of our model will be discussed and compared against the global trends we observe. Curtis R. Carlson became President and Chief Executive Officer of SRI International in December 1998 after 25 years with Sarnoff Corporation, an SRI wholly owned subsidiary. Carlson joined RCA's Sarnoff Laboratory in 1973. He was named head of the Image Quality and Perception Research Group in 1981, Director of Sarnoff's Information Systems Research Laboratory in 1984 and Vice President of the laboratory in 1990. In 1995, Carlson became Executive Vice President of Sarnoff's Interactive Systems Division. Carlson has published or presented more than 50 technical publications and holds more than 15 U.S. patents in the fields of image quality, image coding and computer vision. While at RCA's Sarnoff Laboratories, he was the recipient of two RCA Outstanding Achievement Awards. Carlson received his B.S. in Physics from Worchester Polytechnic Institute and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Rutgers University. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Sigma XI, Tau Beta Pi and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

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.

Foreign-born engineers are a significant and fast growing presence in Silicon Valley. This talk will examine how first generation Chinese and Indian immigrants--who represent one-third of the engineering workforce in the region--have integrated into the local economy while simultaneously building long-distance linkages to regions in Asia. AnnaLee Saxenian is a Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley and an internationally recognized expert on regional economic development and the information technology sector. Her current research examines the contributions of skilled immigrants to Silicon Valley and their growing ties to regions in Asia. Her recent publications include Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. She has written extensively about innovation and regional development, urbanization, and the organization of labor markets in the San Francisco Bay Area. Saxenian is the Gordon Cain Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research for the 1999-2000 academic year. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from MIT, a Master's degree in Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BA in Economics from Williams College in Massachusetts.