Kazuto Yamamoto is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06. He has worked at the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper company, for thirteen years. For the past seven years, he has belonged to the electronic media and broadcasting division and engaged in the development of websites for cellphones and a news contents editing system for online media.

Yamamoto completed his undergraduate study at Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he majored in computer science. He also received a masters from the Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Yo Yamaguchi is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06. Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, he has been with Sumitomo Corporation for seven years. He currently serves as senior staff in the net business department, which is responsible for incubating, developing, and investing in the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) sectors of the e-marketing andmedia contents business areas. Yamaguchi completed his undergraduate study at Keio University in Tokyo where he majored in politics, with a focus on China.

Lidong Wei is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06. He is a deputy general manager of a department of PetroChina, where he has worked for twenty years, focusing on equipment, purchasing, and refinery. Wei received his PhD from Dalian University of Science and Technology in China.

Naohisa Kurita is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06 and 2006-07. Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, he worked for Shizuoka Prefectural Government in Japan, where he took charge of coordination and international business affairs. His research interests are in competitive strategy, and cluster-based theory for regional economic development. He graduated from Waseda University in Tokyo, where he majored in sociology.

Yasuhiro Kanda is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06. Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, he held positions at the Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) for thirteen years, in their nuclear fuel purchasing and business developing departments. Kanda's experiences at KEPCO included forwarding nuclear-fuel-recycling-system in Japan according to national policy, handling new-business planning, and launching a new business as a manager in a KEPCO subsidiary. His latest position at KEPCO was as manager.

Kanda did his undergraduate study at Kobe University in Kobe, where he majored in business administration.

Takashi Kadomatsu is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06. Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, he held positions at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), government of Japan, for about eleven years, where he took charge of policymaking. His latest position at METI was as deputy director in the public relations office, Minister's Secretariat. He did his undergraduate study at Keio University, in the faculty of environmental information.

Kyoko Ii is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2004-05 and 2005-06. Since 1999, she has worked for the industrial recruitment and location division of the Kumamoto Prefectural Government in Japan, with a mission to promote foreign direct investment into the country. In this capacity, she has worked with foreign companies who succeeded in establishing operations in Kumamoto. Prior to this position, she worked at the Kumamoto Prefectural Government in international affairs, planning, welfare, and distribution. She received BA and MA degrees in foreign studies from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Guo-nan (Eric) Chin is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06. He completed his undergraduate study in political science at National Taiwan University. He has served in Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) for the past fourteen years, including positions such as secretary in the Taipei Representative Office in Germany. Chin's last assignment was as chief of the planning unit of MOFA's African Department.

Masaaki Awano is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06. He currently works for the Japan Patent Office (JPO), one of the agencies of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), in the Japanese government. Awano has worked for the JPO as a patent examiner for more than twelve years, handling patent applications in the field of semiconductor devices. In 2000, he also took in charge of international affairs at the office, especially with respect to trilateral cooperation among the European Patent Office (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and JPO.

Awano completed his undergraduate study in physics at the University of Tokyo. He received an MS in the graduate school of science of the University of Tokyo, where he concentrated on plasma physics.

Ichiro Aoki is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2005-06 and 2006-07. He is also an official of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in the Japanese government.

Aoki graduated in law from Tokyo University. He subsequently engaged in planning the tax system and the banking system in the MOF. He was involved in planning the pension system in the Ministry of Health and Welfare. He worked at the office of a Finance minister. He joined the task force in the Cabinet Office to promote decentralization. He also worked at the Financial Supervisory Agency as director for supervising financial companies. He participated in policymaking and submitting bills on these themes to the Diet.

Aoki's latest post was as director of the Cabinet Office, in charge of making the draft budget.