Stanford University

The Cheapest Car in the World: Low-Cost Disruptive Innovation by Tata Motors

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About the event:

Last July, Tata Motors began selling the $2,500 Nano, the cheapest car in the world. Some argue that the impact of this automobile innovation may equal that of Ford's 1908 Model T in its creation of a new, low-income market.

However there remains a puzzle: Tata Motors has been producing imitative car models, lacking the technical prowess to develop new-to-the-world innovation. How has the company made innovative breakthroughs in spite of weak technological competence? Dr. Lim, as an expert on catching-up innovation, will explain the process and discuss the implications of the case for further understanding emerging innovation activities in developing countries.

About the speaker:

Chaisung Lim first developed his interest in technology issues as a management student, focusing on appropriate technology for developing countries. This led him to pursue issues on appropriate technology, firm level innovation and industrial competitiveness for his master and PhD theses and his career at the Korea Development Institute. His international research papers have concentrated on the management of technology for catching up at firm and national levels. He has participated in committees and project teams providing consultation on industrial and technology policies for the Korean and Turkish governments. He is currently a professor at the Miller School of MOT and Professor at the MOT/MBA program at Konkuk University, Seoul. He received the BA in Management at Sogang University, the Master's in Management at Seoul National University and the PhD in Technology Management at SPRU at the University of Sussex.

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Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Chaisung Lim

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E-301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-6530
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Visiting Scholar, 2009-2010
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Chaisung Lim has focused his research on management of technology in catching up with advanced country firms in his capacity as leader of the Research Institute for Global Management of Technology for Catching Up (GMOT). He has participated in committees and project teams providing consultation on industrial and technology policies for the Korean and Turkish Governments. He is currently a Professor at the Miller School of MOT and the MOT/MBA program at Konkuk University, Seoul. He received the PhD in Technology Management at SPRU at the University of Sussex. He previously worked for the industrial analysis division of the Korea Development Institute, a leading think tank in Korea.

Chaisung Lim Speaker
Seminars

Kevin Y. Kim

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-5646 (650) 723-6530
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2009-10 Shorenstein APARC Pre-doctoral Fellow
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Kevin Y. Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Stanford University. He specializes in 20th century U.S. foreign relations, with an emphasis on U.S.-Asia relations. He currently is completing a dissertation titled, “Forging the Free World: Korea, U.S. Leaders, and the World, 1948-1954.” This study examines the impact of the Korean War upon the evolution of U.S. national leaders’ foreign policy ideas on strategy, economy, race, and world politics. Influenced by “constructivist” approaches and traditional historical methods, his dissertation explores the Korean War period as a formative moment in the construction of contemporary U.S. liberal and conservative foreign policy beliefs.

Before entering graduate school, Kim was a Fulbright fellow in South Korea from 2001 to 2002, where he taught English in a Daejeon public middle school and studied Korean language and U.S.-Asia relations at various institutions. He also briefly pursued a career in journalism, and has written on culture, domestic politics, and international affairs for publications such as The Nation, The Progressive, Far Eastern Economic Review, South China Morning Post, and The Village Voice.

Kim received his M.A. in History from Stanford University and a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He was born and raised in the New York City metropolitan area.

How do the media shape U.S. policy on the Cold War's last frontier?

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Beginning with a detailed analysis of American newspaper coverage of Korean peninsula between 1992 and 2003, the newly published book, "First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier," features essays by Western journalists and senior U.S. officials with firsthand experience on the peninsula over the past two decades. The book's distinguished contributors offer unique insights into American media coverage of the peninsula and its impact on policymaking in Washington. Donald Macintyre, former Pantech Fellow, Daniel Sneider, associate director of research, and Gi-Wook Shin, director of APARC, edited the volume.
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Shorenstein APARC launches the annual Stanford-Kyoto Dialogue, focusing on energy and the environment

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Benjamin Self
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The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center inaugurates the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue on 10 and 11 September 2009, with the cooperation of the Stanford Japan Center and the generous support of the City of Kyoto and other donors.

The Dialogue gathers established and rising leaders in various sectors - industry, media, academia, politics - for annual discussion of critical issues of shared concern. Experts from Stanford University and specialists from around the region will launch the Dialogue sessions in focused topics within the annual theme. The 2009 Dialogue centers on the question of "Energy, Environment, and Economic Growth in Asia," with sessions on the Geopolitics of Energy in Asia, Energy Efficiency, Clean Technology, and Post-Kyoto Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

Benjamin Self, Takahashi Fellow in Japanese Studies, directs the effort. "The Dialogue brings together distinguished experts from Stanford and Silicon Valley, top specialists from around the region, and leaders in various fields. The meeting begins with an exploration of the influence of energy competition on international relations in Asia. After establishing the geopolitical context the group will explore new ideas on how to promote energy efficiency, clean technology, and the reduction of carbon emissions."

The Stanford Kyoto Dialogue creates a new regional forum, with diverse participation from not only Japan but also South Korea, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and Singapore. Working with the City of Kyoto, famous for "green" initiatives, Stanford's Shorenstein APARC will support inventive collaboration on common challenges.

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POSCO NGO Fellowship Program ended after three years

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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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David Straub joins Clinton delegation to North Korea to secure release of Current TV journalists

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David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), was a part of the delegation led by former president Bill Clinton to secure the early August release of two Current TV journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, held in North Korea since mid March 2009. Straub, a noted educator and commentator on Northeast Asian affairs, served as head of the political section of the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea from 1999 to 2002, and then as director of the State Department’s Korea desk from 2002 to 2004, where he played a key working level role in the Six-Party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.

The Current TV journalists were arrested on March 17 near the North Korea border with China while reporting on human trafficking for San Francisco-based Current TV, co-founded by former vice president Al Gore and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt. In June, the two journalists were sentenced to 12 years hard labor. Held in isolation from each other, the two were allowed periodic phone conversations with their families.  According to public reports, the journalists told their families in a July phone call that North Korea would grant them amnesty “if an envoy in the person of Bill Clinton would agree to come to Pyongyang and seek their release.”

On August 4, following a visit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and a somber Clinton – a meeting highly photographed and publicized in North Korea, the two journalists were released to the Clinton delegation and flew home to Los Angeles to their families.  Visibly exhausted upon their arrival in Burbank, the two journalists chose not to comment. Laura Ling has announced through her sister Lisa, who is also a journalist, that she is preparing an account of their ordeal.

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First Drafts of Korea

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Few regions rival the Korean Peninsula in strategic importance to U.S. foreign policy. For half a century, America has stationed tens of thousands of troops in South Korea to defend its ally from the threat of North Korean aggression. South Korea, in turn, is critical to the defense of Japan, another ally and the linchpin of American interests in East Asia. The rise of a nuclear-armed North has upped the ante.

Yet despite the stakes, the two Koreas have registered only episodically on the radar of the United States. The troubling gap between American perceptions of the peninsula and its strategic importance remained an unexplored phenomenon until now. First Drafts of Korea breaks new ground in examining how the American mass media shape U.S. perceptions of both Koreas and, as a result, influence U.S. foreign policy.

Beginning with a detailed analysis of American newspaper coverage of Korea between 1992 and 2003, the book features essays by Western journalists and senior U.S. officials with firsthand experience on the peninsula over the past two decades. These include frank accounts of the unique frustrations of covering Kim Jong-il's North Korea, undoubtedly the most closed and media-unfriendly nation on earth.

Addressing topics ranging from the democratization of South Korea in the 1980s to today's deteriorating nuclear crisis, the book's distinguished contributors offer unique insights into American media coverage of the peninsula and its impact on policymaking in Washington. What emerges is a complex, shifting portrait of two rival nations sharing one peninsula whose future remains inextricably linked to the global security interests of the United States.

Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press.

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The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier

Authors
Donald Macintyre
Gi-Wook Shin
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Shorenstein APARC
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