Hiroaki Yasutake has had a front row seat in the development of Japan’s startup ecosystem for the past 20 years as he joined Rakuten as one of its earliest employees, spending many years at its CTO. In this talk, he will share various insights gained from being an integral part of the rise of Rakuten as it grew rapidly by introducing new services, buying much larger and established companies, and the process by which it made itself a reputable, established company in Japan. He also experienced Rakuten’s famed “English-nization” and the company’s aggressive global push. More broadly, many of his friends, associates and acquaintances fanned out to drive the growth of Japan’s startup ecosystem, which has transformed dramatically in the past two decades, and he will share many of their experiences, along with challenges facing Japan’s stage of the startup ecosystem. Yasutake also co-founded Junify, and he will introduce the business itself, his motivations for moving to Silicon Valley, and his observations of specific efforts by Japanese entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. 

SPEAKER:

Hiroaki Yasutake, Co-founder and CSO, Junify, and former CTO, Rakuten

BIO:

Hiroaki Yasutake joined Rakuten (founded 1997) in its infancy in 1998 as an engineer after briefly working at NTT. At Rakuten, he was in charge of creating various services and served as CTO before departing in 2016. He moved to Silicon Valley and co-founded a new startup, Junify, and currently also assists various large and small Japanese companies about their technology and innovation strategies as external board member and advisor. He graduated from Waseda University’s Graduate School of science research, mathematical sciences, and in 2015, attended the Stanford Executive Program (SEP) at the Graduate School of Business.

AGENDA:

4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking

RSVP REQUIRED:

Register to attend at http://www.stanford-svnj.org/112718-public-forum

Please note there is significant construction taking place on campus, which is greatly affecting parking availability and traffic patterns at the university. Please plan accordingly.

Four member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made territorial claims in the South China Sea that conflict with China’s professed entitlement to all of the “islands and the adjacent waters.” Because the “ASEAN Way” is to make decisions by consensus, each member state can, in effect, veto what the group might otherwise decide. Prof. O’Neill will explore how China has used its financial power to divide ASEAN’s members in order to prevent them from acting collectively to resolve their territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. He will compare China’s relations with Cambodia, the Philippines, and Myanmar in order to highlight the key role that a recipient country’s type of regime plays in enhancing or constraining Beijing’s ability to use aid, loans, and investments to influence the policies and politics of developing states. He will argue that authoritarian institutions facilitate Chinese influence while democratic institutions inhibit it.

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Malaysia's ruling National Front (BN) coalition ran one of the most durable authoritarian governments in the world. But in May 2018, a coalition of opposition parties won power, unseating the BN government for the first time in 61 years. In two complementary talks, APARC scholars Sophie Lemière and Sebastian Dettman will examine the roots of this victory in light of the strategies, coalitions, and messianic messages used by the opposition. Using findings from their fieldwork in Malaysia, they will show how and why the opposition parties were successful and draw implications of the victory for Malaysia’s future under its new coalition government. The speakers will also convey broader insights about political competition in Southeast Asia’s semi-authoritarian polities and beyond.    

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In 2012, as giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google began to position themselves as the go-to places to read news, a little-known news app called SmartNews emerged and started gaining popularity in Japan. The SmartNews app has since been dubbed “App of the Year” on Google Play and won the “Best of” award in Apple’s App store, launched US operations in 2014, and now has over 10 million monthly active users in US and Japan.

In the age of fake news and information polarization, SmartNews is working to deliver to users a balanced diet of quality information from trusted journalism sources. The SmartNews news app uses machine learning to deliver curated news from more than 3000 sources and identify fake news. The SmartNews Delivery Algorithm not only considers users’ likes and clicks and other behavior on the app to generate suggestions, but also applies political balancing algorithms to ensure multiple viewpoints are expressed on important topics, and diversification algorithms to help break the filter bubble.

In this public forum, SmartNews Director of Product Management Yuhei Nishioka will talk about SmartNews’ story and growth trajectory, competing in the current news app landscape, and finally, discuss the process and considerations in creating the SmartNews News Delivery Algorithm. Introduction by Rich Jaroslovsky Vice President for Content and Chief Journalist of SmartNews and former Wall Street Journal White House correspondent.

MAIN SPEAKER:

Yuhei Nishioka, Director of Product Management, SmartNews

INTRODUCTION BY:

Rich Jaroslovsky, Vice President for Content and Chief Journalist, SmartNews and former Wall Street Journal White House correspondent

AGENDA:

4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Main Content, followed by discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking

RSVP REQUIRED:

Register to attend at http://www.stanford-svnj.org/101618-public-forum

PARKING ON CAMPUS:

Please note there is significant construction taking place on campus, which is greatly affecting parking availability and traffic patterns at the university. Please plan accordingly.