This conference will present and discuss new papers aimed at understanding the trends and dynamics of business and innovation in Japan through the lens of entrepreneurial companies, and institutions that affect those companies.

The papers, encompassing disciplines including economics, policital science and law, will be presented on four subject areas:

• New company formation
• Industry specific studies
• Innovation strategies
• Innovation and entrepreneurship in politics and law

» Presentations/Papers from the event

After a decade of economic institution reforms and consistent growth, the recent recession has sharply curtailed Japan's manufacturing and service activity, even though its banks have endured relatively unscathed. Many in Japan now look to entrepreneurship and innovation as an important part of the continued restructuring of its economy. This event will review data from a new 50,000 company database of recently incorporated Japanese firms to begin a dialogue on entrepreneurialism in Japan with policy makers, academics, and business leaders. The dialogue will be held simultaneously in Japan and the US over Cisco's TelePresence system.

An integrated approach based on a case study of a new neighborhood in the provincial capital of Jinan in Shandong, China

As part of SPRIE's current research on entrepreneurship and innovation in the green/cleantech space, we are pleased to present this seminar in cooperation with the Precourt Institute for Energy.

About the talk

This presentation will discuss an effort to integrate building energy and emission models with traffic simulation tools, in order to develop integrated urban energy and emission models. The assessment of the environmental impacts of transportation systems does not commonly include an analysis of the effects on building energy use. Similarly, neighborhood level building energy simulations often overlook the impacts of the density of the built environment and the configuration of the street network. Based on a case study of a masterplan for a new neighborhood in Jinan, Shandong Province, China, the modeling approach presented here aims to capture the way the built environment and transportation networks influence each other in terms of energy use and carbon emissions. The goal is to develop a more accurate method to evaluate and compare the environmental performance of various transportation and land use projects.

About the speaker

Nicolae Duduta is a dual Master’s candidate in Transportation Planning and Architecture at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. He has an undergraduate degree in Architecture and Sustainable Development from the National School of Architecture in Lyon, France.

For the past three years, he has worked as a research assistant  to Prof. Elizabeth Deakin at the Berkeley Center for Global Metropolitan Studies. Recent projects include developing planning guidelines for future High-Speed Rail stations in the Central Valley of California, and advising local governments in China to assess the environmental impacts of new urban developments.

His interests include sustainable transportation and urban design, and his recent work has focused on developing tools to evaluate the environmental performance of neighborhoods, by analyzing the performance of buildings, transportation systems, water and waste treatment and infrastructure.