Stanford University

Investment

Towards a New Japan: Connecting Japan’s Biggest Challenges with Global Technology Solutions

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As the Tokyo-based co-founder and managing partner of global VC fund Fresco Capital, Allison Baum is frequently asked “Why are you in Japan?”  Indeed, with a global network of corporate partners, investors, and portfolio companies, many of them are curious to know why Fresco sees long term potential in the Japanese market. Though Japan is an advanced and well developed economy, the country is struggling with the need to innovate in the face of critical challenges such as a deflationary economy, a rapidly aging population, and an impending automation of the workforce. Fresco’s view is that this environment presents an extremely promising market opportunity for companies addressing challenges in healthcare, education and workplaces of the future. Join us as Allison shares her experience on the challenges and opportunities of expanding to Japan, bridging the cultural divide between Japan and the rest of the world, and discovering firsthand what it takes to successfully build long term partnerships in Japan.

allison_0220 copy.jpg

SPEAKER

Allison Baum, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Fresco Capital

BIO

Allison Baum is a co-founder and managing partner of Fresco Capital, a global, early stage venture capital fund investing in technology companies transforming education, healthcare, and the future of work at scale.  Prior to Fresco, Allison was an early member of the team at General Assembly, a global network for education and career transformation specialising in today’s most in-demand skills, where she developed and launched the company’s first part-time and full-time programs for technology, business, and design in New York.  In 2012, she relocated to Hong Kong to launch their first business in Asia.  Previously, she was a member of the Equity Derivatives team and Cross Asset Sales teams at Goldman Sachs in New York City.  

Allison graduated cum laude from Harvard College with a BA in Economics and a Minor in Film Studies.  She is also a member of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers community, a mentor for emerging women entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia at Wedu Global, a mentor for global social impact entrepreneurs at Endeavour Capital, and was named by Forbes as one of the 30 Top Emerging VC Managers in Asia.

AGENDA

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

RSVP REQUIRED

To RSVP please go to: http://www.stanford-svnj.org/52118-public-forum/2018

For more information on the Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project, please visit the project website at: http://www.stanford-svnj.org

 

Seminars

Taiwanese investment in China vis-a-vis the Chinese investment in Taiwan

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Cross-Strait economic activities are no longer one-dimensional. Since the Republic of China (ROC) government opened up Taiwan’s doors to Chinese investment in 2009, no systematic research has been carried out to examine the positive and negative consequences of Chinese investment in Taiwan.

The aim, therefore, of this talk is to address the crucial, yet unexplored, comparison: What are the similarities and differences between Taiwanese investment in China and Chinese investment in Taiwan. Taiwanese businesses started to invest in China since late 80s, most of Taiwanese businesses went to China at the time were SMEs, they depended on mainly the rapport (guanxi) with local officials to obtain their economic interests. Nevertheless, since 2009 the Chinese investment in Taiwan seems to adopt a different route. They are not as many as the Taiwanese business in China, and most of Chinese investors in Taiwan are highly monitored by the Taiwanese government.

This talk will start by introducing briefly the historical background of cross-Strait bilateral investment, during the process it will tease out thematic discussion including identity, more specifically Taiwanese businessmen’s identity in China; state and society relationship, more specifically on government and business relationship; and how political dynamics changes affected the economic activities and vice versa, more specifically on the case of ECFA and Sun Flower movement.

[[{"fid":"230230","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"2":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"style":"margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 15px; padding: 0px; float: left; height: 150px; width: 120px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"2"}}]]Chun-Yi Lee is an Assistant Professor at the school of Politics and International Relations (SPIR) at University of Nottingham. Her last research project is: 'Chinese Investment in Taiwan: Opportunities or Challenges to Taiwan's Industrial Development?' She is also the director of Taiwan Studies Program at University of Nottingham.

 

Reuben Hills Conference Room
2nd Floor East Wing E207
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, California 94305

Chun-Yi Lee <i>Assistant Professor at the school of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham</i>
Lectures

Harnessing Silicon Valley: Corporate and Government Funded Accelerator Programs in Silicon Valley -- Implications for Japan 

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GSVlabs is a startup and corporate innovation accelerator located in the heart of Silicon Valley in Redwood City. It houses more than 180 startups and supports corporate innovation programs for more than 25 corporations. During the past few years, GSVlabs has welcomed numerous startups from foreign countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, China, Korea, Germany, Austria just to name a few. In many cases, these foreign startup acceleration programs are funded by large corporations and governments that see long-term economic benefits of supporting such activities in Silicon Valley. In this public forum, Atsuko Jenks will discuss examples of such corporate and government funded accelerator programs and implications for the efforts by Japanese corporations and Japanese government organizations to accelerate corporate innovation and economic growth of Japan.

SPEAKER:

Atsuko Jenks, Managing Director, Japan, GSVlabs

BIO:

Atsuko oversees development and implementation of corporate innovation and new business development accelerator programs for Japanese corporations at GSVlabs in Redwood City. She is also an advisor for two Silicon Valley technology startups, Grabit and Viewpoint Systems. For nearly 20 years, Atsuko has advised and worked with both US and Japanese companies, assisting them with their cross-Pacific alliance and partnership strategies as well as technology licensing and various commercial agreements. Atsuko is also active in non-profit work as a Board Member of Stanford Business School Alumni Association, an Executive Committee Member of The Tech Museum of Innovation, the San Francisco Chapter President of Tsuda University Alumnae Association, and a member of Stanford Business School Alumni Consulting Team. She was previously Director of Japan Division with Williams-Sonoma in San Francisco, and Consultant at Bain in Tokyo Office.  Atsuko holds BA from Tsuda University in International Relations and Global Studies, and MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

AGENDA:

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

RSVP REQUIRED:

 

Atsuko Jenks Managing Director, Japan GSVlabs
Seminars

Patterns of Innovation in Asia: Large Companies Harnessing the Power of Small Firm Innovation

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We have reached venue capacity.  RSVPs are no longer being accepted.

In China, Japan, and Korea, large companies have historically played predominant roles in their economies. However, with startups often driving disruptive innovation in the current digital global era, the question is how incumbent large firms can adapt, adjust, and harness the power of small firms while making use of their existing resources. This panel brings together perspectives from China, Japan and Korea. 

In China, we have seen the explosive growth of information technology firms such as Alibaba and Tencent, who are now at the technological forefront of several areas such as using data and artificial intelligence for financial tech (Fintech) offerings. What are the key features of China's entrepreneurship ecosystem and how do large firms work with new firms?

In Japan, a major challenge is how to unleash potential innovations currently held by large companies who are unable to capitalize on them. World Innovation Lab (WiL) is a Palo Alto and Tokyo based company structured as an investment fund, designed to assist large Japanese companies carve out potential intellectual property into startups, and to harness Silicon Valley startups through investments and partnerships. ANA is a large Japanese airline company that has partnered with WiL to find new strategies for driving its next wave of innovations.

South Korea is home to some of the most competitive firms in the high tech areas, and the question is to how to remain at the forefront of high value added activities in rapidly commoditizing offerings. Samsung Research America is focused on harnessing Silicon Valley through development of software, user experience, and services for the next generation of products. 

Panelists:

Tao Li  Founder and Executive Director, APUS Group

Li is widely believed as an innovative visionary and highly strategic entrepreneur. Before founding APUS Group, Li served as senior Vice President of Qihoo 360 (QIHU NYSE), a major internet company player known for its antivirus software. Prior to that, Li has involved with several well-known companies like Datang Telcom, 3721. He is an internet expert with expert internet knowledge, distribution channels and marketing experience. Mr. Li is an active venture capitalist that has invested in dynamic startup companies from media and VR technology to video advertising companies, both domestically and abroad. Li received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Zhengzhou University in 1998. Currently Li is a Finance EMBA student in Tsinghua University.

 

Aki Koto, Partner,  World Innovation Lab (WiL)

Mr. Koto enjoys working with visionary entrepreneurs in frontier tech such as VR/AR, Bitcoin, IoT, and Autonomous Driving as the investment partner. He is also passionate about WiL’s corporate innovation efforts to bring WiL’s corporate partners’ organizational and corporate cultures more in line with Silicon Valley’s ethos. Through his facilitation of the Design Thinking Workshops and mentorship of the workshop facilitators, he has deepened his relationships with corporate executives which are influential in opening up business development opportunities between corporations and startup companies.

 

Hideaki Matsumoto, Manager, Digital Design Lab, All Nippon Airways (ANA)

Mr. Matsumoto is in charge of researching and creating new business, service, and process innovation models. Currently, he is investigating new business paradigms in the areas of education and sports that fully leverage ANA's brand, assets, and strengths. He is actively researching startups and cutting-edge technology related to these two fields both in Japan and around the world. Prior to ANA, he worked in the R&D Center at Canon and was responsible for developing new recognition technologies like OCR, form recognition and face recognition. He holds both a BS and MS from Kyushu University.

 

Pranav Mistry, Head of Think Tank Team and Senior Vice President, Samsung Research America

Pranav Mistry is a computer scientist and inventor. He is currently Head of Think Tank Team at Samsung Research America and is best known for his work on SixthSense, Samsung Galaxy Gear and Project Beyond. His research interests include Wearable Computing, Augmented reality, Ubiquitous computing, Gestural interaction, AI, Machine vision, Collective intelligence and Robotics. The World Economic Forum honored Mistry as one of the Young Global Leader in 2013. Prior to his current position, he has worked with Microsoft, Google, CMU, NASA, UNESCO and Japan Science & Technology, to name a few. Pranav was a PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab and earned his MA in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT, MDES from IIT, Bombay and a BS in Computer Science and Engineering.

 

Portrait of Kenji Kushida
Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Japan Program, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University (Moderator)

Kushida’s research interests are in the fields of comparative politics, political economy, and information technology. He has four streams of academic research and publication: political economy issues surrounding information technology such as Cloud Computing; institutional and governance structures of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster; political strategies of foreign multinational corporations in Japan; and Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s.

Oksenberg Conference Room

Encina Hall, 3rd Floor

Panel Discussions

Hirofumi Uchida

616 Serra StreetEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA94305-6055
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hirofumi_uchida Ph.D.

Hirofumi Uchida joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2017-2018 academic year from the Kobe University’s Graduate School of Business Administration where he serves as a professor of Banking and Finance.

Uchida’s research interests focus on banking, financial institutions, and financial system architecture. During his stay at Shorenstein APARC, Uchida will conduct research on startup finance in the U.S. from the perspective of an international comparison with Japan. For this research, he receives Abe Fellowship (Social Science Research Council).

Uchida's research has been published in International Economic Review, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Economica, and Journal of Banking and Finance, among others. He is also an associate editor of Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, and a member of the Study Group for Earthquake and Enterprise Dynamics (SEEDs) and the Money & Finance Research Group (MoFiR). 

Uchida received his M.A. in Economics in 1995 and his Ph.D. in Economics in 1999, both from Osaka University. Prior to joining Kobe University in 2009, Uchida was with the Kyoto Institute for Economic Research at Kyoto University, and the Faculty of Economics at Wakayama University. He was also a visiting scholar at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University as a 2003 Fulbright Scholar.

Visiting Scholar

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Japan: Why Japan (Still) Matters for Global Competition

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Through the 1980s, Japan was significant in global competition largely by shaping global technological trajectories, transforming major global industries, and contributing to fundamental innovations in industrial production processes, creating enough wealth along the way to propel Japan to the world’s second largest economy. After the economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, however, Silicon Valley moved to the forefront of transforming technology, industries, and production, creating vast wealth along the way. While Japan's role in global competition seemingly declined after the 1990s, careful analyses reveal that Japan was in fact transforming--quietly and gradually, but significantly. In a pattern of “syncretism,” Japan’s economic transformation was characterized by the coexistence of new, traditional, and hybrid forms of strategy and organization. Japan’s new startup ecosystem, though small compared to Silicon Valley, has dramatically transformed over the past twenty years through a combination of regulatory shifts, corporate transformations, and technological breakthroughs that have opened up vast new opportunities. Some large corporations such as Komatsu, Honda, Toyota, and Yamaha are undertaking innovative efforts of sorts unseen in Japan’s recent history to harness Silicon Valley and other startup ecosystems into their core business areas. 

SPEAKER BIO

Kenji E. Kushida is the Japan Program Research Scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University (APARC), Project Leader of the Stanford Silicon Valley – New Japan Project (Stanford SV-NJ), research affiliate of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), and International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS). He holds a PhD in political science is from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.

Kushida’s research streams include Information Technology innovation, Silicon Valley’s economic ecosystem, Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s, and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startups Ecosystem,” “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).

He has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR.

AGENDA

4:30pm: Doors open
4:45pm-5:45pm: Talk and Discussion
5:45pm-6:15pm: Networking

RSVP REQUIRED

 
For more information about the Silicon Valley-New Japan Project please visit: http://www.stanford-svnj.org/

 

Silicon Valley Does it Repeatedly: From Fairchild to Uber and Beyond

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Martin Kenney is a Distinguished Professor of Community and Regional Development at the University of California, Davis; a Senior Project Director at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy; and Senior Fellow at the Research Institute for the Finnish Economy.  He has been a visiting scholar at the Copenhagen Business School, Cambridge, Hitotsubashi, Kobe, Stanford, Tokyo Universities, and UC San Diego. His scholarly interests are in entrepreneurial high-technology regions, technology transfer, the venture capital industry, and the impacts of online platforms on corporate strategy, industrial structures and labor relations. He co-authored or edited seven books and 150 scholarly articles. His first book Biotechnology: The University-Industrial Complex was published by Yale University Press. His most recent edited books Public Universities and Regional Growth, Understanding Silicon Valley, and Locating Global Advantage were published by Stanford University Press where he edits the book series Innovation and Technological Change in the Global Economy.  His co-edited book Building Innovation Capacity in China was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016 and has been translated into Chinese. He is a receiving editor at the world’s premier innovation research journal, Research Policy and edits a Stanford University book series.  In 2015, he was awarded University of California Office of the President’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Leadership in Presidential Initiatives.  His research has been funded by the NSF, the Kauffman, Sloan, and Matsushita Foundations, among others.  He has given over 500 talks at universities, government agencies, and corporations in Europe, Asia, and North and South America.

Agenda

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

 

 

Martin Kenney, Professor of Community and Regional Development, University of California, Davis and Senior Project Director, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Seminars

Japan transforming its innovation culture by changing social norms, Stanford scholar finds

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Stanford researcher Kenji Kushida says Japanese social norms are shifting from being highly unfavorable to a tech startup culture toward one much more supportive of it.

Japanese corporations are evolving and adopting a “startup culture” to boost their business creativity and country’s economic prospects, a Stanford expert says.

“We can see that over the past 15 years or so, changes to the overall Japanese political economic context as it undergoes gradual but substantive reform over the past couple decades have created a far more vibrant startup ecosystem in Japan than most people – both inside and outside Japan – realize,” said research associate Kenji Kushida of Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Kushida wrote in a new research paper that, over the past decade, Japan has undertaken significant reforms that are now bearing fruit – reforms ranging from monetary and fiscal policy designed to encourage private investment to a range of regulations surrounding corporate law, university organization, labor mobility and financial market reforms.

As a result – and combined with changes and challenges facing Japan’s large company sector – the country’s people are embracing a “vibrant startup ecosystem,” Kushida said. He is optimistic that such a transformation can occur in a country where stability and corporate loyalty – not necessarily innovation or creativity – have long been dominant social and business values.

Now, large Japanese firms are adjusting to performance crises and uncertain futures. As a result, the Japanese people are learning that with economic opportunity – the kind that startups promise – there also comes the risk of failure.

“A generational shift is accompanying social normative changes that are becoming more supportive of entrepreneurship and high-growth startups. Entrepreneurs and high-growth startups are celebrated in the popular media and in major events more than ever before,” Kushida wrote.

Silicon Valley networking

The influence of California’s Silicon Valley is a factor. For instance, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year spoke at Stanford about how his country is learning the lessons of Silicon Valley and trying to build networks into the region. So Japan is likely to see an increase in the quality and quantity of high-growth startups, according to Kushida.

He said, “The current relationship between Japan and Silicon Valley is one in which Japanese firms, ranging from large firms to startups, are looking for ways to actively harness Silicon Valley. Large firms are trying by becoming investors in Silicon Valley venture capital firms, setting up their own venture capital arms, setting up branches in the valley, and trying to engage in ‘open’ innovation by entering into tie-ups and attempting to acquire select valley startups.”

A small but growing number of Japanese entrepreneurs visited Silicon Valley either to start their own companies or to grow firms that were started in Japan, Kushida said.

Still, Japan’s tech sector is a long way from what one finds in Silicon Valley, where many of the world’s most “disruptive” and game-changing firms are located. He wrote, “When compared to Silicon Valley, the ecosystem is still small in scale, but so is virtually every other startup ecosystem.”

A growing flow of Japanese entrepreneurs and CEOs is coming to Silicon Valley to get more of a sense of how things work, Kushida said, adding, “That is what we are helping through research at the StanfordSilicon Valley-New Japan Project as part of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.”

Kushida said that if current estimates hold, Japan should expect successful startups, all supported by a “stronger ecosystem of startup-related players, combined with more open large firms.”

These large firms, he said, will spin off entrepreneurs who leave to launch other new companies, which will accelerate the startup cycle in Japan.

Spreading technology globally

Key challenges facing Japan’s startup culture, Kushida said, are the need for more entrepreneurial role models and the “overall lack of experience in creating followers.” On the latter, he explained that while Japan has excelled at producing tech products for use in its own markets, it would benefit by getting other firms and parts of the world to adopt its products and services.

“Think of the negotiations that Apple undertook with telecom carriers around the world to roll out the iPhone worldwide, or how Google is continually negotiating with governments such as those in the European Union to allow its services to be adopted broadly,” he said.

Other Stanford scholars, such as Takeo Hoshi, have recently written about the reasons Japan was not able to pull out of a long recession that resulted in virtually no growth in the 1990s. One problem, as Hoshi described it, was that the Japanese government was unable to introduce much-needed “structural reforms” to overhaul its economic structures to increase business competition – such as deregulation to cut operating costs for firms, a key attraction for startup-minded entrepreneurs.

Japan’s “lost decade” originally referred to the 1990s, though the country has still not regained the economic power it enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s. Some say Japan has actually experienced two lost decades if the 2000s are counted as well.

Kushida’s paper, “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem: From Brave New World to Part of Syncretic New Japan,” was published in the Asia Research Policy journal.

Clifton Parker is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

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Songtao Xu

616 Serra StreetEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA94305-6055
(650) 723-9741 (650) 723-6530
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songtao_xu.jpg Ph.D.

Songtao Xu joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2016-2017 year from the University of Jiujiang’s school of accounting where he serves as an associate professor. His research interests encompass the environmental regulation and corporate investment in China. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Xu will conduct a research project which focuses on how environmental regulation affect the behaviors of corporate investment and its mechanism. 

Xu contributes articles regularly to publications including Journal of Public Management, Economy and Management and Accounting Research. He is also the co-author of Financial Management (2012). 

Xu holds a PhD in management from Central South University.

Visiting Scholar

Xuan Zhang

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Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, 2016-17
xuan_zhang.jpg MBA

Xuan Zhang is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2016-17.  Zhang is the co-partner of Beijing Shanghe Shiji Investment Co. Ltd., where he has over ten years of experience in Private Equity and Venture Capital investment, investment banking and equity management.  Previously, he worked as the Vice President at CITIC Capital Holding Ltd., Hong Kong where he managed a 1.6 billion RMB private equity fund.  Prior to his entrance into working in the capital market, he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China.  Zhang received his MBA degree from Peking University, a Masters Degree in Finance from Fordham University and his Bachelors Degree of Literature from Beijing Foreign Study University. 

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