Why are the Arab uprisings sweeping the Middle East taking place now and where are they likely to lead? Janine Zacharia will share insights from from her time as a reporter for the Washington Post in the Middle East leading up to the start of the revolts in January and on the ground as they erupted. She will provide a reporter's perspective on what led to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's downfall, how his inner circle saw things playing out, how one of the U.S.'s chief allies - Bahrain -- lost control of a Shiite-led revolt, and what is likely, or rather not likely, to transpire in Saudi Arabia.

Janine Zacharia was Jerusalem Bureau Chief and Middle East Correspondent for the Washington Post from December 2009 through April 2011. During her time at the Washington Post, she reported widely throughout the Middle East beyond Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including assignments in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey. She reported on the uprisings in Egypt and Bahrain as they began in early 2011. From 2005-2009, Ms. Zacharia worked as chief diplomatic correspondent for Bloomberg News based in Washington. During this period, she traveled to more than 40 countries with then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior administration and military officials. Ms. Zacharia's earlier career included five years as Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post, and five years in Jerusalem working for various news outlets including the Reuters news agency. She was a regular contributor to the New Republic and has appeared routinely as a cable news analyst on MSNBC, CNN and other networks. She was also a regular panelist on Gwen Ifill's Friday evening roundtable, Washington Week in Review. During the 2008-2009 academic year, Ms. Zacharia was awarded a Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. She earned her Bachelor's of Arts degree in Literary Studies from Middlebury College and is originally from Long Island.

Former President Gerhard Casper launched the Asia-Pacific Scholars Program (AP Scholars Program) in 1997 to strengthen and expand Stanford University's ties with Asia. The program was loosely modeled on Oxford University's Rhodes Scholarship. Led by renowned China scholar Michel Oksenberg of the Asia/Pacific Research Center (the predecessor organization of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center), the first program brought together a highly diverse class of nineteen graduate students from the United Kingdom, the United States, and numerous countries in Asia. The AP Scholars Program thrived under Oksenberg's direction, but fell dormant for nearly a decade following his death in 2001.

Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, re-launched the AP Scholars Program in September 2010. "I am delighted to have been asked to revive it," states Fingar.

The film Pacific Vision: The Asia-Pacific Scholars Program at Stanford University was released to commemorate the program's inaugural year. A clip from Pacific Vision, featuring interviews with Casper and Oksenberg, is available here courtesy the Stanford University Archives.

From Conversations with History- Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Siegfried S. Hecker, former Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, for a discussion of scientists, the national laboratories, and the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Hecker traces his career in material sciences, describes the evolution of his intellectual focus, and recalls his leadership of Los Alamos. He then traces the changes in the international security environment in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union discussing the response of the U.S. and the weapons laboratories to the momentous events that created a qualitatively different set of security challenges. Hecker then analyzes the threats posed by terrorist organizations, the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and the challenges for U.S. policy in assessing the motivation and capabilities of Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the political and technical dimensions of the international security landscape.

Takeshi Kondo, "Augmented Reality Application Outside of the Entertainment World"

Augmented Reality (AR), created in the 1960s, has recently attracted attention due to the progress of Information Technology. AR is supplementary text/visual data superimposed over the surrounding real world. For example, in a football game on television, the yard lines and logos displayed on the screen use AR technology. AR technology has been applied to the entertainment world, such as in computer games, in film, and in advertisement. However, there are few examples of the application outside of the entertainment field. In his research presentation, Kondo proposes some possible AR applications outside of the entertainment industries.

Makoto Murata, "Developing New Facilities Strategy and Added Value in "Smart Grid"

Smart Grid is a new concept of power supply and management, and it receives a great deal of public attention. Electricity is the fastest-growing component of total global energy demand. In this environment, there are increasing needs for minimizing costs and environmental impacts while maximizing electric system reliability. Smart grid is thought to be a key solution for them. The deployment of smart grid affects facilities strategy. Murata analyzes facilities strategy for smart grid deployment from the viewpoints of regulations and area characteristics.

 
Eiichi Yamamoto, "Management of Intellectual Assets such as Patents, in the United States and Japan"

In a knowledge economy where there is global competition, intellectual assets become a key factor in a company's performance. The United States government recognized the significance of intellectual assets as a company's value earlier than Japan and has promoted a pro-patent policy since the early 1980s. The policy has encouraged U.S. companies to take advantage of the profitability of patents, much more than Japanese companies have done. In this presentation, Yamamoto analyzes the differences in the management of intellectual assets, such as patents, between the United States and Japan, and tries to explain the reasons for those differences.

Minoru Aosaki, "International Banking Regulation after the Financial Crisis: Economic Impacts and Policy Challenges in the US, Japan, and the EU"

To address lessons of the financial crisis, the Basel Committee introduced a new international framework on banking regulations, known as Basel III. The world leaders subsequently committed to implement it at the last G20 summit meeting. A current key issue is how regulators in each country should/can transform their current regulatory regime to the new regime under their own economic and regulatory environments. To consider the issue, Aosaki examines how economic costs and benefits of the regulatory reform would vary among countries and discusses policy challenges of the regulators to ensure the benefits and mitigate the costs.

Pradnya Palande, "Population Dynamics: A New Approach in Understanding Cancer Development"

Cancer, the most vicious and hard to cure disease, results from an accumulation of genetic alterations best known as mutations, in our body. These mutations constantly keep evolving by natural selection. A consequence of this evolution is that a cancer treatment will tend to kill the susceptible cells but will leave the resistant ones to flourish. A few months later, the cancer will reappear and will be resistant to previous treatment. Hence studying the population dynamics of cancer will provide insight into development of cancer and will help in developing better methods for cancer prevention and therapy.

Palande has concentrated her research on population dynamics of cancer cells in chronic myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer. She is trying to study the role of the antibody diversification enzyme, namely Activation Induced cytidine Deaminase (AID), in the generation of mutations associated with cancer progression and drug resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia.

Naoki Takeuchi, "Energy Policies, Clean Technologies, and Business Innovations in the United States"

In January 2011, at his State of the Union speech, President Obama suggested setting a goal that 80% of electricity will come from clean energy sources in the United States by 2035. He also suggested that the United States will become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. 

In Takeuchi's research, he tries to understand the dynamic interactions among government energy policies, clean technologies, and business innovations in the United States. His research includes an overview of federal energy policies (both regulations and incentives), an overview of California State government policies, recent trends of clean technologies, venture capital investments in cleantech companies, and major areas of clean technologies and business innovations. In this presentation, Takeuchi will present case studies focusing on cleantech companies in the Silicon Valley.

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Wataru Ishii, "Promotion of Tourism in Japan:  Policies and Plans for Development and Involvement of Local Institutions"

Tourism is an industry that covers a lot of areas, such as hotels, transportation, food services and one of a few industries where growth can be expected in the future.  Because of the economic importance of tourism, the Japanese National Government established the Japan Tourism Agency in 2008 and has begun to try to make Japan "Tourism Nation" and local governments are following suit.  Ishii studies the significance of tourism in Japan and policies to attract foreign tourists that will compensate for stagnant domestic tourists.

Yuichi Moronaga, "The Essential Value - Connecting and Sharing Emotions - Storytelling in the Social Media Era"

Customers have high expectations when making purchases.  They expect products to provide value and, at the same time, satisfy their sense of emotions.  Storytelling is an important factor when it comes to these customer purchases.  Knowing the story behind the product or company can create strong attachments and this "essential value" is an important factor in the buying cycle.  These emotions may encourage our next behavior, whether it's repeat buying or long-term usage.  With the increased usage of social media, this type of cycle that is created is vital for a company's marketing plan as well as providing increased motivation of a company's employees.  In this presentation, Moronaga shares examples of storytelling, demonstrating how dynamically storytelling is changing people's purchasing behaviors and the opportunities presented.

Hirofumi Takinami, "Political Economy of the Financial Crises in Japan and the United States:  Why the Difference in Speed to Respond and Recover?"

Within the last two decades, the United States and Japan each experienced the same type of financial crisis, notably triggered by the collapse of major financial institutions.  Both were under the political economic conditions of one of the largest economies in the world as well as of an advanced democratic country.  However, it is symbolically different that Japan let the institutions go into chain-reaction bankruptcies without injecting public money in 1997, while the U.S. undertook a bailout of AIG just after the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008.  And now the U.S. economy is showing earlier recovery compared to what Japan experienced. -- What made this difference in speed to respond and recover?  To explain this puzzle, Takinami focuses on (a) existence of precedent & learning, (b) speed and process of economic downturn toward the crisis, (c) action by national leader & secretarial organization, and (d) status of global standard setter, together with assessing the alternative explanations.  Then, he argues some implications of these analyses.

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Toshifumi Kadowaki, "The Keys to Successful M&As in High-Tech Industries - Based on a Study of the HP-Compaq Merger"

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are tactics, not strategy.  Successful M&As, however, can be considered one of the most useful tactics in realizing corporate strategy because M&As often save time and can even save money and reduce risk.  Many high-tech companies, therefore, have made a large number of M&As recently.  Numerous empirical studies, though, have shown that most M&As fail. Through the case study of the Hewlett Packard-Compaq merger, Kadowaki analyzes what makes M&As successful and what causes them to fail.

Oshie Sato, "Dawn of a new Era in the Video Industry - Impact of Smart TVs from a Historical Perspective of Broadcasting and Movie Industries in the United States and Japan"

After prospering for more than a half century both in the United States and Japan, the broadcasting and movie industries have reached a turning point of their business models.  This is due mostly to the rise of competition with the Internet since the late 1990s and a global recession led by Lehman's fall in 2008.  What will happen to these industries in the U.S. and Japan over the next decade?  Sato analyzes a future picture of the broadcasting and movie industries, focusing on the impact of smart TVs - next-generation video devices such as Google TV and Apple TV.

Sonya Vasudeva, "Pharmacogenetics in Cancer:  Steps Towards Personalized Medicine"

The variability in clinical response to drug treatment has been well known for decades.  An era of pharmacogenetics started almost fifty years ago when it was recognized that a part of this variation is inherited, and can therefore be predictable.  With the wealth of information readily available online, the promise of personalized medicine looms large, but the generalization into clinical applications of pharmacogenomics has been more challenging.  In Vasudeva's research, she shares examples of tests, which are integrated by USA FDA and EMA into drug lables, one example being K Ras mutation for metastatic colorectal cancer.  Vasudeva argues that the increased availability of such tests may transform the field of medical oncology, moving treatment from the "one size fits all" approach to a personalized therapy based on variations in an individual genome.

The recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East represent one of the most dramatic global political developments since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  What factors and forces led to the sudden collapse of well-entrenched regimes and the emergence of democratic reform movements across a region long accustomed to hereditary succession and autocratic rule?  Does the current upheaval reflect unique circumstances in the Arab World?  Or should it be viewed in the wider context of governance issues and challenges that have arisen in Asian and other settings beyond North Africa and the Middle East?  As a governance specialist whose international career has spanned Arab and Asian societies, David Arnold will share his insights regarding these questions.  

David D. Arnold became the president of The Asia Foundation on January 1, 2011, after serving as the president of the American University in Cairo (AUC) for seven years. At AUC he superintended the construction of a new, state-of-the-art $400 million campus, including the region's largest English-language library; spearheaded a $125 million fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history; and oversaw academic innovations including AUC’s first-ever PhD program and master’s programs in education, biotechnology, gender studies, digital journalism, and refugee studies.  Under his leadership, AUC also expanded its continuing education and community outreach activities and created new scholarship opportunities for its students.  Mr. Arnold’s earlier career included six years as executive vice president of the Institute of International Education and more than ten years of service in the Ford Foundation including stints in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.  He earned his Master’s in Public Administration at Michigan State University following a BA from the University of Michigan.

India's high rates of economic growth in recent years raise the prospect that her developmental needs can be addressed. Evidence, however, requires a nuanced approach to resolving the development issues. The panelists will address these complexities, including factors behind improvement in economic indicators in the face of some continuing challenges.

Co-sponsored by Consulate General of India and the Stanford Center for South Asia

In addition to his Ministry of Finance work, Thomas Mathews is also a member of the Indian Administrative Service.

K.P. Nayar has nearly 40 years of experience as a journalist, and has served as a visiting scholar at Oxford University, the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, DC, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

About the Seminar

There are more than 120 million Chinese gamers, and nearly every one of them plays online games. Online games are a primary source of entertainment in China, and Chinese online game operators are the companies that enable the fun. These companies have built expertise in a unique market and have set their sights on global expansion.

Come hear Lisa Cosmas Hanson, Managing Partner of Niko Partners, The Leader in Asian Video Game Market Intelligence^TM, discuss the innovation, excellence and possible points of weakness of the leading Chinese online game operators as they embark upon the quest of taking their talents to the rest of the world.

The seminar will address the following questions:

• Who are the leading Chinese online game operators?
• What was their impetus for growth and innovation?
• In what ways are these companies leading their global competitors?
• In what ways are these companies lagging their global competitors?
• What is the history and potential future for foreign game companies in China's online games market and for Chinese companies overseas?

About the speaker

Lisa Cosmas Hanson is the managing partner and founder of Niko Partners, The Leader in Asian Video Game Market Intelligence^TM. Her responsibility includes client relations, research and analysis, business development, operations and partnerships. Lisa founded Niko Partners in 2000 and has since developed expertise on the Chinese and Southeast Asian online games industries that has benefited Niko's clients, companies that are global leaders in game publishing, game services, hardware and investments.

Lisa has spent 17 years honing her experience in management positions and in the roles of Asian and specifically Chinese market research analyst, Asian and Chinese market entry consultant, Japanese equities analyst, and U.S.-Japan economic policy analyst. She has been a well-regarded speaker on global technology markets for many years.

Lisa has lived and worked in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Tokyo and London, and makes frequent trips to Shanghai and Beijing for Niko Partners. Her past U.S.-based international business roles included extensive travel throughout Asia and Europe. Lisa speaks Japanese and is studying Mandarin. She earned an MA in international economic policy from American University in Washington, D.C., and a BA in political science and international affairs from the University of California, Los Angeles. She believes in peace through intercultural understanding, hence she volunteers her time for AFS Intercultural Programs, a leading global student exchange program organization.