Computing and Competitiveness: Implications of the Programmer Shortage
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.
Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
On March 17 the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies will host a book launch for a pathbreaking new book, Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats, co-authored by Stephen Stedman, Senior Fellow, FSI and Director of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies, Bruce Jones, Co-Director of the Center on International Cooperation, New York University, and Carlos Pascual, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, the Brookings Institution. Power and Responsibility has been produced by the Managing Global Insecurity Project, a multi-year, multi-continent collaboration between the Brookings Institution, NYU's Center on International Cooperation, and Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, seeking to coalesce the best thinking on international security affairs today.
As the authors note, the post-World War II fabric of global security, designed and maintained by the United States, has dangerously frayed. Built for a different age, current international institutions are ill-equipped to address today's pressing transnational security challenges-- such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, civil strife, and terrorism, which are beyond the power of any one state to address.
Revitalizing the institutions of cooperation will require a new conceptual foundation for global security. The "national sovereignty" of the twentieth century must give way to "responsible sovereignty" - a principle requiring nations not only to protect their own people, but also to cooperate across borders to safeguard common resources and tackle common threats. Achieving this will require American leadership and commitment to a rule-based international order.
With timely and hard-hitting recomendations, Power and Responsibility seeks to galvanize more effective global action against transnational threats and to build the political support networks needed to reform and revitalize international institutions.
Following an introduction by Coit D. Blacker, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies and Director, the Freeman Spogli Institute, all three authors will comment on key ways that revitalized institutions and commitments could address issues topping the foreign policy agendas of the U.S. and its global partners.
A book signing and reception will follow the authors' commentary.
Bechtel Conference Center
CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.
In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.
In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.
In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.
His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).
Come hear four successful entrepreneurial leaders share insights about the crucial element of talent for start-ups in a global environment: how to build a team, recruit the best people, and manage across borders. Draw on their wealth of experiences: they have founded, funded and led many firms, pioneered technologies and business practices, led start-ups and Fortune 500 firms, and recruited and mentored scores of company leaders.
After the panel discussion there will be a question and answer period, followed by Chinese appetizers and networking.
This event is open to students, the Stanford community and the general public and is part of Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford University. You can see the entire line-up of Entrepreneurship Week events at eweek.stanford.edu.
Eric Benhamou
David Chao
Kyung Yoon
Michael Zhao
Bechtel Conference Center
This event is presented in conjunction with the Japan Society of Northern California.
About the talk
After five years of sweeping changes during the Koizumi administration (2001-06), Japan has slipped into a period of political stagnation.
The ruling LDP is in disarray and facing the prospect of defeat in the next general election, partisan conflict is slowing the pace of policy innovation, and past reforms have been partially unraveled in response to demands from both the public at large and vested interests.
This lecture explores the past decade of political change and backtracking in Japan and their implications for innovation and entrepreneurship in the business community, paying particular attention to the ongoing process of postal privatization and other instances of “structural reform.”
About the speaker
Patricia Maclachlan is Associate Professor of Government and Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D in political science and Japan studies in 1996 from Columbia University and spent one year as a research associate in the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University. Her research interests include consumer politics and culture in advanced industrial democracies, with a focus on Japan.
Professor Maclachlan is the author of Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Advocacy (NY: Columbia University Press, 2002), and a co-editor and contributing author to The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). She has also written several articles and book chapters on consumer-related issues in Japan and the West, Japanese civil society, and on Japanese postal reform. She is now completing a book on the history and politics of the Japanese postal system.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
This event is presented in conjunction with the Japan Society of Northern California and the US-Asia Technology Management Center.
In recent remarks, President Obama has clearly linked our success at stimulating economic dynamism and science-based innovation abroad and our ability to clip the root causes of terrorism. The entrepreneur's optimistic vision is polar opposite of the terrorist's dark pessimism. By helping to grow entrepreneurial ecosystems abroad and link those ecosystems with their U.S. counterparts, we both fertilize broad-based future economic growth and strengthen a sense of self-determination, both potent antibodies to terrorist recruiters. This panel discussion will explore this concept.
Richard C. Boly is a national security affairs fellow for 2008-2009 at the Hoover Institution. Mr. Boly represents the U.S. Department of State.
Richard is a career member of the United States Foreign Service. He was an Economic Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy from 2004-2008 and worked in the office of European Union affairs at the State Department from 2002-2004. His other overseas tours include the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Richard is the most junior diplomat to win the Cobb Award for commercial diplomacy. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Richard was the first Presidential Management Fellow with the Inter-American Foundation, was a consultant with the Inter-American Development Bank, and founded and ran a shrimp hatchery in coastal Ecuador. Richard is a native of Tacoma, Washington and a graduate of Stanford University and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He plans to use his fellowship year to focus on promoting entrepreneurship abroad as a U.S. policy objective.
Richard Dasher has been with the US-Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University since 1993, becoming USATMC Acting Director in 1994 and Director in 1996. In this capacity, Dr. Dasher holds consulting faculty appointments in the Department of Electrical Engineering (technology management) and the Department of Asian Languages (Japanese business), moving up from Consulting Associate Professor (1996 - 2003) to Consulting Professor since 2004. He has additionally served as Executive Director of Stanford's Center for Integrated Systems since 1998.
Dr. Dasher was the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the senior governance of a Japanese national university, serving a one-year term on the Board of Directors of Tohoku University from April 2004. He continues to serve on the Management Steering Council of Tohoku University and as Special Advisor to the Tohoku University president. From 2001-2003, he was a member of the International Advisory Committee to the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the creation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. He is regularly called on to consult for local and regional governments in Japan, the U.S. and Asia in regard to innovation-based regional economic development and university-industry relations.
Dr. Dasher maintains an active business consulting practice on international strategy and planning, technology trend and opportunity analysis, and Japan market entry and performance improvement. In addition to projects for large firms, he serves as an outside board director of ZyCube Inc. in Japan and as advisor to several start-up companies in the U.S. and China. Since 2000, Dr. Dasher has been an advisor to the US-Japan Business Incubation Center in San Jose, California.
Dr. Dasher received the Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stanford University and is co-author with Prof. Elizabeth Traugott of the book "Regularity in Semantic Change" (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He is fluent in Japanese and directed the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute training centers in Japan and Korea from 1986-90. From 1990-93, Dr. Dasher was a salaried board director of two Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he expanded the companies' business lines to include international IP licensing. He taught clarinet and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1978-85 and maintains an active interest in performing and enjoying music.
Philippines Conference Room
U.S.-Asia Technology Management Center
School of Engineering
Stanford, CA
At Stanford University, Dr. Dasher has directed the US-Asia Technology Management Center since 1994, and he has been Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems since 1998. He holds Consulting Professor appointments at Stanford in the Departments of Electrical Engineering (technology management), Asian Languages and Cultures (Japanese business), and at the Asia-Pacific Research Center for his work with the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also faculty adviser to student-run organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society and the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford.
From 2004, Dr. Dasher became the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the governance of a Japanese national university, serving a term as a Board Director (理事) of Tohoku University . He continued as a member of the Management Council (経営協議会) until March 2010, and he now serves as Senior Advisor to the President (総長顧問) of Tohoku University. Dr. Dasher has been a member of the high-profile Program Committee of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) since 2007. He has served on the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee of the C$500 million Canada Foundation for Innovation Leading Edge Fund in 2007 and again in 2010, and as a member of the Phase I and Phase II Review Panels of the C$200 million Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program in 2008 and again in 2010. He was a distinguished reviewer of the Hong Kong S.A.R. study on innovation in 2008–09, and since 2007 he has been a member of the Foresight Panel of the German Ministry of Education and Research. From 2001–03, Dr. Dasher was on the International Planning Committee advising the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the formation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
As allowed by Stanford policy, Dr. Dasher maintains an active management consulting practice, through which he is an advisor to start-up companies and large firms in the U.S., Japan, and China. He has been a board director of Tokyo-based ZyCube Inc. since 2006, and he is founder and chairman of Pearl Executive Shuttle in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.A. In the non-profit sector, he is a Board Director of the Japan Society of Northern California and the Keizai Society U.S. – Japan Business Forum, and he is an advisor to organizations such as the Chinese Information and Networking Association, the Silicon Valley – China Wireless Technology Association, and the International Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology (iFEST). In 2010 he served as a consultant to The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in regard to their establishment of a worldwide remote mentoring program for entrepreneurs. Dr. Dasher frequently gives speeches and seminars throughout Japan and Asia, as well as in the U.S. Recent appearances include the Nikkei Shimbun Business Innovation Forum, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, speaking tours of Japan co-sponsored by METI and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and guest lectures at Chubu University, Kochi University of Technology, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and the University of Tokyo.
From 1990–93, Dr. Dasher was a board director of two privately-held Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he developed new business in international licensing of media rights packages and other intellectual properties. From 1986–90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute advanced field schools in Japan and Korea, which provide full-time language and area training to U.S. and select Commonwealth country diplomats assigned to those countries. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University and, along with Prof. Elizabeth Closs Traugott, he is co-author of the often-cited book Regularity in Semantic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He received the Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet and orchestra conducting from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he served on the faculty from 1978-85.
One of the unsolved problems of critical infrastructure protection is the "cascade failure" problem. The 2003 Blackout is an extreme example of how seemingly small failures in a remote part of a major national power grid can cause nearly 100% collapse of the entire system. Over 50 million people were without power. And yet, the electric power grid is considered stable and resilient. I analyze 3 abstract network models of cascade failure and speculate on how such failures might be avoided in critical infrastructures such as power grids, traffic congested highways, and computer networks. The MRS model is based on computer network resiliency, and suggests a prevention strategy based on careful placement of rollback points in the network. The epidemic model is based on network topology, and suggests a prevention strategy based on the network's spectral radius. Finally, my own Kirchhoff network model assumes a network that supports Kirchhoffs' Law of flow in a network, and leads to careful addition of one or more links in order to stabilize the vulnerable network.
Ted Lewis is currently the Executive Director, Center for Homeland Defense and Security, and Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. He is author of Critical Infrastructure Protection: Defending a Networked Nation, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, and Network Science: Theory and Applications, John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Syed Ibne Abbas joined the Consulate General of Pakistan, Los Angeles on August 3, 2006. Prior to his present assignment, he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Islamabad as Director General (2004-2006).
He joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan in 1983 and held various diplomatic assignments at the Pakistan Missions abroad: Berne (1989-1992), Geneva (1992-1994), Canberra (1998-2001) and New Delhi (2001-2004). He also worked at the Headquarters as Director and Desk Officer, and served as Deputy Secretary, Prime Minister's Secretariat (1995-1997).
He has represented Pakistan and led delegations on several occasions on bilateral and multilateral fora. He attended the 1997 and 2006 UN General Assembly sessions as a Pakistan delegate. He represented Pakistan at the Conference on Disarmament and attended meetings of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).
He has delivered talks at the Pakistan's premier civil and military training institutions. He holds masters degrees in Political Science and International Relations.
CISAC Conference Room
North Korea is widely regarded internationally as a long-term threat to regional peace and stability and to the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. Conservatives support the use of sanctions and other pressures to counter these threats, while liberals hope that reasonable efforts at accommodation will persuade the Pyongyang regime to change course. Professor Lankov maintains that neither approach will work. He urges a new approach, based on engagement but with the long-term goal of inducing regime change from within North Korea.
Andrei Lankov, a historian of Korea and one of the world's top experts on North Korea, is an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul. He received undergraduate and graduate degrees at Leningrad State University and attended Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, North Korea. He has also taught at Leningrad State University and Australian National University. Lankov is the author of many books in English, Korean, and Russian, including From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960; Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956; North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea; and The Dawn of Modern Korea. Among his most recent articles is "Staying Alive: Why North Korea Will Not Change," which appeared in the March/April 2008 edition of Foreign Affairs. He is also a columnist for the Chosun Ilbo and Korea Times in South Korea.
This special seminar is supported by a generous grant from Koret Foundation.
Philippines Conference Room
The change of Russian foreign policy under President Putin, the war in Georgia, and the recent disputes over Russian gas exports cannot but affect Moscow's relations with the European Union. Looking back at the history of these relations in the 1960s and 1970s will provide the analyst with valuable insights and with recommendations for future European policy.
Dr. Mueller focuses not only on Russia's current relations with the EU but also the historical buildup to the current state of play. He examines the most recent issues straining the EU-Russia relationship and the dependence of the two powers on each other. Dr. Mueller also leads the audience from World War II to the USSR's eventual recognition of the EEC in 1988.
Synopsis
Dr. Mueller begins by introducing the current status of both the EU and Russia. As it stands, Russia’s population of 142m people is outweighed significantly by the EU’s 500m. In addition, Dr. Mueller reminds the audience that the EU’s economy is 10 times the size of Russia’s. However, the two are important trade partners. To Russia, the EU represents more than 50% of its trade. To the EU, Russia represents its 3rd largest trading partner. However, the EU’s dependence on Russia for energy is crucial. Dr. Mueller explains how various integration efforts have come to very little. The 1997 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement has not been renewed, and the four common spaces approach the EU took to Russia has borne little fruit. Dr. Mueller reveals how relations are further strained by a variety of current issues such as debates over disarmament, democracy in Russia, and Kosovo.
In order to properly understand this, Dr. Mueller returns to the post-World War II period and the formation of the EEC in 1957. While Western European countries saw the EEC as an opportunity to unite and help each other in economic recovery after the war, the USSR perceived it as an economic base for NATO and an organization standing in the way of the USSR becoming Europe’s supreme power. Dr. Mueller describes how the Soviet Union was forced to change such an attitude because of the success of the EEC in raising wages in member states as well as Eastern European countries’ increasing dependence on it as an export partner. In 1962, Khrushchev took a new approach to all-European integration but his offer of formal relations fell through when de Gaulle vetoed the UK’s membership application into the EEC. Such efforts on the part of the USSR fell through once again in 1972 when the EEC was not interested in dealing with Comecon. Under Gorbachev, the USSR finally recognized the EEC in 1988. Dr. Mueller concludes by saying that while it was obvious that USSR did not really endorse Western European integration, it is surprising that the USSR did not see it as an opportunity to counter U.S. influence during the Cold War.
About the Speaker
Dr Wolfgang Mueller is a research fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a lecturer in Russian history and politics at the University of Vienna. His book on Soviet policy in Austria, Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945-1955 (Böhlau 2005), was awarded the R.G. Plaschka Prize. Dr Mueller was a visiting scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute's Forum on Contemporary Europe during the 2008-2009 academic year.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
616 Serra Street
Encina Hall E103
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Dr Wolfgang Mueller, PhD in contemporary history and Russian studies (University of Vienna), is a research associate at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Former professional affiliations include the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, Canada, and the Institute of East European History, University of Vienna. Wolfgang Mueller was a visiting fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of OSCE missions to the CIS area. He teaches Russian history and politics at the University of Vienna.
Research interests: Russian and Soviet foreign policy, international relations, the Cold War, European integration. Current research projects: continuities in Russian foreign policy behavior, the USSR/Russia and European integration; the revolutions of 1989.
Wolfgang Mueller’s book on postwar Soviet policy in Austria Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945-1955 (2005) was awarded the Richard G. Plaschka Prize. Further publications include Sovetskaia politika v Avstrii: Dokumenty iz Rossiiskikh arkhivov (with N. Naimark, A. Suppan, G. Bordiugov eds. 2005); The Austrian State Treaty 1955: International Strategy, Legal Relevance, National Identity (with G. Stourzh, A. Suppan eds. 2005); “Stalin and Austria: New Evidence on Soviet Policy in a Secondary Theatre of the Cold War,” Cold War History 6 (2006) 1; Osteuropa vom Weltkrieg zur Wende (with M. Portmann eds. 2007); “Die UdSSR und die europäische Integration,” in From the Common Market to European Union Building (M. Gehler ed. 2009); Peaceful Coexistence or Iron Curtain? Austria, Neutrality, and Eastern Europe 1955-1989 (Forthcoming).
Dr. Mueller was a visiting scholar with the Forum on Contemporary Europe from October 2008 through March 2009.