Trade-offs between food and biofuels:
Biomass supply and demand:
Biofuels, land-use, and economic transition:
Biofuels, food prices, and the poor:
Climate and crops, diversification and irrigation:
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — Who is more digitally switched on – high school students in Silicon Valley or Beijing?
A new study from Stanford University provides some clues. High schoolers in Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, spend significantly more time using digital media every day than their peers at leading high schools in the Chinese capital. However, Chinese students sometimes outpace their American counterparts in embracing the latest internet technologies and building a network of online friends they have never met in person.
The Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE), part of the university's Graduate School of Business, looked into the digital lives of teens in Silicon Valley and China's capital. Seventy-one high schoolers, 44 from Palo Alto and 27 from Beijing, were surveyed online earlier this month. The students, between the ages of 16 and 18, were asked about their usage of different types of consumer electronics and communications, including how much time they spent daily on a range of online activities.
While the California teens spent significantly more time than their Beijing peers using social networking sites and blogging, Beijing students spent considerably more time watching films and videos over the internet, hardly watching television at all. The Beijing teens were much more likely to have online-only friends, and more of them (44% versus 16%) touted Apple's iPad tablets than the Palo Alto respondents.
The study suggested the emergence of a "digital tribe" of teens transcending cultures and geographic borders, especially in tech hotspots such as Silicon Valley and Beijing. "In certain urban locations, today's teens are native 'netizens'," said Marguerite Gong Hancock, associate director of SPRIE. "Most teens in our survey in both Palo Alto and Beijing have had mobile phones since the age of 12. They lead a large part of their daily lives online."
The survey and other research into patterns of entrepreneurship and venture capital investment was discussed September 30 at a Stanford conference addressing the rise of the internet in China. The gathering, China 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce organized by SPRIE, included speakers from leading internet companies in China, entrepreneurs, and venture capital investors.
In advance of the conference, SPRIE polled the high school students with the assistance of Beijing-based Danwei.org, a Beijing research and information firm. Most of the American teens attend Palo Alto High School, while most of the Beijing students go to People's University Annex High School. Forty-one females and 30 males participated.
SPRIE researchers wanted to get a snapshot of the digital lifestyle of young urban Chinese expected to shape China's technology future. "These are the influencers and early adopters," said Hancock.
China's internet population of about 485 million has already surpassed the approximately 250 million users in the United States. "Understanding the habits of the next generation of Chinese netizens is increasingly important to investors and new media companies. The 'born after 1990' generation in China will play a role in influencing global adoption of new technologies and business models" said Duncan Clark, chairman of consulting firm BDA China, and senior advisor of the China 2.0 project at SPRIE.
There were major similarities between Palo Alto and Beijing students. On weekdays, the top online activity for both was doing schoolwork, followed by using social networking sites and downloading and listening to music. On weekends among the Beijing students, schoolwork remained the leading activity, followed by social networking and web surfing. On weekends in Silicon Valley, students spent the most time on social networking sites, followed by schoolwork and music. In both countries, the teens overwhelmingly favored texting to communicate with friends, although the Beijing teens were less likely to text their parents than the Palo Alto group.
Overall, the U.S. teens spent significantly more time than their Chinese counterparts on almost all types of internet activities. The Palo Alto students spent roughly twice as long (two hours a day) on social networking sites. By contrast, the Beijing teens were much more likely to watch videos and films online.
The study suggested that teens in China rely more heavily on the internet as an emotional and social outlet. In Beijing, more than 90% of respondents said they have friends they know only over the internet. That compared with 29% in Palo Alto. "China's post-'90s single-child generation faces limited play time and heavy academic pressures. The internet enables teens to live out a whole other life online," said Clark.
Launched in 2005, the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship on Democracy and Development Program is a three-week executive education program that is hosted annually at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The program brings together a diverse group of 25-30 mid-career practitioners in law, politics, government, private enterprise, civil society, and international development from transitioning countries. This training program provides a unique forum for emerging leaders to connect, exchange experiences, and receive academic training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work.
For three weeks during the summer, fellows participate in academic seminars that expose them to the theory and practice of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Delivered by leading Stanford faculty from the Stanford Law School, the Graduate School of Business, and the Departments of Economics and Political Science, these seminars allow emerging leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote democratic change in their home countries.
Guest speakers from private foundations, think tanks, government, and the justice system, provide a practitioners viewpoint on such pressing issues in the field. Past program speakers have included; Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy; Kavita Ramdas, former president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women; Stacy Donohue, director of investments at the Omidyar Network; Maria Rendon Labadan, Deputy Director of USAID; and Judge Pamela Rymer, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Fellows also visit Silicon Valley technology firms to explore how technology tools and social media platforms are being used to catalyze democratic practices on a global scale.
The program is funded by generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills.
The program's all-volunteer interdisciplinary faculty includes leading political scientists, lawyers, and economists, pioneering innovative research and analysis in the fields of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Faculty engage the fellows to test their theories, exchange ideas and learn first-hand about the challenges activists face in places where democracy is at threat. CDDRL Draper Hills Summer Fellows faculty includes; Larry Diamond, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper, Erik Jensen, Francis Fukuyama, Steve Krasner, Avner Greif, Helen Stacy, and Nicholas Hope.
Our network of 186 alumni who graduated from the Draper Hills Summer Fellows program hail from 57 developing democracies worldwide. Their professional backgrounds are as diverse as the problems they confront in their home countries, but the one common feature is their commitment to building sound structures of democracy and development. The regions of Eurasia, which includes the former Soviet Union and Central Asia, along with Africa constitute over half of our alumni network. Women represent 40% of the network and the program is always looking to identify strong female leaders working to advance change in their local communities.
Previous Draper Hills Summer Fellows have served as presidential advisors, senators, attorneys general, lawyers, journalists, civic activists, entrepreneurs, academic researchers, think-tank managers, and members of the international development community. The program is highly selective, receiving several hundred applications each year.
Please see the alumni section of the website for a complete listing of our program alumni.
Our Summer Fellows include:
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Stanford will pay travel, accommodation, living expenses, and visa costs for the duration of the three-week program for a certain portion of applicants. Participants will be housed on the Stanford campus in residential housing during the program. Where possible, applicants are encouraged to supply some or all of their own funding from their current employers or international nongovernmental organizations.
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS – In a wide-ranging talk, Jack Ma, chairman of China's Alibaba Group, publicly declared his interest in acquiring troubled U.S. internet giant Yahoo, while also reflecting on his 12-year journey building an internet powerhouse that has transformed commerce for small businesses and consumers in China.
The Chinese e-commerce billionaire addressed a Sept. 30 conference at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on the rise of China's internet. The gathering, China 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce was organized by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE). With more than 600 registered participants, the event featured talks by leading Chinese internet entrepreneurs and venture capitalists active in Asia as well as a look at ongoing Stanford research on venture investment patterns and networks in China.
Speaking without prepared notes, Ma revealed that he plans to spend the coming year in the United States. "After 12 years, I need some time to rest. This year has been so difficult for me. I'm now coming out for a year," said the Alibaba chief, whose company is based in Hangzhou, China.
Ma was asked if he wanted to acquire Yahoo, the struggling U.S. internet pioneer that owns 40% of Alibaba. "Yes. We're very interested in that. We're very interested in Yahoo because our Alibaba Group is so important to Yahoo and Yahoo is important to us. We are interested in the whole piece of Yahoo," he said, adding that Alibaba also has talked with other prospective buyers. However, a deal would be very "complicated," Ma cautioned. "I cross my fingers and say that we are very, very interested in that."
Alibaba's takeover of Yahoo would represent something of a role reversal, symbolizing how much China's internet—and to some degree, its economy—has eclipsed that of the United States'. In 2005, Ma sold a 40% stake in the fledgling Alibaba to Yahoo in exchange for $1 billion and control of Yahoo China. The Alibaba-Yahoo relationship has been strained in recent years and Ma has telegraphed his desire to reduce or buy back Yahoo's stake. "We appreciate yesterday, but are looking for a better tomorrow," Ma told the Stanford audience.
He described Jerry Yang, co-founder and board member of Yahoo, as "a good personal friend." Ma added, "Without the Yahoo investment, we wouldn't be that successful today. Yahoo is one of three companies that woke me up to the internet. Without the internet, there would be no Alibaba and no Jack Ma."
Ma downplayed recent investor concerns that Chinese regulators will clamp down on the "variable interest entity" (VIE), a vehicle that has allowed foreigners to indirectly invest in Chinese internet companies and for those firms to go public in overseas stock markets. "The VIE is a great innovation," but "we've got to make the VIE really transparent," said Ma. "I don't see that the government is going to shut it down," he added.
Ma reflected on some of his successes and failures since founding Alibaba in 1999 as an online venue for small Chinese firms to connect with overseas buyers. Visiting Silicon Valley that year, "I was rejected by so many venture capitalists. [But] I went back to China with the American Dream," he recalled.
Today, the Alibaba Group, with 23,000 employees, dominates e-commerce in China, largely through its Hong Kong-listed Alibaba.com business-to-business site, Taobao consumer-to-consumer marketplace, and Taobao Mall, a business-to-consumer site for branded items. Ma said his e-commerce enterprises have helped China's small businesses succeed and made Chinese consumers smarter about purchase decisions. "We feel proud because we're changing China," he said.
The conference took place shortly after Beijing announced that China's internet population has surpassed 500 million—about double the number in the United States. Two of the five biggest internet firms in the world, by market value, are from China. U.S. pioneers, including Yahoo, eBay, Google, and Facebook, have failed to make significant inroads in China, where the government exercises strong control over the internet and foreign ownership. In contrast, Chinese internet firms have grown rapidly, coming up with technological and business innovations for their domestic market, and seeking investors, technical know-how, and talent overseas.
"They are growing very quickly and have global aspirations. The days of thinking that's just an eBay copy is an old mindset," said Marguerite Gong Hancock, associate director of SPRIE. "The arrows are now pointing in both directions."
In a brief appearance, Stanford President John Hennessy told the audience that China and the internet "are the two most exciting things happening in the world." There are more than 1,000 students from China at Stanford, by far the largest from a single foreign country, he added.
Conference-goers heard from Joe Chen, MBA '99, founder and chief executive of Renren Inc., a social networking site popular among Chinese university students. Discussing the emergence of the social web in China, he described his company as positioned on the "bleeding edge of SoLoMo," describing the intersection of social, local, and mobile technologies coined by venture capitalist John Doerr. Chen suggested that social networking (based on relationships) has emerged as an alternative to online search (based on keywords) for obtaining and sharing information. Social networking will transform commerce, entertainment, content distribution, and communications, just as online search did, he predicted.
China's social networking and media companies have developed their own innovations, sometimes ahead of U.S. companies, said Chen.The world's first social networking farming game, for instance, was launched on Renren in 2008. Renren went public on the New York Stock Exchange in May, beating Facebook to the IPO trough.
Conference organizers described SPRIE research into venture capital investments and networks in China. Researchers analyzed data on more than 2,000 Chinese companies, nearly 800 investment firms, and more than 600 individuals, including their university and company affiliations. Using the data, they created visualizations—circular nodes with lines extending out in a web—of the relationships among companies, investors, and entrepreneurs. "This is the power of network analysis," said Hancock, showing onscreen a moving image of how China's "investment constellation" changed from 1996 to 2011. The densest venture clusters are in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The research identified more than 40 venture capitalists involved in China who have ties to Stanford, she said.
Venture capitalists discussed the landscape for funding internet startups that are proliferating in China. "Early stage is still quite bubblish," said Tim Chang, MBA '01, managing director of the Mayfield Fund. "There's a lot of hot money doing drive-by due diligence."
Entrepreneurs described a frenetic, hyper-competitive environment for startups. "It's brutal. There are periods I cannot sleep for a month because of the massive pressures," said Fritz Demopoulos, co-founder of Qunar.com, China's largest travel web site, which recently sold a majority stake to Chinese search giant Baidu. But "there's still so much room to grow," said Demopoulos. "The runway in China is long."
Professor Van Nieuwerburgh's research lies in the intersection of macroeconomics, asset pricing, and housing. One strand of his work studies how financial market liberalization in the mortgage market relaxed households' down payment constraints, and how that affected the macro-economy, and the prices of stocks and bonds. In this area, he has also worked on regional housing prices and on household's mortgage choice.
Professor Van Nieuwerburgh has published articled in the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and the Journal of Monetary Economics, among other journals. He is an Associate Editor at the Review of Financial Studies and at the Journal of Empirical Finance. He is a Faculty Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and at the Center for European Policy Research.
Professor Van Nieuwerburgh earned his Ph.D. in Economics and Masters in Financial Mathematics at Stanford University and his Bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Ghent in Belgium.
Advanced reading material: "European Safe Bonds"
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Cindy Liou is a staff attorney at Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach. Cindy currently practices law in the areas of human trafficking, immigration law, family law, and domestic violence. She is the coordinator for the Human Trafficking Project at the agency. Before working at API Legal Outreach, Cindy practiced intellectual property litigation and handled a variety of pro bono cases at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Cindy graduated from Stanford Law School and received her double degree in Political Science and Business Administration with a minor in Human Rights from the University of Washington. Before becoming an attorney, Cindy consulted for the Corporate Social Responsibility Department of Starbucks Coffee Company.
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Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Josef Baumgartner has been an economist at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) in Vienna, Austria since April 1996. He is a senior economist in WIFO's Macroeconomics and European Policy Research Group. In 2009 (Feb. to Nov.) he was acting desk economist for Austria at DG Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission in Brussels. From 2003 to 2005 he was a member of the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network (IPN) organized by the European Central Bank (ECB). Before he joined WIFO, he was an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at the Technical University Vienna (Dec. 1994 to March 1996). Next to his research positions he held various affiliations as (part-time) lecturer in economics at the University of Linz, Technical University Vienna, Vienna University of Economics and Business and the University of Applied Sciences of the Chamber of Commerce in Vienna.
He studied economics and econometrics at the University of Linz (MA in Economics, July 1993), the Institute of Advanced Studies in Vienna (Sept. 1992 to Nov. 1994), the University of Copenhagen (August 2009) and the Vienna University of Economics and Business (PhD in Econometrics and Economics, Aug. 2010).
In his current research (jointly work with G. Ruenstler, WIFO) he analyses macroeconomic divergences within the euro area and with the world economy within an analytical framework of a global cointegrated vector autoregressive model.
Josef's publication list can be found on the back of his attached Curriculum Vitae.
Synopsis:
Robin Niblett, Director of Chatham House, delivered the following talk in The Europe Center series “The European and Global Economic Crisis”.
With measured optimism about the prospect for a way out of the current Eurozone crisis, Dr. Niblett argues that the introduction of the common Euro, seen by many in past years as a vanguard tool for European integration, is now potentially a functional wedge between ‘debtor’ and strongly capitalized nations.
Dr. Niblett, arriving directly from participating in the World Economic Forum in Dubai, and based on Chatham House research, described the “perfect storm” of the past two decades of credit-driven growth, divergence within the EU, rising debt-to GDP ratios of member nations especially in the cases of Italy and Greece. His analysis combines these economic details with the following:
The totality of the above paints a grim portrait of Europe under the weight of nearly impossible conditions. And yet, Dr. Niblett underlines evidence for measured optimism:
These are the structural side of what Dr. Niblett sees as Europe’s tools for recovery.
On the side of European practice, the Franco-German proposals for European Central Bank “bailout funds” include new rules for transparency of internal government operations. This promises innovation to make the EU into an area of political and financial transparency, and to enable the EU to engage in direct investment, as evidence is beginning to show, in the world’s emerging economies. In this sense, Dr. Niblett sees for Europe a competitive edge over the US in engaging in world markets.
Perhaps most sanguine of Dr. Niblett’s analysis is his reading of the Eurozone crisis as a force to push the member nations of Europe further towards supra-national economic strategies. In order to participate in the investment in emerging markets, the Benelux countries, not to mention France, Germany, and neighboring European states, are responding to the crisis by considering policy that promotes investment and outsourcing for service-sector employment, instead of export commodities which have been undercut in recent years.
There is a risk, in Dr. Niblett’s view, that Europe will respond to the Eurozone crisis by fracturing into rival “clubs” of small and large or debt-restructuring and creditor nation-states. But the European nations, especially those currently participating in the Eurozone, have untapped capacities for growth:
Those interested in further detail and analysis are invited to visit the work and productivity at:
The Europe Center, at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies: http://tec.fsi.stanford.edu
Chatham House, at the Royal Institute for International Studies: http://www.chathamhouse.org/
Speaker bio:
Robin Niblett became the Director of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International
Affairs) in January 2007. Before joining Chatham House, from 2001 to 2006, Dr. Niblett
was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Washington based
Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). During his last two years at CSIS, he
also served as Director of the CSIS Europe Program and its Initiative for a Renewed
Transatlantic Partnership.
Most recently Dr. Niblett is the author of the Chatham House Report Playing to its
Strengths: Rethinking the UK’s Role in a Changing World (Chatham House, 2010) and
Ready to Lead? Rethinking America’s Role in a Changed World (Chatham House,
2009), and editor and contributing author to America and a Changed World: A Question
of Leadership (Chatham House/Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). He is also the author or
contributor to a number of CSIS reports on transatlantic relations and is contributing
author and co-editor with William Wallace of the book Rethinking European Order
(Palgrave, 2001). Dr Niblett is a frequent panellist at conferences on transatlantic
relations. He has testified on a number of occasions to the House of Commons Defence
Select Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee as well as US Senate and House
Committees on European Affairs.
Dr Niblett is a Non-Executive Director of Fidelity European Values Investment Trust. He
is a Council member of the Overseas Development Institute, a member of the World
Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Global Institutional Governance and the
Chairman of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Europe.
He received his BA in Modern Languages and MPhil and DPhil from New College,
Oxford.
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We are thrilled to welcome SPRIE, a catalyst for cutting-edge knowledge in this space, and a natural fit for us.
- Garth Saloner, Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — The Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship has joined the Graduate School of Business, where it will expand and enhance the depth and reach of global content for the school's academic programs and research.
Peter Wegner, MONUMENT TO CHANGE AS IT CHANGES at Knight Management Center, Stanford Graduate School of Business
SPRIE's core activities include global interdisciplinary research, seminars, and conferences, as well as publications and briefings for industry and government leaders. Upcoming events this month at Stanford include a panel discussion, "Re-examining the State of Japanese Entrepreneurship," on Sept. 21 and "China 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce in China," SPRIE's third in a series of highly successful forums. Keynotes for "China 2.0" on Sept. 30 will include investors, entrepreneurs, and founders or CEOs of billion-dollar Chinese internet firms, including Jack Ma of Alibaba and Joe Chen, MBA '99, of RenRen.
"Innovation and entrepreneurship are hallmarks of the GSB experience," said Garth Saloner, dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "We are thrilled to welcome SPRIE, a catalyst for cutting-edge knowledge in this space, and a natural fit for us. SPRIE complements and augments many of our existing efforts, including the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the Center for Global Business and the Economy."
Knight Management Center, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Hancock leads research initiatives, conferences, and publications on topics ranging from "China 2.0: The Rise of a Digital Superpower" to "Smart Green Cities." She is coeditor of books published by Stanford University Press: The Silicon Valley Edge (2000), Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech (2006), and Greater China's Quest for Innovation (2008). Hancock also codirects SPRIE executive and policymaker training programs on leading innovation and entrepreneurial regions in the global economy.
"We are very pleased to join the Graduate School of Business and look forward to collaborating on international and interdisciplinary research and conferences relevant to business students, executives, and government leaders from around the world who are focused on leading innovation and creating value," said Miller.
SPRIE research focuses on the nexus of innovation and entrepreneurship in high-technology clusters, through questions such as:
For more information on research, executive programs, or events at SPRIE, contact Yan Mei at yanmei@stanford.edu or visit http://sprie.gsb.stanford.edu.
For More Information Contact: Barbara Buell, Director of Communications, Stanford Graduate School of Business at buell_barbara@gsb.stanford.edu or 650-723-1771.
For Comment: Marguerite Hancock, Associate Director, Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Business at mhancock@stanford.edu or 650-723-4588.
