Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to treating some of the world's poorest populations, in the process helping to raise the standard of health care in underdeveloped areas of the world. Paul Farmer has worked in infectious-disease control in the Americas for nearly two decades and is a world-renowned authority on tuberculosis treatment and control. Dr. Farmer has pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies for infectious diseases (including HIV/AIDS and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis) in resource-poor settings.

In 1993, he was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Genius Award in recognition of his work, and in 2003 the Heinz Award for the Human Condition.

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Speaker's Biography: Richard Garwin is IBM Fellow Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. After three years on the faculty of the University of Chicago, he joined IBM Corporation in 1952, and was until June 1993 IBM Fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York; Adjunct Research Fellow in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Columbia University. In addition, he is a consultant to the U.S. government on matters of military technology, arms control, etc. He has been Director of the IBM Watson Laboratory, Director of Applied Research at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and a member of the IBM Corporate Technical Committee. He has also been Professor of Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. From 1994 to 2004 he was Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

He has made contributions in the design of nuclear weapons, in instruments and electronics for research in nuclear and low-temperature physics, in the establishment of the nonconservation of parity and the demonstration of some of its striking consequences, in computer elements and systems, including superconducting devices, in communication systems, in the behavior of solid helium, in the detection of gravitational radiation, and in military technology. He has published more than 500 papers and been granted 45 U.S. patents. He has testified to many Congressional committees on matters involving national security, transportation, energy policy and technology, and the like. He is coauthor of many books, among them Nuclear Weapons and World Politics (1977), Nuclear Power Issues and Choices (1977), Energy: The Next Twenty Years (1979), Science Advice to the President (1980), Managing the Plutonium Surplus: Applications and Technical Options (1994), Feux Follets et Champignons Nucleaires (1997) (in French with Georges Charpak), and Megawatts and Megatons: A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age? (2001) (with Georges Charpak).

He was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee 1962-65 and 1969-72, and of the Defense Science Board 1966-69. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, of the IEEE, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2002 he was elected again to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

His work for the government has included studies on antisubmarine warfare, new technologies in health care, sensor systems, military and civil aircraft, and satellite and strategic systems, from the point of view of improving such systems as well as assessing existing capabilities. For example, he contributed to the first U.S. photographic reconnaissance satellite program, CORONA, that returned 3 million feet of film from almost 100 successful flights 1960-1972.

He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and was in 1998 a Commissioner on the 9-person "Rumsfeld" Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. From 1993 to August 2001, he chaired the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board of the Department of State. On the 40th anniversary of the founding of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) he was recognized as one of the ten Founders of National Reconnaissance. In June, 2002, he was awarded la Grande Medaille de l'Academie des Sciences (France)-2002.

This seminar is part of SPRIE's Fall 2003 series on "High-Tech Regions and the Globalization of Value Chains."

Eric Benhamou is the chairman of the board of directors of 3Com Corporation, of Palm Inc. and of PalmSource, Inc. He served as chief executive officer of 3Com Corporation from September 1990 until December 31, 2000. In 1981, Benhamou co-founded Bridge Communications, an early networking pioneer, and was vice president of engineering until its merger with 3Com in 1987. Before joining Bridge Communications, he worked at Zilog, Inc. as project manager, software engineering manager and design engineer.

Benhamou holds honorary doctoral degrees from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Widener University, Western Governors University, and the University of South Carolina. He has a master of science degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a Diplome d'Ingenieur from Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts et Metiers, Paris.

Benhamou currently serves as chairman of the board of Cypress Semiconductor and as a member of the board of Legato. He serves on the board of directors of privately held companies, Intransa and Atrica. He serves on the board of the New America Foundation, a Washington DC-based think tank. Benhamou serves on the executive committee of TechNet and of the Computer Science and Technology Board (CSTB). In addition, Benhamou is a champion of Smart Valley II, an initiative for deployment of state-of-the art information technology in Silicon Valleys health care, transportation, and education to enhance the quality of life for community members.

This is a presentation of joint work with Dr. Rafiq Dossani, Shorenstein APARC. About the Talk: IT (Information Technology) outsourcing has become a standard approach for many Fortune 3000 and smaller companies to achieve cost-effectiveness. However, while outsourcing at the low end of the value chain has gained acceptance, many issues remain unresolved at the high end of the IT value chain. We develop a characterization of outsourcing firms, suppliers, and tasks that is useful in providing guidelines on when to outsource, and whom to outsource to. These guidelines for IT outsourcing strategies are based on a study of US customers, and Indian IT suppliers, involving questionnaires and interviews. To our knowledge, this is first study that has captured the supplier characteristics in the level of detail, which will be discussed by Dr. Akella in his talk. Professor Ram Akella is currently professor of IE and Management, and was the founding director, SUNY Center for Excellence in Global Enterprise Management. At Stanford, the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University, as a faculty member and director, Professor Akella has led major multi-million dollar interdisciplinary team efforts in high tech and semiconductors. His current research interests include in process learning, quality, fab economic models, cost of ownership and financial justification for IT Management and equipment, production planning and control, and bio-informatics. His other interests are enterprise systems, IT and software, financial engineering, high tech and e-business, and range from cell and factory level design and control to enterprise-wide coordination and logistics, including supply chain management and contracts, financial engineering and investment, demand management, e-commerce and e-business exchanges, and product and process portfolios for risk management and design capacity management.

Dr. Myron Cohen spoke earlier this year at the UN on AIDS in China. He has been very active in organizing medical research on AIDS in China and only recently returned from a conference held there in November on the subject.