Entrepreneurship

On May 10-11, 2010 the Program on Good Governance and Political Reform in the Arab World at CDDRL held its international inaugural conference. In line with the Arab Reform Program's vision, the conference featured internationally renowned scholars, activists, and practitioners from the Arab world, Europe and the United States. Over the two days, conference participants engaged in multidisciplinary debates addressing hard politics as well as soft politics, and analyzing political reform from different angles, with panels on the economy, state systems, the media, civil society, political opposition, youth politics, and the role of international actors. Problems facing political reform in the Arab world today were discussed and scrutinized, as were possible paths forward. The conference debates unearthed the need for a deep understanding of the problems facing political reform in the region that is driven by an analysis of long-term and often ignored issues that are at the core of political developments. The debates also highlighted that problems and prospects for reform are different in each Arab country because each country has its own unique set of issues and because within each country different ethnic groups, classes, and locales have different takes on and stakes in political developments. The conference closed with a speech by Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim.

Bechtel Conference Center

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Long before the current global economic crisis, Japan adopted important reforms in commerce, corporate governance, finance, and education. These changes stemming from the 1990s "lost decade" have created new opportunities for entrepreneurial activity.
Following a presentation of new cross-sectional data on 60,000 operating Japanese corporations started in the last decade, the panel will discuss the state of Japanese entrepreneurship. What companies are forming? Who is behind them? What are their potential fates?

This discussion is part of continuing research being undertaken by SPRIE's Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship and is presented in conjunction with Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford.

About the Panelists

rdasher Richard Dasher
Richard Dasher is Director of the US-Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University and has been with the Center since 1993. 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.

 

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bob eberhart
Robert Eberhart is the SPRIE Researcher at the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and leads the SPRIE-Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship. He researches comparative corporate governance of growth companies with emphasis on Japan and the role of institutions in fostering entrepreneurship. Previously, he founded and served as CEO of WineInStyle, a VC-funded start-up Japanese company.

 

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kagami sensei
Shigeo Kagami is Professor and General Manager of Science Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (SEED) at the University of Tokyo. His responsibilities there include entrepreneurship education, management of incubation facilities for university start-ups, and relationship management with The University of Tokyo Edge Capital.

 

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Kushida profile

Kenji E. Kushida is a Graduate Researcher at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) and a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at University of California Berkeley.

 

 

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miller headshot
William Miller is Co-Director of the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Serving as Vice President and Provost of Stanford and President and CEO of SRI International are just two of the many highlights of Dr. Miller's illustrious career in business and academia. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Sentius Corporation and is a Founder and Chairman of Nanostellar, Inc.

 

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miner
Allen Miner is a founder and General Partner of SunBridge Partners and founder and Director of SunBridge Corporation. After joining Oracle Corporation in 1986 he founded and helped lead Oracle Japan, and later served as Oracle's Vice President in charge of Linux/Open Source. He founded SunBridge Corporation in 1999 with the aim of creating a dynamic, collaborative environment in which Japanese information technology startups develop at a globally competitive pace.

Bechtel Conference Center

U.S.-Asia Technology Management Center
School of Engineering
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-0096 (650) 725-9974
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Consulting Professor
richard-lg0001-200x300.jpg PhD

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.

Richard Dasher Panelist
Robert Eberhart Panelist
Shigeo Kagami Professor and General Manager Panelist Science Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, University of Tokyo
Kenji Kushida BRIE Fellow Panelist UC Berkeley
William F. Miller Panelist
Allen Miner Founder and General Partner Panelist Sunbridge Partners
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Littlefield 274
Stanford, California 94305-5015
Littlefield 274
Stanford, California 94305-5015

(650) 723-2821 () -
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Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Professor of Management
Dhirubhai Ambani Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship for 2009-2010
Director of the Executive Program for Growing Companies
SPRIE Affiliated Faculty
foster_george.jpg PhD

George Foster's research and teaching includes entrepreneurship/early-stage companies; financial analysis, especially in commercial disputes; and sports business management. His recent research includes the role of financial and other systems in the growth and valuation of companies. He also is researching globalization challenges facing both sporting organizations and companies.

George Foster holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics from the University of Sydney and a doctorate from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He taught at the University of Chicago and the Australian Graduate School of Management prior to joining the GSB faculty at Stanford University.

His writings include over thirty research articles and three monographs, as well as multiple editions of several textbooks. Foster's early and continuing research was on the role of financial analysis in the valuation and growth of companies. He subsequently broadened his research interests to include management control systems, entrepreneurship/venture capital, and sports business management. His textbook writings include Financial Statement AnalysisCost AccountingA Managerial Analysis; and The Business of Sports.

Foster has won multiple research awards including the AICPA Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Accounting Literature (twice) and the Competitive Manuscript Award of the American Accounting Association (twice). He is a winner of the Distinguished Teaching Award at Stanford Business School and has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Ghent (Belgium) and the University of Vaasa (Finland).

Foster is actively involved in the business community, especially with venture-capital backed startup companies and has served on the Board of Directors of multiple companies. He is also actively involved with sporting organizations around the globe, including directing executive programs for the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) and for the National Football League (NFL).

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Carolina for Kibera (CFK) inspires and nurtures youth leaders in the slum of Kibera, Kenya through a unique model of participatory development.  CFK recognizes the youth of Kibera as resilient, wise, innovative, and eager to lift their community above the poverty and violence that plagues it.  CFK's long-term initiatives provide youth opportunities to learn and serve while addressing a wide range of community needs including healthcare, education, waste recycling and reduction, HIV/AIDS testing and counseling, and girls' empowerment.  CFK's model of participatory to fight abject poverty, and prevent ethnic, gender and religious violence has been internationally recognized, earning awards as a Time Magazine and Gates Foundation "Hero of Global Health" and the 2008 Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation's Reflections of Hope Award.  CFK is a major affiliated entity of UNC based at the Center for Global Initiatives.


Salim Mohamed Salim Mohamed co-founded and served as the Executive Director of Carolina for Kibera for eight years. At the age of 16, he was involved in the development of MYSA - the largest youth sports program in Africa based in the Mathare slum of Nairobi.  Salim has helped launch community based sports and development programs in Ghana, Gambia, and Nigeria and presented at the International AIDS Conference. He serves as a director for Shoe 4 Africa, an advisor to Global Education Fund and a YES! facilitator.  A TED Africa Fellow, he is currently pursuing a master's degree at the University of Manchester.

Rye Barcott  While an undergraduate on an NROTC scholarship at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2001, Barcott founded CFK with the late nurse Tabitha Atieno Festo and community organizer Salim Mohamed. Barcott served five years in the Marine Corps before earning a combined MBA and MPA at Harvard as a Reynolds Social Entrepreneurship Fellow and a member of the Harvard Endowment's Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility.  In 2006, he was named an ABC World News Person of the Year.  A TED Fellow and member of the UNC Chancellor's Innovation Circle, Barcott is writing a book that juxtaposes community organizing and counter-insurgency (under contract, Bloomsbury Publishing).

Oksenberg Conference Room

Rye Barcott Founder (l) Speaker Carolina for Kibera (CFK)
Salim Mohamed Co-Founder (r) Speaker Carolina for Kibera (CFK)
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Matt Halprin is a Partner leading Omidyar Network's Media and Stephen King is the Director of Investments and is based in London. They introduced us to the work of Omidyar Network which invests in market-based efforts to give people the technology tools they need to improve their lives.

The network was set up in 2004 by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, and his wife Pam.  It comprises both a venture capital fund and a grant-making foundation.  The network has a strong focus on individual empowerment and is committed to market-based solutions, believing that business is one of the best mechanisms for achieving sustainable social impact. Omidyar looks to invest in projects that have potential to impact large numbers of people and that show signs of real innovation - for example, new business models or new markets.

So far $307 million has been committed, with $138 million going to for-profit investments and $169 million to non-profit grants. There are two broad areas of focus:

  • Access to capital: This encompasses projects around microfinance, entrepreneurship and property rights.
  • Media, markets and transparence: This encompasses projects around social media, marketplaces and government transparency. Omidyar are particularly interested in the role of journalism in ensuring accountability of governments.

Projects in the Unities States include:

  • The Sunlight Foundation - works to make information about Congress and Federal government more accessible and meaningful to citizens; created the first searchable site for all federal government contracts to monitor where money is going.
  • Global Integrity - uses quantitative and qualitative analysis to provide a scorecard tracking governance and corruption in different countries.

In the developing world, Omidyar looks to supports access to greater information and government transparency, which it views as key drivers of prosperity. The network is supporting global organizations, national partners in three African countries (Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya) and is establishing a pan-African mechanism for smaller grants. Current global projects include:

  • Ushahidi - an open source platform to report and share data in the aftermath of a crisis. Omidyar will be working to help Ushahidi to build traffic to the site and to tackle the challenge of verifying reports.
  • Infonet - a web portal that acts as an information hub for all national and devolved budgets in Kenya; currently used by NGOs, citizen groups and the media.
  • Mzalendo - a one stop shop for citizens to track the activities of parliamentarians in Kenya.
  • FrontlineSMS - a two way communication tool using laptops and mobile phones for organizations without internet access.
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On January 21, scholars, along with government and business leaders from Japan and the United States, including U.S. Ambassador to Japan Mr. John V. Roos, came together for a transnational "Dialogue on Japan's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem." The event, which took place over Cisco Systems' TelePresence technology and simultaneously connected participants in Tokyo, San Jose, and Stanford, was an opportunity for SPRIE Researcher Robert Eberhart and SPRIE Co-director William F. Miller present new data on Japan's entrepreneurial climate.  

The data shed new light on the formation of new companies in Japan over the past ten years and is part of continuing research on Japanese entrepreneurship being undertaken by the SPRIE-Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (SPRIE-STAJE). The dialogue presentation can be downloaded from the SPRIE website.

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This conference will present and discuss new papers aimed at understanding the trends and dynamics of business and innovation in Japan through the lens of entrepreneurial companies, and institutions that affect those companies.

The papers, encompassing disciplines including economics, policital science and law, will be presented on four subject areas:

  • New company formation
  • Industry specific studies
  • Innovation strategies
  • Innovation and entrepreneurship in politics and law

» Presentations/Papers from the event

Bechtel Conference Center

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After a decade of economic institution reforms and consistent growth, the recent recession has sharply curtailed Japan's manufacturing and service activity, even though its banks have endured relatively unscathed. Many in Japan now look to entrepreneurship and innovation as an important part of the continued restructuring of its economy. This event will review data from a new 50,000 company database of recently incorporated Japanese firms to begin a dialogue on entrepreneurialism in Japan with policy makers, academics, and business leaders. The dialogue will be held simultaneously in Japan and the US over Cisco's TelePresence system.

Cisco Telepresence

Robert Eberhart Speaker
William Miller Speaker
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