The Korean Studies Program (KSP) of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce that Mr. John Everard will join the Center for the 2010-2011 academic year. Mr. Everard's research will be on North Korean life and society. During his fellowship at the Center, he will hold seminars related to his research project and will be involved in various projects on Korea.

With frequent appearances on BBC discussing North Korea, Mr. Everard, former British Ambassador to North Korea, 2006-2008, will bring extensive knowledge of North Korea, China and South America to APARC.  He served as British Ambassador to Uruguay in 2001-2005, and was head of the Political Section in Beijing 2000-2001.  He was responsible for political relations with the troubled states of West Africa and managed mutinational efforts to restore democracy to Bosnia, 1995-1998.  He became the youngest British Ambassador to Belarus in 1993.

Mr. Everard studied French, German and Chinese at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and studied Chinese history and economics at Bejing University. He holds an MA from Manchester Business School.

Pantech Fellowships, generously funded by Pantech Group of Korea, are intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea. We invite individuals from the United States, Korea, and other countries to apply.

WASHINGTON - The National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars welcome the first class of Research Associates and Fellows of the National Asia Research Program (NARP). Thirty-nine outstanding scholars of Asia were chosen through a competitive, nationwide selection process based on their research into issues of importance to U.S. interests in Asia. The NARP will support the research of 27 Research Associates and 12 Research Fellows during their two-year terms and bring it to the attention of policymakers.

"Our goal in this new program is to highlight and reward scholars who have successfully bridged the gap between the academy and policy," said NBR President and NARP co-director Richard Ellings. "America's future security, prosperity, and well-being will be deeply linked with Asia's future, and thus America needs some of its best and brightest to understand our interests in Asia -- and the history, nations, peoples, and issues of Asia. In short the NARP is responding to the needs for information and assessment arising from the shift in locus in world power from the Atlantic to the Pacific."

Robert Hathaway, Asia Program Director at the Wilson Center and co-director of the NARP, underscored the role the Associates and Fellows will play in bridging the gap between the academic and policy communities. "The selection of these top scholars from across the United States marks the beginning of a new national association for U.S. experts who care about policy issues related to Asia. The enthusiastic response we've seen to the NARP is a good indication of the potential we have to achieve our goal of strengthening and reinvigorating the policy-relevant study of Asia."

The heads of universities and research organizations in the United States were invited to nominate outstanding scholars from their faculty and staff for consideration as Research Associates and Fellows. More than 140 experts were considered during the selection process, which concluded last month and was followed by private notifications to all of the candidates.

The National Asia Research Program (NARP) is a new research and conference program designed to reinvigorate and promote the policy-relevant study of Asia, particularly by highlighting the research of NARP Associates and Fellows, who will present their work at the inaugural Asia Policy Assembly in Washington, D.C., on June 17-18, 2010.

Mankind has regularly witnessed the immense destruction wrought by natural disasters. Similarly destructive to human life are man-made atrocities, like war and genocide. Those who are lucky enough to have survived either type of cataclysmic event must then begin the process of confronting and reconciling the memories of the catastrophe that befell them.  Public commemorations of these events have run the gamut from poetry and works of art to government sponsored “truth commissions” and institutional reform.

The ways in which people chose to memorialize hardship, whether organized by a group or expressed by an individual, offer illuminating insights into the human psyche and post-conflict justice and also provide valuable information about a society, government or culture.

Several Stanford groups are sponsoring a series of events and research projects designed to explore the many facets of the human phenomena called ‘memory’. Scholars participating in the endeavor, entitled “Contemporary History and the Future of Memory,” represent a broad spectrum of disciplines, but share a common objective: to analyze the range of ways that people have coped with adversity in the past so that future communities may benefit their experience. Attention to the role that memory plays in helping people move beyond tragedy is especially pertinent now as citizens of Chile and Haiti transition from survival to recovery after the devastating earthquakes that took place in each country.

“Contemporary History and the Future of Memory” began in the spring of 2008 with the launch of a multi-year research and public policy program sponsored by Stanford’s Forum on Contemporary Europe (FCE) and the Division of Literature, Cultures, and Languages (DLCL.) The aim of that program, as described on the DLCL website, is to investigate “how communities that have undergone deep and violent political transformations try to confront their past.”

In the fall of 2009 the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law joined the initiative, bringing with them expertise in reconciliation, a fundamental phase in the cycle of memory.  The series title was amended to “History, Memory & Reconciliation” in recognition of their contribution. This year’s events featured a visit by Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak, the internationally renowned scholar of comparative literature from Columbia University, who addressed the subject of cultural and linguistic memory. During the spring quarter human rights and memory will be addressed in separate events by two guest scholars. Cambridge Anthropologist Harri Englund gave a talk on April 6th and University of Chile Law professor José Zalaquett will take part in several events on April 22nd and 23rd, including a lecture on Post-Conflict International Human Rights: Bright Spots, Shadows, Dilemmas.

Four Stanford scholars co-chair “History, Memory & Reconciliation.” They are French Professor Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi, Assistant Professor of English Saikat Majumdar, Law School lecturer and FSI fellow Helen Stacy, and Roland Hsu, Assistant Director of FSI’s Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Professors Majumdar and Boyi answered a few questions about the value of delving into memory and how humanities research informs the broader dialogue. Read the full interview here.

The Korean Studies Program is pleased to pre-screen a major new Korean film, subtitled in English, about the Korean War to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.  The film, "Into the Fire," is based on an actual event.  During the desperate early days of the war when regular South Korean and American soldiers were tied down elsewhere, high school students defended the South Korean port city of Pohang.  The movie is both an action film and a drama about the character development of these young men as unlikely heroes.  Taewon Entertainment produced the film; the director is a veteran Korean filmmaker, New York University trained John H. Lee.  To put the film in historical and cinematic context, the film screening will be followed by a panel discussion including the director, actor T.O.P, and two film critics: Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, and Chi-Hui Yang, Director of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Kentaro Toyama is a visiting scholar at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.  Until 2009, he was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he co-founded in 2005.

Kentaro identified a number of myths that surround the field of ICT4D and argued that these can confuse our thinking about the proper role for technology in addressing development problems.

Myth 1: Technology x will save the world: The history of writing on technology shows that each new advance tends to be greeted with unbridled enthusiasm about its potential impact. Where once people were convinced television could solve all social and political problems, today we are putting that burden onto mobile phones.

Myth 2: Poor people have no alternatives:  We can often assume that technology is the only way that poor people will be access certain goods. In reality, there are usually non-technological routes to information and services that are free and therefore preferable.

Myth 3: ‘Needs' are more pressing than desires: A high proportion of the income of the very poor goes on what Western observers might view as ‘luxury' items: (music, photos, festivals & weddings) rather than ‘basics' such as healthcare.

Myth 4: ‘Needs' translate into business models: Building a business model around the needs of poor communities is possible, but there are significant barriers. Poor populations are harder to reach, and they may not want to pay for the services you provide, even if their value seems obvious to you.

Myth 5: If you build it, they will come: Spending is not always rational. An eye hospital in India offers extremely high quality cataract operations for free and covers all related costs. 10% of those offered the service will still refuse to have the operation.

Myth 6: ICT undoes the problem of the rich getting richer: In contexts where literacy and social capital are unevenly distributed, technology tends to amplify inequalities rather than reduce them. An email account cannot make you more connected unless you have some existing social network to build on.

Myth 7: Hardware and software are one-time costs: Kentaro estimates that the average One Laptop per Child will in fact cost $250 per child per year to cover breakage, connectivity, power, maintenance and training.

Myth 8: Automated is always cheaper and better: Where labor is cheap and populations are illiterate, automated systems are not necessarily preferable. Greater accuracy may be another reason to favor voice and human mediated systems.

Myth 9: Information is the real bottle-neck:  Those in the ICT4D world are prone to overestimate the significance of information gaps. Even if you connect a farmer to an agricultural expert via a PC, there are a host of other barriers to be overcome before he can actually increase his yields, including: literacy, poor transport links, and a lack of volume buyers for seeds, pesticides etc.

Kentaro contends that when technology makes a difference in development, it is always as much to do with the input of committed and competent individuals and organizations. Despite this, the focus when reporting ICT4D projects quickly slips into extolling the virtues of the technology itself, not the human component. This says much about the seductive quality of technology. Myths about its potential persist because we have a strong desire to see the triumph of clever ideas and ingenuity, and to believe that one time catalytic investments can have such an impact. The reality is always more complex.