Please join the Stanford Baha'i Club, in collaboration with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law; the Center on Philanthrophy and Civil Society, Stanford Amnesty International, Stanford Six Degrees in defending Article 26 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights on
Friday, April 6 from 7:00-9:00pm
We will be screening Education Under Fire, a moving documentary about this issue. Following the screening, we will be having a panel discussion.
Imagine you are sitting in class at Stanford University when armed guards come into the classroom and arrest everyone in your class. Your professor is sentenced to five years in prison; you are expelled not only from Stanford, but from any institution of higher education in the country. Your crime? Gaining a higher education. Your professor’s crime? Providing higher education. Fortunately, this is not happening today at Stanford, but it is happening right now to many young people in Iran.
Since its inception, the Baha’i community of Iran has been suffering different forms of human rights violations, from intense persecution to being denied employment, the ability to bury their dead, access to higher education. Their crime? Being a Baha’i. The Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was founded in 1987 in response to the Iranian government's continuing campaign to deny Iranian Bahá'ís access to higher education. The need to create a new university for those who were denied access to higher education captivated the talents and minds of exceptional faculty and staff from within Iran and abroad. For twenty years they have dedicated their efforts to building an exemplary institution and cultivating a student body prepared for fulfilling careers, future study, and social responsibility. But this has come with constant struggles and limited resources. In May 2011, the government launched a coordinated attack against the BIHE–raiding dozens of homes, confiscating computers and materials and detaining eighteen professors and administrators. Seven of those arrested received four or five-year prison terms. Their only crime: educating the youth in their community.
Tamara Cofman Wittes, who helped manage the State Department's response to the Arab Awakening and now directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, will reflect on the US government's reactions to the dramatic change underway in the Arab world -- how the Obama Administration viewed the uprisings, and how its policy evolved over time as different cases emerged from Tunisia to Libya and Syria. What were the key concerns shaping the US policy response to events? How much difference did American policy make to outcomes on the ground? And, given the complex variety of outcomes now visible in the region, where is American policy toward Arab political change headed over time?
Speaker Bio:
Tamara Cofman Wittes directs the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a regional policy center at The Brookings Institution. The MEDD Project conducts research into political and economic reform in the region and US efforts to promote democracy there. It also hosts visiting fellows from the Middle East.
Before joining the Saban Center in December 2003, Dr. Wittes served as Middle East specialist at the US Institute of Peace and previously as director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in International Relations and Security Studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Dr. Wittes’s latest book is Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy (Brookings Press). She is also editor of How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process (USIP, 2005). Her recent work includes “What Price Freedom? Assessing the Bush Administration’s Freedom Agenda,” and “Back to Balancing in the Middle East,” co-authored with Martin Indyk.
Her analyses of US democracy promotion, Arab politics, the Middle East peace process, and other policy topics have been published in the Washington Post, Policy Review, Political Science Quarterly, the American Interest, the Weekly Standard, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. Dr. Wittes holds a B.A. in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies from Oberlin College; her M.A. and Ph.D. in Government are from Georgetown University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
CISAC Conference Room
Tamara Wittes
Director, Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project
Speaker
Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution
“A postdoctoral program is crucial to the intellectual development of any strong academic institution. I am proud the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center will serve as a home next year for these four talented emerging Asia scholars. Not only will they benefit from taking part in our vibrant research and publishing activities, but they will also bring new expertise and perspectives to our Center.”
The four incoming fellows represent the best of the next generation of contemporary Asia scholars. Their research ranges from civil society and authoritarian governance in China to ethnic conflict in South Asia, and Korean migration and identity to election politics in Japan.
During their time at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), the fellows will conduct their own research and writing, present their work at public seminars, and take part in the research and publishing activities of the Center. Postdoctoral fellows will also have the chance to exchange ideas with Shorenstein APARC experts and interact with the many distinguished visitors who visit each year from throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
In addition, the Asia Health Policy Program at Shorenstein APARC will welcome two postdoctoral fellows in the 2012–13 academic year: an Asia Health Policy Fellow and a Developing Asia Fellow.
Postdoctoral fellows are a vital part of the academic life of the Center, and their relationships with Shorenstein APARC will continue throughout their entire careers.
The Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is made possible through the generosity of Walter H. Shorenstein.
“This fellowship has changed the trajectory of my academic career. It has given me the intellectual space to be highly productive and the freedom to expand my understanding of world events in order to enhance my future teaching and research. Thanks in large part to the fellowship, I was able to obtain an appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of International Relations at Boston University.”
Diana Fu will be joining Shorenstein APARC from Oxford University’s Department of Politics and International Relations, and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she recently served as a political science research fellow. Her research interests encompass state-society relations in authoritarian regimes, civil society, governance, and labor contention. She will be completing a series of journal articles about civil society and authoritarian governance in China. Fu holds an MPhil in international development from Oxford University where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a BA in global studies and political science from the University of Minnesota.
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JaeeunKim is a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. She is interested in issues of identity within the context of international migration, which she explores in her dissertation Colonial Migration and Transborder Membership Politics in Twentieth-Century Korea. She is also developing a project focusing on ethnic Korean migrants from northeast China to the United States, including issues such as legalization strategies and conversion patterns. Kim holds an MA and a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in law from Seoul National University.
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Daniel M. Smith, a PhD candidate with the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), is completing his dissertation on the causes and consequences of political dynasties in developed democracies, with particular focus on Japan. He has conducted research in Japan as a Japanese Ministry of Education research scholar (2006–2007), and as a Fulbright dissertation research fellow (2010–2011). Smith holds an MA in political science from UCSD, and a BA in political science and Italian from the University of California, Los Angeles. After completing his fellowship at Shorenstein APARC, he will join the Department of Government at Harvard University as an assistant professor.
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Ajay Verghese is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at The George Washington University. His work focuses on comparative politics and international relations, and his research interests include South Asia, ethnicity, ethnic conflict, historical analysis, and qualitative methods. Verghese has conducted language training and fieldwork in India, with support from organizations such as the American Institute of Indian Studies and the U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarship Program. He will be turning his dissertation into a book entitled The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence: India and the Indian Ocean Region. Verghese holds a BA in political science and French from Temple University.
As the U.S. presidential election campaign moves into full bore, what role will foreign policy play in the national debate and the presidential election? Does foreign policy matter to voters or do international issues take a back seat to domestic concerns? How does the election affect the conduct of foreign policy?
Here to shed light on the presidential election and U.S. foreign policy are three prominent commentators, with moderator Coit Blacker.
Michael H. Armacost is the Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow at FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, a position he has held since 2002. He is the former president of the Brookings Institution, former under secretary of state for political affairs and former U.S. ambassador to Japan and the Philippines.
David Brady is deputy director and Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the Bowen and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science and Leadership Values in Stanford's Graduate School of Business, a professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is a specialist on U.S. national elections.
David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus at Stanford and Faculty Co-Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. Most famously, Professor Kennedy won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (1999).
Moderator: Coit D. Blacker is director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and the Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. During the first Clinton administration, Blacker served as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC).
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University
Encina Hall
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cblacker@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Olivier Nomellini Professor Emeritus in International Studies at the School of Humanities and Sciences
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PhD
Coit Blacker is a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Olivier Nomellini Professor Emeritus in International Studies at the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. He served as director of FSI from 2003 to 2012. From 2005 to 2011, he was co-chair of the International Initiative of the Stanford Challenge, and from 2004 to 2007, served as a member of the Development Committee of the university's Board of Trustees.
During the first Clinton administration, Blacker served as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC). At the NSC, he oversaw the implementation of U.S. policy toward Russia and the New Independent States, while also serving as principal staff assistant to the president and the National Security Advisor on matters relating to the former Soviet Union.
Following his government service, Blacker returned to Stanford to resume his research and teaching. From 1998 to 2003, he also co-directed the Aspen Institute's U.S.-Russia Dialogue, which brought together prominent U.S. and Russian specialists on foreign and defense policy for discussion and review of critical issues in the bilateral relationship. He was a study group member of the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission) throughout the commission's tenure.
In 2001, Blacker was the recipient of the Laurence and Naomi Carpenter Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching at Stanford.
Blacker holds an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies for his work on U.S.-Russian relations. He is a graduate of Occidental College (A.B., Political Science) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (M.A., M.A.L.D., and Ph.D).
Blacker's association with Stanford began in 1977, when he was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by the Arms Control and Disarmament Program, the precursor to the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI.
Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Faculty member at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
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Coit D. Blacker
director and senior fellow, FSI, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies and Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Moderator
Michael H. Armacost
Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow at FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Speaker
Hoover Memorial Bldg, Room 350
Stanford, California, 94305-6010
(650) 723-9702
(650) 723-1687
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dbrady@stanford.edu
Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor in Public Policy, Bowen H. & Janice Arthur McCoy Professor in Leadership Values, Professor of Political Science
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David Brady is deputy director and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science and Ethics in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences at the university.
Brady is an expert on the U.S. Congress and congressional decision making. His current research focuses on the political history of the U.S. Congress, the history of U.S. election results, and public policy processes in general.
His recent publications include, with John Cogan, "Out of Step, Out of Office," American Political Science Review, March 2001; with John Cogan and Morris Fiorina, Change and Continuity in House Elections (Stanford University Press, 2000); Revolving Gridlock: Politics and Policy from Carter to Clinton (Westview Press, 1999); with John Cogan and Doug Rivers, How the Republicans Captured the House: An Assessment of the 1994 Midterm Elections (Hoover Essays in Public Policy, 1995); and The 1996 House Elections: Reaffirming the Conservative Trend (Hoover Essays in Public Policy, 1997). Brady is also author of Congressional Voting in a Partisan Era (University of Kansas Press, 1973) and Critical Elections in the U.S. House of Representatives (Stanford University Press, 1988).
Brady has been on continuing appointment at Stanford University since 1987. He was associate dean from 1997 to 2001 at Stanford University; a fellow at the center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences from 1985 to 1986 and again in 2001-2; the Autrey Professor at Rice University, 1980-87; and an associate professor and professor at the University of Houston, 1972-79.
In 1995 and 2000 he received the Congressional Quarterly Prize for the "best paper on a legislative topic." In 1992 he received the Dinkelspiel Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from Stanford University, and in 1993 he received the Phi Beta Kappa Award for best teacher at Stanford University.
Brady taught previously at Rice University, where he was honored with the George Brown Award for Superior Teaching. He also received the Richard F. Fenno Award of the American Political Science Association for the "best book on legislative studies" published in 1988-89.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Brady received a B.S. degree from Western Illinois University and an M.A. in 1967 and a Ph.D. in 1970 from the University of Iowa. He was a C.I.C. scholar at the University of Michigan from 1964 to 1965.
David Brady
deputy director and Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Speaker
David Kennedy
Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus at Stanford and Faculty Co-Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West
Speaker
Edward Walker (UCB), “The Collapse of Soviet Socialism and the Arab Spring Compared”
4:45-5:00
Closing Remarks
Yuri Slezkine (Director, UCB ISEEES)
Co-sponsored by: the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at Stanford University, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Centers program
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Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
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kstoner@stanford.edu
Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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MA, PhD
Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.
Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton, she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship, awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World, co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006); After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997); and Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).
She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ilia State University in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia.
Download the podcast and listen to executives and entrepreneurs from the Valley sharing their insights on how they are building successful businesses which leverage cloud computing to re-shape their industries, from enterprise solutions to mobile consumer applications, in this featured event at Stanford Graduate School of Business for Stanford's annual Entrepreneurship Week.
About the panel discussion
“Cloud makes it easier and cheaper than ever for anyone anywhere to be an entrepreneur and to have access to all the best infrastructure of innovation”, noted Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn.
By reducing IT design and deployment costs significantly, enabling greater access to data and services across geographies, and harnessing flexible computing power, cloud enables innovation in firms and fuels a start-up boom across the globe. CHAIN and SPRIE are pleased to present a panel of executives, investors and entrepreneurs to share their insights about building successful businesses by leveraging cloud computing.
PANELISTS
James Dai, CEO and founder of CalmSea Inc.
Jim Dai, Chief Executive Officer, CalmSea
Jim is the CEO and founder of CalmSea Inc., a provider of business optimization solutions for retailers. Jim has 25 years of experience in software industry, with a proven track record of delivering quality product and services to customers. Before founding CalmSea Inc, Jim was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Altos Ventures. Prior to that, Jim was the Sr. Vice President of Products for DemandTec, responsible for Product Management, Engineering, Operations, Customer Support and IT. Jim was instrumental in DemandTec’s successful IPO in 2007. Prior to joining DemandTec, Jim held executive management positions at Siebel, Vivant!, DoubleTwist, Informix and Oracle.
Jim holds a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master Degree in Management from Stanford University.
Sam Ghods, Vice President of Technology, Box.com
Sam Ghods, Vice President of Technology, Box.com
Sam Ghods, Vice President of Technology, Box.com
Sam Ghods is the Vice President of Technology at Box, where he manages the design and architecture of Box's application and technology stack. Prior to joining Box, Sam was a developer at essembly.com, which is now part of Project Agape. Before essembly.com, Sam was the lead developer at zexsports.com, where he was responsible for development, server management, and architecture.
Sam attended the University of Southern California, where he studied computer engineering and computer science for two years before joining Box in 2006.
Ken Oestreich, Senior Director of Marketing, EMC
Ken Oestreich, Senior Director of Cloud and Virtualization Marketing, EMC
Ken Oestreich is Sr. Director of Cloud and Virtualization Marketing at EMC. With over 20 years in enterprise software and data center technology, he is now helping EMC define the market for cloud computing and IT transformation.
Prior to EMC Ken was with Egenera Inc, a data center infrastructure play (funded by Pharos Capital and Kodiak Venture Partners) and Cassatt Corp, a data center automation startup (funded through Warburg Pincus). Earlier in his career, he was with Sun Microsystems in various new product management capacities. Ken also helped found the Liberty Alliance, an industry-wide body defining federated identity standards for the internet.
Ken began his career in Electrical Engineering, controlling adaptive optics with Litton Industries. He holds a BSE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia University.
He frequently blogs at fountnhead.blogspot.com and tweets as @fountnhead.
Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Director, Illuminate Ventures
Cindy Padnos is the founder and managing partner of Illuminate Ventures, an early stage, high-tech venture capital firm. Illuminate invests in start-ups leveraging new technologies and business models, with a focus in the fast growing category of cloud computing. Current investments and board seats include BrightEdge, CalmSea, Hoopla and Xactly Corporation.
Named by Fast Company as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology in 2010 and by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the Most Influential Women in Business in the Bay Area in 2011, Cindy has been helping accelerate emerging technology companies for over 25 years - as an entrepreneur, advisor, investor and board member. She has raised and deployed more than $100 million in venture funding to help launch dozens of innovative start-ups and bring them to successful outcomes.
Cindy is an advisor to Astia and Project Olympus and sits on the Business Board of Advisors for Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business where she received her MBA/MSIA.
Robert Scoble, Start-up liaison, Rackspace; Blogger of 'Scobleizer'
Robert Scoble (Moderator), Startup Liaison Officer, Rackspace
Robert Scoble is a blogger, technology evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure at Microsoft from 2003-2006, and he was one of the five guys who started Microsoft's famous Channel9 video community. Subsequently, he worked for Fast Company as a video blogger. He currently works at Rackspace as Startup Liaison Officer through the sponsored content and social networking site building43.com. He is the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. Described by The Economist as a “minor celebrity among geeks worldwide who read his blog religiously”, Scoble has the distinction of followcost.com naming a unit of measurement to quantify how annoying it will be to follow someone on Twitter as the “milliscoble.”
The Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) is dedicated to advancing the understanding and practice of innovation and entrepreneurship in leading regions around the world. Through interdisciplinary and international research, seminars and conferences, publications and digital content, as well as education for students, industry and government leaders, SPRIE impacts the arenas of academia, business, and policy.
China America Innovation Network (CHAIN) is committed to build an ecosystem of mentors, experts, professionals, and peers based in U.S. and China that will enable entrepreneurs to access resources from both countries and realize their entrepreneurial ambitions. The CHAIN network currently has over 6000 members from 1,000+ companies, representing a diverse range of sectors in the technology and related financial industries.
About Entrepreneurship Week (E-Week) at Stanford
Stanford E-Week
E-Week celebrates the power of the entrepreneurial spirit at Stanford. The university continues to play a major role in the inception and development of many entrepreneurial ventures. Many of our faculty, staff, alumni, and current students have started businesses or bring entrepreneurial approaches to their work. To concentrate this passion for entrepreneurship, E-Week is presented anually by the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network, a federation of two dozen entrepreneurship-related campus groups.
N302, Oberndorf Event Center
3rd Floor, North Building (above Arbuckle Dining Pavilion)
Knight Management Center, Stanford Graduate School of Business
655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA 94305-7298
N302, Oberndorf Event Center
3rd Floor, North Building (abo
On February 6, FSI is hosting an orientation for Stanford sophomores and juniors* (in 2011-12) interested in applying for the 2012 FSI undergraduate field research internships.
Three internships are available for Beijing, China, and up to five for the southwestern highlands of Guatemala. The internship program will support two separate multidisciplinary teams of Stanford undergraduates to carry out field research projects that address chronic global underdevelopment. Working with an established research program in each country and supervised by one or more Stanford principal investigators, the undergraduate research teams will spend approximately two weeks on location and four to six weeks planning and completing projects in the U.S. Travel, accommodations, insurance and incidentals will be fully funded.
The program is intended to engage undergraduates in collaborative research designed to:
introduce undergraduates to issues of global chronic underdevelopment;
promote mentoring relationships between FSI faculty and students;
enable undergraduates to contribute to FSI's policy-relevant research; and
foster collaboration across disciplines at the undergraduate level
Eligibility and Application
The program is open to Stanford juniors and seniors (in AY 2011-12) with a minimum GPA of 3.3. Students may apply directly via email.
Student applicants will be required to submit:
a statement of interest;
curriculum vitae, resume, or summary of related experience; and
Preference will be given to students previously involved in service learning, poverty alleviation, or similar pursuit. The selection committee will strive to assemble a team of students reflecting divergent academic interests, ideally one from each of the social, natural, and applied sciences.
Final candidates should be prepared to obtain the appropriate visas and vaccinations and to travel abroad on the approximate dates:
Guatemala: August 1 - 15, 2012
China: June 19 - July 3, 2012
Project Requirements
Members of the student research team will be expected to work collaboratively to:
develop, and obtain faculty approval for, a research proposal that will add to or enhance the ongoing research of either Rural Education Action Project (REAP) in China, or the Children's Global Health Program in Guatemala, both programs within FSI;
carry out the research over a two-week period abroad under the supervision of both a Stanford faculty member and a graduate student or medical resident;
write a project report analyzing and interpreting the team's research findings; and
prepare a poster or slide presentation describing the research project that will be presented at FSI's fall 2012 open house.
Financial Support and Resources
The program will provide a stipend of $1,000 per student, plus a budget for the team's research materials and supplies, and reimbursement for air travel, lodging, meals, insurance, visas, and incidentals for work abroad. At Stanford, the team will be furnished with office space in Encina Hall and access to a desktop computer to meet, prepare, and complete the project.
* Highly qualified freshmen with the requisite background and superb language skills may be considered.
Abstract: The Government of India is embarking on an ambitious program to provide all residents with a biometric unique ID (UID) to improve beneficiary experiences in public programs. The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Program is the longest-running biometric electronic benefits transfer (EBT) initiative in India and the experiences from Andhra Pradesh can therefore provide key insights into the process and impact of implementing such a biometrically authenticated payment system. The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Study is a large-scale randomized evaluation of the impact of using biometric smartcards on beneficiary welfare and has been underway for 18 months at this point. Professor Muralidharan will present preliminary results from this research focusing on the insights gained from studying the process of rolling out Smartcards in Andhra Pradesh.
Karthik Muralidharan is an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego where he has been on the faculty since 2008.Born and raised in India, he earned an A.B. in economics (summa cum laude) from Harvard, an M.Phil. in economics from Cambridge (UK), and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Junior Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a Member of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) network, an Affiliate at the Center of Evaluation for Global Action (CEGA), and a Research Affiliate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).
Prof. Muralidharan's primary research interests include development, public, and labor economics. Specific topics of interest include education, health, and social protection; measuring quality of public service delivery; program evaluation; and improving the effectiveness of public spending (with a focus on developing countries). Courses taught include undergraduate and graduate classes in development economics, program evaluation, and the economics of education.
Sloan Mathematics Center
Karthik Muralidharan
Assistant Professor of Economics
Speaker
UC San Diego
Mobile phone coverage and adoption has grown substantially over the past decade, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. In the absence of public goods infrastructure in many countries, mobile phone technology has the potential to reduce communication and transaction costs and improve access to information, goods and services, particularly for remote rural populations. Research suggests that mobile phone coverage has had positive impacts on agricultural and labor market efficiency in certain countries, but empirical microeconomic evidence is still limited. This paper presents the results of several mobile phone-related field experiments in sub-Saharan Africa, whereby mobile phones have been used for learning, money transfers and civic education programs. These experiments suggest that mobile phone technology can result in reductions in communication and transaction costs, as well as welfare gains, in particular contexts. Nevertheless, mobile phone technology cannot serve as the “silver bullet” for development, and careful impact evaluations of mobile phone development projects are required. In addition, mobile phone technology must work in partnership with other public good provision and investment to achieve optimal development outcomes.
Speaker Bio:
Jenny C. Aker is an assistant professor of economics at the Fletcher School and department of economics at Tufts University. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development and a member of the Advisory Board for Frontline SMS.
After working for Catholic Relief Services as Deputy Regional Director in West and Central Africa between 1998 and 2003, Jenny returned to complete her PhD in agricultural economics at the University of California-Berkeley. Jenny works on economic development in Africa, with a primary focus on the impact of information and information technology on development outcomes, particularly in the areas of agriculture, agricultural marketing and education; the relationship between shocks and agricultural food market performance; the determinants of agricultural technology adoption; and impact evaluations of NGO and World Bank projects. Jenny has conducted field work in many countries in West and Central Africa, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DRC, The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Sudan, as well as Haiti and Guatemala.
James Dai, CEO and founder of CalmSea Inc.
Sam Ghods, Vice President of Technology, Box.com
Ken Oestreich, Senior Director of Marketing, EMC
Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Director, Illuminate Ventures
Robert Scoble, Start-up liaison, Rackspace; Blogger of 'Scobleizer'
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