How does a corrupt government stop corruption? What if that government is democratic, and must cultivate the support of political parties that are themselves corrupt? Is fostering reform in such a political economy the equivalent of trying to make snow in hell?

These questions may be overstated, but the dilemmas they convey are all too real. Witness the storm of concern triggered by the recent resignation of the highest-profile reformist in Indonesia, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, from her linchpin job as minister of finance in a country that was ranked the most corrupt and the most democratic in Southeast Asia in 2009.

Sri Mulyani waged unremitting war on graft. Under her stewardship of the finance ministry, more than 150 of its personnel were dishonorably discharged. Nearly 2,000 more were otherwise punished for infractions. She led a vigorous campaign against tax cheats. Among them were rich and influential people who had grown accustomed to absconding with funds they owed the government.

Euromoney named her ‘finance minister of the year’ in 2006—a post she had only taken up the year before. In 2008 and again in 2009 Forbes magazine admiringly listed her among ‘the 100 most powerful women in the world.’ Correspondingly, on the heels of her resignation on 5 May 2010, Indonesian stocks and rupiahs fell.

Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) was directly elected to that office in 2004 and, for a second five-year term, in 2009. As president he has opposed corruption and championed reform. Fatefully, however, in 2004 he chose a wealthy businessman, Aburizal Bakrie, to join his government as coordinating minister for the economy.

In 2006 in East Java, a Bakrie-controlled company using an unprotected drill while probing for gas may have triggered a mud volcano that would swallow more than a dozen villages and render more than 15,000 people homeless. In 2010 the volcano continued to spew an estimated 100,000 tons of mud daily onto the surface. Bakrie’s reputation for probity was not enhanced when, reportedly against Mulyani’s advice, he insisted on denying responsibility for the disaster. Instead he blamed an undersea earthquake that had struck off the south coast of Java, some 250 kilometers away, two days before the mud erupted. Opinions remain divided as to what caused what.

An unambiguously man-made crisis in 2008, the global financial meltdown, shrank the Jakarta stock market, Bakrie’s holdings included. Trading on the exchange was temporarily suspended. Bakrie urged his fellow cabinet member Mulyani to extend the suspension. She refused. He was furious. Her relations with him worsened further when she slapped travel bans on certain Bakrie company executives accused of tax evasion.

In 2009 Bakrie became chair of the Golkar Party. Toward the end of that year he led a fierce campaign in the Indonesian legislature against both Mulyani and another nonpartisan technocrat, Indonesian vice-president Boediono, for malfeasance related to the government’s decision in 2008 to rescue an ailing financial institution, Bank Century. The bailout may have prevented a spiral of withdrawals, and thus helped Indonesia weather the global crisis, but the effort cost far more than expected, and some of the infusions apparently benefited key depositors more than the bank itself.

Legitimate financial questions were soon superseded, however, by a thoroughly political effort on the part of politicians and their supporters opposed to Mulyani and her reforms to oust not only her but the vice-president as well. Mulyani’s and Boediono’s opponents included, in addition to Bakrie, others whose circumstancial links to corruption she had uncovered.

An anti-Mulyani case in point is the Justice and Welfare Party (PKS). Despite priding itself on upholding Islamic ethics and opposing corruption, the PKS rejected allegations that one of its legislators, Muhammad Misbakhun, could have been implicated in a fictitious Bank Century letter of credit for US $22.5 million. When, at the end of April 2010, Misbakhun was arrested and detained on a warrant signed by the national police official in charge of economic and tax crimes, PKS leaders accused the police of having an ulterior motive. The party had by then, in effect, joined the anti-Mulyani chorus.

Subjected to intense and prolonged criticism by these politicians in the glare of the media, Mulyani had ample reason to quit the spotlight, resign, and leave Indonesia. (On 1 June 2010 she will become a managing director of the World Bank in Washington DC.) But her long record of nonpartisan tenacity in the struggle against corruption makes it hard to believe that she simply lost her will to fight. For the time being it is impossible to rule out that she was sacrificed for the sake of a restoration of political comity between SBY and his opponents.

The irony is that Golkar and the PKS had joined with SBY’s Democrat Party to form a ruling coalition, to which they continue to belong. SBY had built that coalition with the expectation that its members, having joined the government, would support it, including its campaign against corruption.

That inclusive or ‘rainbow’ strategy was a triple failure. First, cabinet posts that might have been held by competent and ethical nonpartisans motivated by a desire for public service were allocated instead to partisans whose skills and motives, shall we say, varied. Governance suffered. Second, coalition-party leaders who were given ministerial posts in return for ensuring broad legislative backing for the government in the legislature either would not or could not deliver that support. Cooptation failed. Third, some ruling-team politicians, who might have at least stood back from the fray, instead jumped in, seemingly hoping to blunt the government’s efforts to diminish corruption and improve governance while protecting themselves and furthering their own careers. Discipline frayed.

Mulyani has resigned. Has Bakrie won?

In a recent conversation, an off-the-record analyst anticipated ‘more stability, which, in Indonesia, correlates inversely with reform.’ He could be wrong. But it may not be coincidental that on 6 May 2010, one day after Mulyani announced her resignation, SBY met with ruling-coalition leaders. Or that the meeting launched a Coalition Parties Forum whose daily activities will be led by none other than the chair of the Golkar Party, Aburizal Bakrie. Or that Bakrie reported that SBY had agreed that the Forum would not try to bind the coalition to a common position. Or that, again according to Bakrie, whereas previously the coalition parties were only asked to help safeguard the government’s policies, henceforth they would be asked to help determine them as well. Much will depend on Mulyani’s replacement as minister of finance, and on whether he or she is told to stop rocking the boat.

If Mulyani’s remarkable legacy is indeed erased, illiberal circles in Singapore may think, ‘We thought so. Democracy does thwart reform.’ But my own judgment in hindsight will be less sweeping.

Indonesia’s Democrat Party is still basically an extension of the appealing personality of SBY. Over the six years since he was first elected president, more time, energy, and resources could have been invested in deepening the roots and popularity of the party itself. Had those assets been so spent, the Democrats might have been able, in the legislative elections of 2009, to enlarge their contingent of lawmakers enough to be able to rule, not by the dubious grace of Sri Mulyani’s antagonists, but in SBY’s and his party’s own right—subject to democracy’s checks and balances, yes, but freed of the need to cobble together a coalitional rainbow of colors that clash.

Donald K. Emmerson heads the Southeast Asia Forum at Stanford University and is also the editor of Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia. (Stanford/ISEAS, 2008/9)

A heartening number of analysts helpfully commented on an earlier draft of this essay.  While protecting their privacy by not naming them, I am grateful to them.  Complementing my focus here on the politics of Sri Mulyani’s exit is the economic context ably reviewed by Arianto A. Patunru and Christian von Luebke in their ‘Survey of Recent Developments’ in the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 46: 1 (2010, 7-31.)

How does a corrupt government stop corruption? What if that government is democratic, and must cultivate the support of political parties that are themselves corrupt? Is fostering reform in such a political economy the equivalent of trying to make snow in hell?

These questions may be overstated, but the dilemmas they convey are all too real. Witness the storm of concern triggered by the recent resignation of the highest-profile reformist in Indonesia, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, from her linchpin job as minister of finance in a country that was ranked the most corrupt and the most democratic in Southeast Asia in 2009.

Sri Mulyani waged unremitting war on graft. Under her stewardship of the finance ministry, more than 150 of its personnel were dishonorably discharged. Nearly 2,000 more were otherwise punished for infractions. She led a vigorous campaign against tax cheats. Among them were rich and influential people who had grown accustomed to absconding with funds they owed the government.

Euromoney named her ‘finance minister of the year’ in 2006—a post she had only taken up the year before. In 2008 and again in 2009 Forbes magazine admiringly listed her among ‘the 100 most powerful women in the world.’ Correspondingly, on the heels of her resignation on 5 May 2010, Indonesian stocks and rupiahs fell.

Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) was directly elected to that office in 2004 and, for a second five-year term, in 2009. As president he has opposed corruption and championed reform. Fatefully, however, in 2004 he chose a wealthy businessman, Aburizal Bakrie, to join his government as coordinating minister for the economy.

In 2006 in East Java, a Bakrie-controlled company using an unprotected drill while probing for gas may have triggered a mud volcano that would swallow more than a dozen villages and render more than 15,000 people homeless. In 2010 the volcano continued to spew an estimated 100,000 tons of mud daily onto the surface. Bakrie’s reputation for probity was not enhanced when, reportedly against Mulyani’s advice, he insisted on denying responsibility for the disaster. Instead he blamed an undersea earthquake that had struck off the south coast of Java, some 250 kilometers away, two days before the mud erupted. Opinions remain divided as to what caused what.

An unambiguously man-made crisis in 2008, the global financial meltdown, shrank the Jakarta stock market, Bakrie’s holdings included. Trading on the exchange was temporarily suspended. Bakrie urged his fellow cabinet member Mulyani to extend the suspension. She refused. He was furious. Her relations with him worsened further when she slapped travel bans on certain Bakrie company executives accused of tax evasion.

In 2009 Bakrie became chair of the Golkar Party. Toward the end of that year he led a fierce campaign in the Indonesian legislature against both Mulyani and another nonpartisan technocrat, Indonesian vice-president Boediono, for malfeasance related to the government’s decision in 2008 to rescue an ailing financial institution, Bank Century. The bailout may have prevented a spiral of withdrawals, and thus helped Indonesia weather the global crisis, but the effort cost far more than expected, and some of the infusions apparently benefited key depositors more than the bank itself.

Legitimate financial questions were soon superseded, however, by a thoroughly political effort on the part of politicians and their supporters opposed to Mulyani and her reforms to oust not only her but the vice-president as well. Mulyani’s and Boediono’s opponents included, in addition to Bakrie, others whose circumstancial links to corruption she had uncovered.

An anti-Mulyani case in point is the Justice and Welfare Party (PKS). Despite priding itself on upholding Islamic ethics and opposing corruption, the PKS rejected allegations that one of its legislators, Muhammad Misbakhun, could have been implicated in a fictitious Bank Century letter of credit for US $22.5 million. When, at the end of April 2010, Misbakhun was arrested and detained on a warrant signed by the national police official in charge of economic and tax crimes, PKS leaders accused the police of having an ulterior motive. The party had by then, in effect, joined the anti-Mulyani chorus.

Subjected to intense and prolonged criticism by these politicians in the glare of the media, Mulyani had ample reason to quit the spotlight, resign, and leave Indonesia. (On 1 June 2010 she will become a managing director of the World Bank in Washington DC.) But her long record of nonpartisan tenacity in the struggle against corruption makes it hard to believe that she simply lost her will to fight. For the time being it is impossible to rule out that she was sacrificed for the sake of a restoration of political comity between SBY and his opponents.

The irony is that Golkar and the PKS had joined with SBY’s Democrat Party to form a ruling coalition, to which they continue to belong. SBY had built that coalition with the expectation that its members, having joined the government, would support it, including its campaign against corruption.

That inclusive or ‘rainbow’ strategy was a triple failure. First, cabinet posts that might have been held by competent and ethical nonpartisans motivated by a desire for public service were allocated instead to partisans whose skills and motives, shall we say, varied. Governance suffered. Second, coalition-party leaders who were given ministerial posts in return for ensuring broad legislative backing for the government in the legislature either would not or could not deliver that support. Cooptation failed. Third, some ruling-team politicians, who might have at least stood back from the fray, instead jumped in, seemingly hoping to blunt the government’s efforts to diminish corruption and improve governance while protecting themselves and furthering their own careers. Discipline frayed.

Mulyani has resigned. Has Bakrie won?

In a recent conversation, an off-the-record analyst anticipated ‘more stability, which, in Indonesia, correlates inversely with reform.’ He could be wrong. But it may not be coincidental that on 6 May 2010, one day after Mulyani announced her resignation, SBY met with ruling-coalition leaders. Or that the meeting launched a Coalition Parties Forum whose daily activities will be led by none other than the chair of the Golkar Party, Aburizal Bakrie. Or that Bakrie reported that SBY had agreed that the Forum would not try to bind the coalition to a common position. Or that, again according to Bakrie, whereas previously the coalition parties were only asked to help safeguard the government’s policies, henceforth they would be asked to help determine them as well. Much will depend on Mulyani’s replacement as minister of finance, and on whether he or she is told to stop rocking the boat.

If Mulyani’s remarkable legacy is indeed erased, illiberal circles in Singapore may think, ‘We thought so. Democracy does thwart reform.’ But my own judgment in hindsight will be less sweeping.

Indonesia’s Democrat Party is still basically an extension of the appealing personality of SBY. Over the six years since he was first elected president, more time, energy, and resources could have been invested in deepening the roots and popularity of the party itself. Had those assets been so spent, the Democrats might have been able, in the legislative elections of 2009, to enlarge their contingent of lawmakers enough to be able to rule, not by the dubious grace of Sri Mulyani’s antagonists, but in SBY’s and his party’s own right—subject to democracy’s checks and balances, yes, but freed of the need to cobble together a coalitional rainbow of colors that clash.

Donald K. Emmerson heads the Southeast Asia Forum at Stanford University and is also the editor of Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia (Stanford/ISEAS, 2008/9).

A heartening number of analysts helpfully commented on an earlier draft of this essay.  While protecting their privacy by not naming them, I am grateful to them.  Complementing my focus here on the politics of Sri Mulyani’s exit is the economic context ably reviewed by Arianto A. Patunru and Christian von Luebke in their ‘Survey of Recent Developments’ in the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 46: 1 (2010, 7-31.)

Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC, analyzes the diplomatic and political challenges to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak stemming from North Korea's possible responsibility for the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's just-completed visit to China.

Researcher Richard K. Morse attended a World Bank consultation focusing on finding solutions to problems in the global carbon market (CDM). The meeting took place in Frankfurt on May 4th where Richard presented recent PESD research findings from working paper #90 "Making Carbon Offsets Work in the Developing World: Lessons from the Chinese Wind Controversy," and proposed possible policy options for carbon market reform.

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2010-11 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its second year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.

A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.

The following four scholars have been selected for the upcoming academic year.

• Anies Baswedan, currently President of Paramadina University in Jakarta, is a leading intellectual figure in Indonesia. In 2008, the editors of Foreign Policy named him one of the world's "top 100 public intellectuals." As an advisor to the Indonesian government, he is a leading proponent of democracy and transparency in Indonesia, a creative thinker about Islam and democracy, as well as a charismatic leader in the educational field. He was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.
• Stephane Dudoignon is a political scientist/senior research fellow at the EHESS in Paris. He is one of the world's leading scholars of Muslim politics and societies from the Caucasus to Central Asia. He is the author of pioneering work on Muslim movements, including the historical study of Sufi networks from the Volga River to China, Muslim intellectuals' debates about gender, and modern Sunni revivalist movements in Eastern Iran. While on campus, he will give lectures on Islam in Eurasia and Iran, among other things. He was nominated by CREEES, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
• Monica Quijada is a high-profile public intellectual and historian of Spain and Latin America at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Madrid. Her engagement with the UN in Argentina (working with refugees) and her directorship of the investigation carried out in the late 1990s regarding Nazi activities during the Second World War and in post-war Argentina shows her commitment to the public space. She has written extensively on dictatorship, populism, and war and their effect on the public sphere in Argentina and Spain as well as on the relationship between nineteenth-century Latin American states and their indigenous populations. She was nominated by the History Department and the Center for Latin American Studies.
• Patrick Wolfe is a historian at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He is a premier historian of settler colonialism, currently working on a comparative transnational history of settler-colonial discourses of race in Australia, Brazil, the United States, and Israel/Palestine. While at Stanford, he will give lectures based on his core work on Australia and also on his forthcoming book Settler Colonialism and the American West, 1865-1904 (Princeton University Press). He was nominated by the Bill Lane Center for the American West.

While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.

Bill Thies described his group's work to develop projects that utilize those technologies that are already present and familiar in poor Indian communities. He focused his talk on three current projects:

Citizen journalism: Chhattisgarh is a state in central India with very low levels of literacy and poor communications infrastructure.  It contains many Gondi speakers, a language that has no written literature. The challenge for Bill's group was to find way for people in Chhattisgarh to share and discuss news in their own language. Radio is not an option because news broadcasts are illegal for all but the government run stations in India.

The team designed a system for mobile phones to be used as a platform for citizen journalism. Working with local NGO media partner CGnet, project Swara provides a simple system whereby anyone can call in and record a news update from their area. Stories are moderated by CGnet's journalists and then can be heard by calling the same number. They are also posted on CGnet's website.

The project is in its early stages, but initial analysis shows that around half the posts are in local languages, providing the very first news outlet in Gondi in any form. Content ranges from reports of social concerns and local news to singing.

Since the system is open to use by anyone, one inevitable concern is the reliability of reports. However, Bill argued that voice gives a level of authenticity that may make people more reluctant, or less able to lie convincingly in their reports. There are also distinct advantages of voice over text, for example the extra information that is gained by hearing the emotion that accompanies words.

Education: Only 14% of schools in India have a computer, and where they are present, they are often under-utilized due to a lack of expertise or familiarity. Older technologies have much higher penetration; 60% of Indian households have a television. Bill's group has begun working with DVD players, which have a penetration of 13% - this is expected to rise to 25% by 2013. They have developed DVDs that contain thousands of Wikipedia entries that can be navigated in a similar way to the chapters of a movie. The DVDs are being piloted with college students in Bangalore who want to do additional research but lack access to PCs.

Healthcare: A quarter of the two million people who die from Tuberculosis each year are Indian. While the disease is curable, treatment requires taking four different drugs, three times a week for a period of six to eight months. A system of directly observed therapy has been put in place in India to ensure that patients take medication. However, the current system means that health workers who perform the checks are only rewarded once a whole treatment cycle has been completed and their interaction with patients is not efficiently tracked. Bill's group has created a biometric terminal for TB clinics which uses a fingerprint reader to verify the interaction between health worker and patient. The day's reports can be uploaded via SMS and the data quickly visualized, enabling better measurement of health worker performance. This is currently being piloted in partnership with the NGO Operation ASHA in two clinics in Delhi.

Among hundreds of applicants, REAP was one of only 25 groups to secure a competitive grant from the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, or 3ie, to assess the value of expanding vocational education training (VET) in China.

Read below for a summary of the proposed study.

Investment in Vocational vs. General Schooling: Evaluating China’s Expansion of Vocational Education and Laying the Foundation for Further Vocational Education Evaluation

A key policy question in developing countries, including China, is how to balance investments between vocational and general education in a way that supports economic growth and reduces social inequality. There is no definitive study in any developing country on the returns to vocational education and training (VET). In the absence of information on how VET might affect the earnings of workers, it is unclear if recent efforts of the Chinese government to expand VET are sound. If the returns are negligible, the government might consider slowing the expansion or improving the quality of VET.

Additionally, it is estimated that only about 40% of the students that graduate from junior high school in poor, rural areas continue with their studies; the rest enter the unskilled labour force. Why are these rates so low? Surprisingly, little is known about the factors that keep students out of school. There is no systematic study of what is working in VET and what is not. Despite the rapid expansion of VET, China has set up few mechanisms to evaluate the quality of VET programs.

The goal of this project is to help the Chinese government evaluate the effectiveness of the expansion of VET. It aims to provide empirical evidence on the returns to VET; the factors that might keep disadvantaged students from receiving quality schooling; and measure the quality and cost-effectiveness of VET programs.

This study will estimate the returns from VET versus general schooling using various “quasi-experimental” methods. It will follow a randomized control trial design and randomly assign junior high students to programmes that provide vouchers for VET schooling, vouchers for academic schooling, and academic counselling for students to become better informed about their schooling/employment options. The project will assess if students work harder, perform better and matriculate to academic high school and VET at higher rates when they have sufficient financial aid and counselling. Finally, it will also develop an Entrance/Exit Examination that can be used by principals of VET institutions and local officials in charge of VET to assess the quality of their programs. The findings of these quality studies of VET will be useful in influencing policy on one of China’s most debated education issues.

In mid April, FSI convened a special conference on Technology, Governance, and Global Development, to examine how technical innovation solves, or fails to solve, the problems of chronic global underdevelopment.  Experts from business, medicine, philanthropy, academia, government and non-governmental organizations, along with young Stanford alumni, addressed technology's ability to help secure gains in health, economic development, agricultural innovation, food security, and human development.

With a wealth of expertise and on-the-ground experience, panelists tackled central issues and engaged in spirited debate, animated by moderator Philip Taubman.  "The Promise of Information and Communications Technology" examined whether technology can transform lives of individuals, even in poorly governed countries, finding encouraging evidence in technology-based medical and health services and novel approaches to economic development, including sharing vital information and banking via mobile phones. 

A panel of young Stanford alumni discussed their entrepreneurial efforts that led to the development of a low-cost, lifesaving incubator for low birth weight babies, the FACE AIDS program begun at Stanford that now has 20 chapters and has contributed some $2 million for treatment of people with AIDS in Africa, a new Global Health Corps to train health care workers, and other innovations to save lives in underserved areas.

Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, gave the lunchtime keynote with a focus on why democracies are more effective and ultimately more efficient in delivering economic development. Democracies are better at protection of rule of law and property rights, she noted. Democracies are less corrupt, more in touch with their people, more stable, and better able to deliver the benefits of human capital development, health, and education to their population as a whole.

A third panel on "Governance, Innovation, and Service Delivery" addressed how innovative institutions and technologies could overcome poor governance and deliver needed services in underdeveloped regions. "Despite extraordinary growth in our technical capacity to prevent and treat child illness and death, we are seeing stagnation or a rise in mortality rates of children under five in some areas," said pediatrician Paul Wise. "This reflects gross failures in delivering highly efficacious health interventions." Some 9 million children still die each year, and 65 percent of child deaths in unstable areas are preventable, he noted. Wise has launched a new program to improve child health in areas of unstable governance through new integrated technical and political strategies.

A fourth session on "Creative Markets for Technical Innovation" honed in on the institutions, innovations, and incentives needed to stimulate development of products and services that address the needs of the poor. Panelists focused on pharmaceuticals, agricultural innovation, use of mobile technologies to share information on best practices, improved food security through innovative technology - such as solar-powered irrigation to expand growing seasons, crops, and incomes, and the development of human capital in China through rigorous evaluation, field trials, and nutritional intervention.

Among the experts addressing these vital issues were Google.org's Megan Smith, BP Solar's Reyad Fezzani, Center for Global Development President Nancy Birdsall, Gates Foundation Director of Agricultural Development Sam Dryden, Gilead Science's Clifford Samuel, dynamic Stanford alumni Nava Ashraf ‘97, Jared Cohen ‘04, Jane Chen ‘08, and Jonny Dorsey ‘07, and FSI's Coit D. Blacker, Joshua Cohen, Stephen D. Krasner, Paul H. Wise, Rosamond L. Naylor, and Scott Rozelle.

FSI Payne Lecturer Bill Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Chairman, Microsoft, gave an address on "Giving Back: Finding the Best Way to Make a Difference."  He urged students to become involved in the central issues of global health—including the need to reduce child mortality through more vaccines and better delivery systems—and education, saying we need to find out "what works" and use the Internet to share lessons learned globally.

"We need to shift talent toward bigger needs," Gates said, urging students to provide the passion and ideas to drive us forward in health, education, and energy.  To make a difference, Gates advised, "Get your hands dirty, do the hard work in the actual environment, early in your career."  Telling students that he is looking for "great ideas," he challenged them to post answers on the Gates Foundation Facebook wall to three questions: What problems are you working on? What draws you in? How will you draw other people in to work on solutions to the world's great challenges.