Stanford University

Chris Fedor

Center on Food Security and the Environment
Encina Hall East E400
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Research Associate
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Chris Fedor is a research assistant in the Center on Food Security and the Environment. He received his BS/MS in Earth Systems from Stanford in 2011, with a focus on environmental geography and land use modeling.

While a student, Chris worked two years as a teaching assistant for Roz Naylor’s and Wally Falcon’s World Food Economy course. Almost all of his other previous endeavors seemed to have circulated around food as well. Those range from a summer spent with a hand held camera in Norway eating whale steaks and producing a movie about modern arctic whaling, to assisting CIMMYT in attempts to measure maize yields via remote sensing data in the Yaqui Valley of Mexico. He prefers burritos. 

Advancing energy sector reform in Lebanon

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The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, together with the Safadi Foundation USA (SFUSA) and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) announced the winners of the first annual Safadi-Stanford Initiative for Policy Innovation (SSIPI). The title of Safadi Scholar of the Year has been awarded to Katarina Uherova Hasbani, an energy policy expert at the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut, Lebanon. The title of first runner up has been awarded to Miriam Allam, an economist for the Middle East North Africa Governance Program at the Regulatory Policy Division, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

SSIPI was established to promote new scholarship and analysis on Lebanon. “SSIPI represents the link between the academic and policy worlds that Stanford's Program on Arab Reform and Democracy aims to nurture,” said Dr. Lina Khatib, who leads the ARD program at CDDRL. "The research by Hasbani and Allam addresses some of the core challenges impacting governance in Lebanon and the rest of the region. Hasbani’s paper on the reform of the electricity sector and Allam’s discussion on public consultation are both strategic areas vital to linking citizens and institution building,” said Lara Alameh, Executive Director of Safadi Foundation USA.

Hasbani will begin her four-week residency at CDDRL with the ARD program on October 1 where she will participate in seminars, engage with leading faculty and benefit from the scholarly resources at Stanford. During that time she will produce a publishable paper based on her research, which will then be presented at a policy conference in Washington, DC on December 6, 2011.

"It is an incredible opportunity to receive the support of SSIPI for my research on consensus-based electricity sector reform as a vital element for Lebanon's future economic and social development," said Hasbani.

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The United States, China and Strategic Stability

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China's nuclear forces, policies and posture have been very unusual since 1964. This is most likely because, unlike policy-makers in the United States, Chinese leaders tend to treat deterrence as being robust against disparities in technical details, such as the number or type of nuclear weapons. China’s current nuclear modernization, centered on the introduction of mobile missiles, creates some important challenges to crisis stability that may be difficult to resolve as long as Chinese and American policymakers hold divergent views on nuclear weapons. In this seminar, Dr. Lewis will address one option that may help clarify these diverging views. Beijing and Washington could negotiate a communiqué on strategic stability that addresses their differing perspectives and supports a sustained and effective dialogue on strategic nuclear issues between the United States and China.

Speaker bio:

Jeffrey Lewis is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Dr. Lewis is the author of Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007) and publishes ArmsControlWonk.com, the leading blog on disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation. Before coming to CNS, he was the Director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation.

Prior to that, Dr. Lewis was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Executive Director of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a desk officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He is also a Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy (CISSM).

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CISAC Conference Room

Jeffrey Lewis Director, East Asia Nonproliferation Program, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and publisher of armscontrolwonk.com Speaker
Seminars

New Media, Open Source Analysis & Policy Entrepreneurship

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New technologies are creating unprecedented opportunities for "open source" analysis on issues relating to arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation. The widespread availability of commercial satellite images and modeling software allows individuals to perform analyses that previously only intelligence agencies might. Moreover, the wealth of information available online can offer unprecedented insight into foreign nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. All of this information can be analyzed by virtual communities that exist only online, with results disseminated through new media platforms like blogs and social networking sites. These communities are increasingly influencing debates within and between governments. This presentation takes an irreverent look at this strange and new circumstance.

Speaker bio:

Jeffrey Lewis is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Dr. Lewis is the author of Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007) and publishes ArmsControlWonk.com, the leading blog on disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation. Before coming to CNS, he was the Director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation.

Prior to that, Dr. Lewis was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Executive Director of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a desk officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He is also a Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy (CISSM).


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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Jeffrey Lewis Director, East Asia Nonproliferation Program, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and publisher of armscontrolwonk.com Speaker
Seminars

The Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program on Democracy and Development is now accepting applications for the Class of 2014

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About the Program

Launched in 2005, the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship on Democracy and Development Program  is a three-week executive education program that is hosted annually at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The program brings together a diverse group of 25-30 mid-career practitioners in law, politics, government, private enterprise, civil society, and international development from transitioning countries. This training program provides a unique forum for emerging leaders to connect, exchange experiences, and receive academic training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work.

For three weeks during the summer, fellows participate in academic seminars that expose them to the theory and practice of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Delivered by leading Stanford faculty from the Stanford Law School, the Graduate School of Business, and the Departments of Economics and Political Science, these seminars allow emerging leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote democratic change in their home countries.

Guest speakers from private foundations, think tanks, government, and the justice system, provide a practitioners viewpoint on such pressing issues in the field. Past program speakers have included; Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy; Kavita Ramdas, former president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women; Stacy Donohue, director of investments at the Omidyar Network; Maria Rendon Labadan, Deputy Director of USAID; and Judge Pamela Rymer, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Fellows also visit Silicon Valley technology firms to explore how technology tools and social media platforms are being used to catalyze democratic practices on a global scale.

The program is funded by generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills.

About the Faculty

The program's all-volunteer interdisciplinary faculty includes leading political scientists, lawyers, and economists, pioneering innovative research and analysis in the fields of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Faculty engage the fellows to test their theories, exchange ideas and learn first-hand about the challenges activists face in places where democracy is at threat. CDDRL Draper Hills Summer Fellows faculty includes; Larry Diamond, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper, Erik Jensen, Francis Fukuyama, Steve Krasner, Avner Greif, Helen Stacy, and Nicholas Hope.

About our Draper Hills Summer Fellows

Our network of 186 alumni who graduated from the Draper Hills Summer Fellows program hail  from 57 developing democracies worldwide. Their professional backgrounds are as diverse as the problems they confront in their home countries, but the one common feature is their commitment to building sound structures of democracy and development. The regions of Eurasia, which includes the former Soviet Union and Central Asia, along with Africa constitute over half of our alumni network. Women represent 40% of the network and the program is always looking to identify strong female leaders working to advance change in their local communities.

Previous Draper Hills Summer Fellows have served as presidential advisors, senators, attorneys general, lawyers, journalists, civic activists, entrepreneurs, academic researchers, think-tank managers, and members of the international development community. The program is highly selective, receiving several hundred applications each year.

Please see the alumni section of the website for a complete listing of our program alumni.

Our Summer Fellows include:

  • The former Prime Minister of Mongolia
  • Political activists at the forefront of the 2011 Egyptian revolution
  • Advocate for the high court of Zambia
  • Deputy Minister of the Interior of Ukraine
  • Peace advocate and human rights leader in Kenya
  • Journalists advocating for a greater role for independent media
  • Leading democratic intellectual in China
  • Social entrepreneur using technology for public accountability in India

 

 Funding

Stanford will pay travel, accommodation, living expenses, and visa costs for the duration of the three-week program for a certain portion of applicants. Participants will be housed on the Stanford campus in residential housing during the program. Where possible, applicants are encouraged to supply some or all of their own funding from their current employers or international nongovernmental organizations.

 

 




 
 
 
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Brenna Powell

Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Visiting Scholar, 2011-12
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Brenna Marea Powell received her PhD in Government and Social Policy from Harvard in 2011. She is interested in comparative racial and ethnic politics, conflict and inequality. Her research includes security and policing in divided societies, as well as racial politics in Brazil and the United States. She has been a graduate fellow at Harvard's Wiener Center for Inequality and Social Policy, and Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Prior to her graduate study, she spent five years working with the Stanford
Center on International Conflict and Negotiation on grassroots dialogue and community-based mediation programs in Northern Ireland. Brenna speaks Portuguese and received her BA from Stanford in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.

At CDDRL, Brenna is working with the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security supported by the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA. She is also working on a book project about post-conflict policing in Northern Ireland.

China's Alibaba wants to acquire Yahoo, says Jack Ma at China 2.0 conference hosted by SPRIE

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Jack Ma, chairman of China's Alibaba internet giant, told a Stanford audience his firm is "very interested" in acquiring Yahoo. Ma was one of the speakers at the "China 2.0" conference organized by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship on Sept. 30.

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS – In a wide-ranging talk, Jack Ma, chairman of China's Alibaba Group, publicly declared his interest in acquiring troubled U.S. internet giant Yahoo, while also reflecting on his 12-year journey building an internet powerhouse that has transformed commerce for small businesses and consumers in China.

The Chinese e-commerce billionaire addressed a Sept. 30 conference at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on the rise of China's internet. The gathering, China 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce was organized by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE). With more than 600 registered participants, the event featured talks by leading Chinese internet entrepreneurs and venture capitalists active in Asia as well as a look at ongoing Stanford research on venture investment patterns and networks in China.

Speaking without prepared notes, Ma revealed that he plans to spend the coming year in the United States. "After 12 years, I need some time to rest. This year has been so difficult for me. I'm now coming out for a year," said the Alibaba chief, whose company is based in Hangzhou, China.

Ma was asked if he wanted to acquire Yahoo, the struggling U.S. internet pioneer that owns 40% of Alibaba. "Yes. We're very interested in that. We're very interested in Yahoo because our Alibaba Group is so important to Yahoo and Yahoo is important to us. We are interested in the whole piece of Yahoo," he said, adding that Alibaba also has talked with other prospective buyers. However, a deal would be very "complicated," Ma cautioned. "I cross my fingers and say that we are very, very interested in that."

Alibaba's takeover of Yahoo would represent something of a role reversal, symbolizing how much China's internet—and to some degree, its economy—has eclipsed that of the United States'. In 2005, Ma sold a 40% stake in the fledgling Alibaba to Yahoo in exchange for $1 billion and control of Yahoo China. The Alibaba-Yahoo relationship has been strained in recent years and Ma has telegraphed his desire to reduce or buy back Yahoo's stake. "We appreciate yesterday, but are looking for a better tomorrow," Ma told the Stanford audience.

He described Jerry Yang, co-founder and board member of Yahoo, as "a good personal friend." Ma added, "Without the Yahoo investment, we wouldn't be that successful today. Yahoo is one of three companies that woke me up to the internet. Without the internet, there would be no Alibaba and no Jack Ma."

Ma downplayed recent investor concerns that Chinese regulators will clamp down on the "variable interest entity" (VIE), a vehicle that has allowed foreigners to indirectly invest in Chinese internet companies and for those firms to go public in overseas stock markets. "The VIE is a great innovation," but "we've got to make the VIE really transparent," said Ma. "I don't see that the government is going to shut it down," he added.

Ma reflected on some of his successes and failures since founding Alibaba in 1999 as an online venue for small Chinese firms to connect with overseas buyers. Visiting Silicon Valley that year, "I was rejected by so many venture capitalists. [But] I went back to China with the American Dream," he recalled.

Today, the Alibaba Group, with 23,000 employees, dominates e-commerce in China, largely through its Hong Kong-listed Alibaba.com business-to-business site, Taobao consumer-to-consumer marketplace, and Taobao Mall, a business-to-consumer site for branded items. Ma said his e-commerce enterprises have helped China's small businesses succeed and made Chinese consumers smarter about purchase decisions. "We feel proud because we're changing China," he said.

The conference took place shortly after Beijing announced that China's internet population has surpassed 500 million—about double the number in the United States. Two of the five biggest internet firms in the world, by market value, are from China. U.S. pioneers, including Yahoo, eBay, Google, and Facebook, have failed to make significant inroads in China, where the government exercises strong control over the internet and foreign ownership. In contrast, Chinese internet firms have grown rapidly, coming up with technological and business innovations for their domestic market, and seeking investors, technical know-how, and talent overseas.

"They are growing very quickly and have global aspirations. The days of thinking that's just an eBay copy is an old mindset," said Marguerite Gong Hancock, associate director of SPRIE. "The arrows are now pointing in both directions."

In a brief appearance, Stanford President John Hennessy told the audience that China and the internet "are the two most exciting things happening in the world." There are more than 1,000 students from China at Stanford, by far the largest from a single foreign country, he added.

Conference-goers heard from Joe Chen, MBA '99, founder and chief executive of Renren Inc., a social networking site popular among Chinese university students. Discussing the emergence of the social web in China, he described his company as positioned on the "bleeding edge of SoLoMo," describing the intersection of social, local, and mobile technologies coined by venture capitalist John Doerr. Chen suggested that social networking (based on relationships) has emerged as an alternative to online search (based on keywords) for obtaining and sharing information. Social networking will transform commerce, entertainment, content distribution, and communications, just as online search did, he predicted.

China's social networking and media companies have developed their own innovations, sometimes ahead of U.S. companies, said Chen.The world's first social networking farming game, for instance, was launched on Renren in 2008. Renren went public on the New York Stock Exchange in May, beating Facebook to the IPO trough.

Conference organizers described SPRIE research into venture capital investments and networks in China. Researchers analyzed data on more than 2,000 Chinese companies, nearly 800 investment firms, and more than 600 individuals, including their university and company affiliations. Using the data, they created visualizations—circular nodes with lines extending out in a web—of the relationships among companies, investors, and entrepreneurs. "This is the power of network analysis," said Hancock, showing onscreen a moving image of how China's "investment constellation" changed from 1996 to 2011. The densest venture clusters are in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The research identified more than 40 venture capitalists involved in China who have ties to Stanford, she said.

Venture capitalists discussed the landscape for funding internet startups that are proliferating in China. "Early stage is still quite bubblish," said Tim Chang, MBA '01, managing director of the Mayfield Fund. "There's a lot of hot money doing drive-by due diligence."

Entrepreneurs described a frenetic, hyper-competitive environment for startups. "It's brutal. There are periods I cannot sleep for a month because of the massive pressures," said Fritz Demopoulos, co-founder of Qunar.com, China's largest travel web site, which recently sold a majority stake to Chinese search giant Baidu. But "there's still so much room to grow," said Demopoulos. "The runway in China is long."

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Program on Human Rights Workshop on Human Trafficking

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As part of PHR's work to organize an edited volume capturing some of the main issues related to human trafficking addressed during the Winter Series, on April 20, authors will present their papers to a panel of experts.

The authors and papers that we anticipate will be presented at the workshop are as follows:

Katherine Jolluck, Trafficking of women in Eastern Europe
Richard Roberts, The history of anti-Trafficking efforts
Helga Konrad and Nadejda Marques, The European perspective on international cooperation
Cindy Liou and Annie Fukushima, Shortcomings of the current anti-trafficking model
Helen Stacy, Contemporary research needs

In addition to the sessions in which these papers will be workshopped, there will be two additional presentations open to the public.

First, at 9:00AM, David Batstone, director and co-founder of the Not for Sale Campaign will speak about his work.

At 12:00 noon, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D., CA) will speak about anti-trafficking efforts in California and in the United States Congress.

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CISAC Conference Room

David Batstone Director and Co-founder Speaker Not For Sale Campaign
Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D., CA) Speaker
Workshops
Human Trafficking

A Critique of Repressive Approaches to Combat Human Trafficking

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Alison Brysk is the Mellichamp Chair in Global Governance, Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara. She has authored or edited eight books on international human rights including the book From Human Trafficking to Human Rights. Professor Brysk has been a visiting scholar in Argentina, Ecuador, France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan, and in 2007 held the Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Chair in Global Governance at Canada's Centre for International Governance Innovation.

 

Dr. Mohammed Mattar is the executive director of the Protection Project. He has worked in over 50 countries to promote state compliance with international human rights standards and has advised governments on drafting and implementing anti-trafficking legislation. He participated in drafting the United Nations model law on trafficking in persons and he authored the Inter-Parliamentarian Handbook on the appropriate responses to trafficking in persons. Dr. Mattar currently teaches courses on international and comparative law at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and American University, and has authored numerous publications for law reviews and the United Nations on international human rights and Islamic law, trafficking in persons and reporting mechanisms.

Bechtel Conference Center

Alison Brysk Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance in the Global and International Studies Program Speaker UCSB
Dr. Mohammed Mattar Executive Director of the Protection Project Speaker Johns Hopkins University
Helen Stacy Director Host Program on Human Rights
Seminars
Human Trafficking

Imperfections of the Current Anti-trafficking Model

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Justin Dillon is a musician. His band, Tremolo, was featured on television shows, "The Mountain" and "North Shore," as well as a variety of MTV shows including Pimp My Ride, Newlyweds, Bands Reunited, and Dismissed. Dillon came across the issue of Human Trafficking while touring in Russia. He met scores of girls whose ambition to come to west was being preyed upon by traffickers. During his visit, his interpreter, a young girl, shared with him the many "opportunities" that were being offered to her to come to west. Dillon investigated the bogus job opportunities and became incensed at how easy it was to trick them. After sharing with them the dangers of these proposals, he vowed to do something about this issue once he returned home. Upon arriving back in the United States he looked around to find organizations that were addressing the problem and found that they were few, small, and under-funded, but passionate. He immediately started hosting benefit concerts for these organizations in order to support and spread their work. His desire to put on a benefit concert soon grew into a "rockumentary" that combined both critically acclaimed artists and social luminaries in the film, CALL+RESPONSE.


Bechtel Conference Center

Justin Dillon Director Speaker CALL+RESPONSE
Helen Stacy Director Host Program on Human Rights
Seminars
Human Trafficking
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