Professor Joshua Lederberg, a research geneticist, is Sackler Foundation Scholar, President-emeritus at The Rockefeller University in New York, and a consulting professor of the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Lederberg was educated at Columbia and Yale University, where he pioneered in the field of bacterial genetics with the discovery of genetic recombination in bacteria. In 1958, at the age of 33, Dr. Lederberg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine for this work. Dr. Lederberg has been a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin and then at Stanford University School of Medicine, until he came to The Rockefeller University in 1978. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1957, and a charter member of its Institute of Medicine, Dr. Lederberg has been active in many government advisory roles, including the Defense Science Board and the Chair of the President's Cancer Panel. He has long had a keen interest in international health, and has served two terms on WHO's Advisory Health Research Council and on the boards of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington) and the Council on Foreign Relations (New York). He co-chaired the IOM's study on Emerging Infections, and recently edited "Biological Weapons: Containing the Threat", published by the MIT Press.

For more than twenty years, labor-intensive industrialization in developing countries has generated controversy about "sweatshop" conditions in the factories of multinational companies and their regional subcontractors. In recent years, U.S. university students have vigorously opposed such factories as sites of abuse and exploitation. Others reply that such places offer their mainly young and female workers much-needed income and independence. Much of this controversy has focused on Southeast Asia as a prime location of facilities for the manufacturing of apparel, footwear, toys, and other labor-intensive exports. Why do sweatshops exist in these countries? Why are they tolerated? Why are they assailed? Are the objections justified? What should be done? University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Business School Professor Linda Lim has helped pioneer empirical research on young women factory workers in Southeast Asia. She has published extensively on this and other labor-related subjects. She has also served as a frequent consultant to the International Labor Organization, most recently on the globalization debate. She was a member of the University of Michigan's Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights in 1999-2000.

In Southeast Asia, partial recovery from financial crisis has been accompanied by signs of the start of a local version of America's internet business boom. E-businesses and dotcom start-ups have emerged. Political and business leaders have touted the virtues of the so-called "new economy" and its potential for resolving the post-crisis malaise that still affects parts of the region. But is the e-business revolution in Southeast Asia real? Are technologies and business practices being transformed? Or is the "new economy" mainly hype and wishful thinking? Does e-business spell the death of monopolies and conglomerates at the hands of agile new entrants? Or is it popular because it provides an alternative to fundamental business restructuring? And what do the answers to these questions imply for economic recovery and political reform? Linda Lim is the associate director of the International Institute and Director of the Southeast Asia Business Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has written and lectured extensively on political economy, economic development, and business practices in Southeast Asia, where she recently completed preliminary field research on the appearance and growth of electronic business.