Abstract
Improving the productivity of small farmers is essential for economic development in most poor countries.  Providing access to timely and relevant information could improve the opportunities available to farmers.  However, there are significant challenges related to literacy, infrastructure, access to technology and social, cultural, institutional and linguistic gaps between producers and consumers of knowledge.  The increased adoption of mobile phones is rapidly reducing the physical barriers of access.  Providing voice-based services via low-cost handsets could empower farmers to become producers as well as consumers of knowledge.  In this talk, I discuss several applications my students and I are developing to explore this potential.  Avaaj Otalo (Gujarati for "voice stoop") is the voice-based equivalent of an online discussion board. Farmers and agricultural experts call a toll-free line to ask questions, provide answers, and listen to each others questions, answers and experiences.  We conducted a six-month trial deployment of Avaaj Otalo with fifty farmers in Gujarat, India. Farmers found it useful to learn both from experts and other farmers, sharing advice on many topics - including the best time to sow fodder, recipes for organic pesticides, and homemade devices to scare away wild pigs at night. Digital ICS allows coffee cooperatives to monitor quality and organic certification requirements, and to be more responsive to farmers' needs.  Field inspectors use mobile phones to document growing conditions and record farmers questions and comments through a combination of text, audio and images.  In a six-month trial deployment, the system significantly reduced operational costs, saving the cooperative approximately $10,000 a year.  The cooperative also obtained richer feedback from its members, which can be used for targeting extension, improving decision-making and reaching out to consumers.  In both of these systems, voice provides not only an accessible interface to information, but a medium for aggregating and representing knowledge itself.  We found this approach more suitable for engaging communities more comfortable with oral forms of communication, for whom text and structured data represent significant barriers to expression.  Most importantly, we have found that rural communities have a deep desire to be "heard", and simply need the tools required to define and achieve "development" on their own terms.

Tapan Parikh's research focuses on the use of computing to support sustainable economic development across the World. I want to learn how to build appropriate, affordable information systems; systems that are accessible to end users, support learning and reinforce community efforts towards empowerment, economic development and sustainable use of natural resources. Some specific topics that I am interested in include human-computer interaction (HCI), mobile computing and information systems supporting microfinance, smallholder agriculture and global health

Summary of the Seminar
Tapan Parikh, of UC Berkeley School of Information, spoke about a number of projects that are using mobile phone based technology to give small businesses the information they need to improve productivity. He argued that voice technology has distinct advantages over text, because it overcomes challenges of illiteracy while responding to a strong need people feel to be heard. 

The term laser weapon implies the use of a laser as part of a so-called directed energy weapon (DEW). In that case, the laser energy is causing the target damage. Military research led to the development of experimental lasers with continuous output powers up to 140 kW in 1966 and two Megawatts in 1980. However, those systems were huge and not part of laser weapon systems.

Since the 1980s the development in the military continued. Remarkably, civilian lasers, developed for industrial machining, have now reached output powers, which can be useful for DEW applications, too. Recently, several prototypes came into operation. On the one hand, there are industry-funded projects that use civilian of-the-shelf industrial lasers. On the other hand, there is government-funded research, which aims at high power laser systems. Major defense companies in the United States and elsewhere are working on both tracks.

Anti-satellite (ASAT) laser engagements would be a revolutionary laser application, as they would in principle enable an option of attacks on satellites with only minor debris. At the moment, attacking satellites implies the use of missiles with kinetic or explosive warheads. A kinetic impact creates debris, which would be harmful to the attacker's space assets, too. For that reason, space faring nations are discouraged from using kinetic energy attacks.

This fact enacts a kind of "natural" arms control. Lasers could change this situation, if they are used to heat up satellites just to a point where their electronics are damaged or only to impair their sensors. Hence, attacks on satellites would be more likely, if laser DEW with anti-satellite capabilities are fielded in peacetime. In a time of crisis, this would create additional political instabilities, as satellites are important early warning and reconnaissance assets.  A deployment of laser ASATs could eventually lead to an arms race in space. In order to make this scenario less likely arms control mechanism could be implemented.

This talk will focus on the technological background of laser ASATs. After a short introduction into recent technological developments, it will be examined whether current laser technology has the ability to endanger satellites. To achieve this, a physics-based method has been devised to assess laser DEW engagements. Damage mechanisms as well as possible distinctions between industrial laser setups and laser weapons will be examined in greater detail.  Options for controlling laser ASATs and obstacles for the implementations of such controls will be introduced.

Jan Stupl is a Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. His research concerns the current developments in laser technology regarding a possible application of lasers as an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), as well as the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The research on laser ASATs focuses on damage mechanisms, the potential sources and countries of origin of laser ASATs and ways to curb their international proliferation. Regarding missiles, Jan is interested in the methods which are used to acquire ballistic missiles and possible ways to control this process.

Before coming to CISAC, Jan was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His PhD dissertation was a physics-based analysis of future of High Energy Lasers and their application for missile defense and focused on the Airborne Laser missile defense system. This work was jointly supervised by the IFSH, the Institute of Laser and System Technologies at Hamburg University of Technology and the physics department of Hamburg University, where he earned his PhD in 2008.

Jan studied physics at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany and at Warwick University in Coventry, UK. He concluded his undergraduate physics degree with a thesis in laser physics, receiving a German National Diploma in Physics in 2004. His interest in security policy and international politics was fuelled by an internship at the United Nations in New York in 2003.

Clay Moltz joined the National Security Affairs faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in June 2007. Since November 2008, he has held a joint appointment with the Space Systems Academic Group at NPS. He currently teaches Space and National Security, Nuclear Strategy and National Security, International Relations, and Northeast Asian Security. Prior to his appointment at NPS, he served for 14 years in various positions at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies, including: deputy director from 2003-2007, director of the Newly Independent States Nonproliferation Program from 1998-2003, and founding editor of The Nonproliferation Review from 1993-98. He was also a faculty member in the Monterey Institute’s Graduate School of International Policy Studies.

Dr. Moltz received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies and a B.A. in International Relations (with Distinction) from Stanford University. Dr. Moltz worked previously as a staff member in the U.S. Senate and has served as a consultant to the NASA Ames Research Center, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment. He held prior academic positions at Duke University and at the University of California, San Diego.

Stephen Monismith studies flows in lakes, estuaries, and the coastal ocean. Current projects include field and computational work on wave-driven flows over coral reefs, transport in a small estuary/wetland complex, wind-waves in shallow estuaries, benthic grazing on coral reefs and in estuaries, internal waves and mixing in the Florida Keys, circulation and zooplankton retention in ther St. Lawrence estuary, mixed layer dynamics and circulation in the Gulf of Aqaba, as well as lab and computational studies of flows through coral colonies and kelp forests. He especially values field sites that are attractive (e.g. have good diving prospects) and have good restaurants. He is also involved with various scientific panels focusing on the San Francisco Bay/Delta including the IEP Science advisor group (which he chairs) and various CALFED advisory panels and groups.

What happens to armed organizations after they sign peace accords? Why do they dissolve, return to war, or form non-violent political parties? This seminar addresses and seeks to explain this empirical variation in former armed groups’' trajectories, using extensive micro-level data on the Colombian paramilitaries. In so doing, it seeks to contribute an organizational-level study of peace-building. The trajectories explored in this seminar fundamentally shape prospects for peace, state-building, and democratization, influence post-war patterns of human rights abuses, and impact the legalization of war economies.

Sarah Zukerman Daly is a 2009-2010 Predoctoral Fellow and Visiting Scholar.  She is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sarah holds a BA (2003) with Distinction in International Relations from Stanford University and a MS (2004) with Distinction in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. She is also an alumna of the 2002-2003 CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program.

Sarah's dissertation analyzes variation in demilitarized groups' post-war trajectories. Specifically, it asks, why, in the aftermath of peace agreements, do armed actors form political parties, remilitarize, or go out of business? Her other current projects seek to explain sub-national variation in insurgency onset in Colombia; state strategies towards ethnic minorities in the former Soviet Union; and the role of emotions in transitional justice.

This talk will address alternative options for European ballistic missile defense, including the now cancelled Polish-Czech option and the recently announced Obama plan for a phased deployment of Standard Missile 3 interceptors in and around Europe. This talk will also address recent Iranian progress in developing medium-range ballistic missiles and possible missile defense cooperation with Russia.

Dean Wilkening is a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University and worked at the RAND Corporation prior to coming to Stanford. His major research interests include nuclear strategy and policy, arms control, the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons, bioterrorism, ballistic missile defense, and energy and security. His most recent research focuses on the broad strategic and political implications of ballistic missile defense deployments in Northeast Asia, South Asia and Europe. Prior work focused on the technical feasibility of boost-phase ballistic missile defense interceptors. His recent work on bioterrorism focuses on understanding the scientific and technical uncertainties associated with predicting the outcome of hypothetical airborne biological attacks and the human effects of inhalation anthrax, with the aim of devising more effective civil defenses. He has participated in, and briefed, several US National Academy of Science committees on biological terrorism and consults for several US national laboratories and government agencies.

In her presentation "Russian Science Policy: Before and During the Economic Crisis," Irina Dezhina will outline the major characteristics of the R&D sector in Russia and offer an analysis of government science policy on the eve of the global financial crisis. She will also discuss the various reactions to the financial crisis in Russia, both by the federal government and the science sector, including companies investing in R&D. Finally, Dezhina will analyze the effectiveness of the Russian government's anti-crisis policy in terms of its impact on supporting science and innovation.

Irina Dezhina is a Head of Division at the Institute for the World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. She also teaches the course of “Modern Problems of Russian Science and Innovation Policy” at the State University – Higher School of Economics. Dezhina earned her candidate degree in science and technology policy studies in 1992 from the Institute of National Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and doctorate degree – in 2007 from the Institute for the World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

She was Senior Research Fellow at the Analytical Center on Science and Industrial Policy, a think tank for the Russian Ministry of Science and Technology Policy and State Committee on Industrial Policy (1993-1995). Dezhina was also a Fulbright Scholar at the MIT Program “Science, Technology, and Society” (1997), and worked as Science Policy Analyst at Stanford Research Institute International, Washington, DC, USA (1998-1999). For twelve years (1995-2007) she worked at the Institute for the Economy in Transition (Moscow), a Russian think-tank. She has served as a consultant for the World Bank, OECD, and New Eurasia Foundation, and the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (since 1999). Dezhina has more then 150 publications including 6 monographs.

Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europea and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.