Jerry Kaplan
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jerrykaplan@stanford.edu
Adjunct Lecturer, Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Computer Science
Former Research Affiliate
Jerry Kaplan is widely known as an Artificial Intelligence expert, serial entrepreneur, technical innovator, educator, bestselling author, and futurist. He invented several ground-breaking technologies including handheld tablet computers, online auctions, and electronic keyboard musical instruments.
A renowned Silicon Valley veteran, Jerry Kaplan founded several storied technology companies over his 35-year career, two of which became public companies. Kaplan may be best known for his key role in defining the tablet computer industry as the founding CEO of GO Corporation in 1987. Prior to GO, Kaplan co-founded Teknowledge, Inc., one of the first Artificial Intelligence companies to commercialize Expert Systems, which went public in 1986. In 1994, Kaplan co-founded Onsale, Inc., the world's first Internet auction website, which went public in 1997. In 2004, he pioneered the emerging market for social games by starting Winster.com, where he served as CEO for eight years.
Jerry Kaplan is an Adjunct Lecturer in Computer Science and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy program at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His research and teaching focusses on the social and economic Impact of Artificial Intelligence. He is an inventor on more than a dozen patents, and has published over twenty refereed papers in academic journals and conference proceedings. Kaplan holds a PhD in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Chicago.
Kaplan is the author of four books, including the best-selling classic "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure" (Houghton-Mifflin). Selected by Business Week as one of the top ten business books of 1995, Startup was optioned to Sony Pictures. "Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (Yale University Press) was honored by The Economist as one of the top ten science and technology books of 2015. His books "Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know" (Oxford University Press, 2016) and “Generative Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford University Press, 2024) were both Amazon new release #1 best sellers in Artificial Intelligence.
He is a frequent public speaker and commentary contributor to major newspapers and magazines. His opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, among other publications. He has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, Red Herring, and Upside. He received the 1998 Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Northern California; served on the Governor's Electronic Commerce Advisory Council Member under Pete Wilson, Governor of California (1999); and received an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from California International Business University, San Diego, California (2004).
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Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Perspectives from Chile
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Chile, being positioned on the Pacific-facing rim of South America, has a natural tendency toward Asia, not only geographically, but also politically, culturally and economically. Mr. Maruicio Rodriguez from the Chile Pacific Foundation, a public-private partnership established by the Chilean government that seeks to deepen Chile’s ties with Asia, will discuss the country’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, including an analysis of promotion strategies, financing conditions and policy challenges.
Mauricio Rodriguez has been the head of projects and content at Chile Pacific Foundation since August 2016. He is responsible for managing contents produced by the Foundation, including research, digital strategy and conferences and events, overseeing both planning and production. He also serves as an ABAC-Chile staffer and often represents the Foundation as conference speaker/moderator. As a journalist and a communications professional, he has accumulated vast experience in the media industry and in the public relations/affairs industry, where he represented private interests before moving to public administration, the legislature and the judiciary. He has significant experience in the financial industry after working in the investment banking sector and being a financial journalist for almost two decades.
Mauricio Rodriguez
<i>Chile Pacific Foundation</i>
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Leading social entrepreneurs join Stanford community
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Stanford’s Program on Social Entrepreneurship welcomes four social entrepreneurs to campus in spring quarter to engage students and the Stanford community with leaders in the social sector. The four are serving as Social Entrepreneurs in Residence at Stanford (SEERS) Fellows at the Haas Center for Public Service through a partnership with Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. In addition to meeting with members of the Stanford community, they are teaching a community-engaged learning course this spring.
The SEERS Fellows lead organizations using entrepreneurial models to advance social justice and pioneer new approaches to public service delivery for marginalized communities. They have all been recognized for their path-breaking contributions to the field with awards and prestigious fellowships. The 2017 cohort join 19 other SEERS alumni who have been part of the program since its launch in 2011.
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Developing Healthcare Professionals Across the African Continent
Born and raised in rural Uganda, Christopher (Chris) Ategeka is working to ensure that everyone on the African continent has access to timely, quality health care. He is the founder and CEO of Health Access Corps (formerly Rides for Lives), which works to combat the dire shortage of healthcare personnel in Uganda and across the broader African continent. In an effort to curb the “brain drain” of talented healthcare professionals from African communities, Health Access Corps encourages trained healthcare professionals to stay and work in their local communities. In addition, the organization invests in training and placement of new health personnel to increase the talent pool of professionals committed to working in underserved areas of their countries.
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Employing Local Female Journalists to Report Global News
Cristi Hegranes is the founder and executive director of Global Press, which works to create a more just and informed world by employing and training local female journalists to produce ethical, accurate news coverage from the world’s least-covered places. Global Press operates a training program, Global Press Institute (GPI); an award-winning news publication, Global Press Journal; and an innovative syndication division, Global Press News Service. GPI has trained and employed 180 journalists across 26 developing countries, including Haiti, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
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Raj Jayadev is the co-founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a community organizing and advocacy organization based in San Jose, California. For nearly 15 years, De-Bug has been a platform for the least heard of Silicon Valley—youth, immigrants, low-income workers, the incarcerated—to impact the political, cultural, and social landscape of the region. De-Bug's Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project created an approach to combatting mass incarceration called "participatory defense” that provides support to families with loved ones in the criminal justice system to build a legal defense amid public defenders’ overburdened caseloads. De-Bug has incubated participatory defense hubs across the country and is building a national network of community organizations to make systemic change in the courts from the ground up.
Organizing People and Aligning Resources to Create Social Justice
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Carolyn Laub, a Stanford alumna, consults with social justice nonprofits and foundations on strategy, policy, movement building, strategic communications, scaling and replication. She recently co-founded Springboard Partners, an incubator of both high-impact social justice campaigns and start-up companies. Previously, Carolyn founded the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, which organizes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth advocating for safety and justice in schools. Over 16 years, the organization trained over 15,000 youth leaders, grew GSA clubs in California from 40 to close to 1,000, trained youth advocates who helped pass more than a dozen statewide laws, replicated her California model in four other states and created a network serving 3,000+ GSA clubs in 39 states. Carolyn’s fellowship to the program is generously supporting by Echoing Green, an organization that supports early-stage social innovation.
Stanford undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to work on community-engaged learning projects with the 2017 SEERS fellows through a course, INTNREL/AFRICAST 142, this spring quarter. The course allows students to work alongside these nonprofit leaders to tackle real organizational challenges. From launching grassroots advocacy campaigns to developing new income generation strategies for organizations, students come away with new insight into the field of social change and concrete skills for the social sector. The course is led by Kathleen Kelly Janus, an attorney who has spearheaded many social justice initiatives in the Bay Area and is co-taught by the SEERS Fellows.
The SEERS Fellows will be on campus through June to teach the community-engaged learning course, participate in events, and engage with student groups. To learn more about the Program on Social Entrepreneurship visit pse.stanford.edu or to connect with the SEERS Fellows, please contact Sarina Beges (sbeges@stanford.edu).
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Womenomics, the Workplace, and Women Final Report
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The Japan Program at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), with the generous support of the United States-Japan Foundation and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, held a conference in November 2016 titled “Womenomics, the Workplace, and Women.” The report, which is an outcome of the conference, offers an analysis of the state of women’s leadership and work-life balance in Japan and the United States, and specific actions that Japanese government stakeholders, corporations, start-ups, and educational institutions can take to address gender inequality in Japan.
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Silicon Valley Does it Repeatedly: From Fairchild to Uber and Beyond
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4:15pm: Doors open
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Martin Kenney, Professor of Community and Regional Development, University of California, Davis and Senior Project Director, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
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China faces its future of urbanization
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A new book published by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) explores the future of China’s urbanization. Addressing the complex challenges facing Chinese cities will require updated institutions and unparalleled innovation, researchers say.
China’s growth in cities has been unprecedented over the past decade, and the urbanization policies the government put in place, while achieving notable successes, continue to face systemic obstacles that challenge the effectiveness of central and local governments. How the government will resolve the complex sets of conflicting interests will considerably shape Chinese society and politics for decades.
That is the premise of a new book co-edited by Karen Eggleston, senior fellow in Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Jean C. Oi, the William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics; and Yiming Wang, deputy director general and senior research fellow at the State Council Development and Research Center.
In the book Challenges in the Process of China’s Urbanization, eleven chapters authored by 21 authors feature urbanization challenges ranging from property rights and affordable housing to food security and the environment.
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“Urbanization is not merely a process of financial engineering or rational decision-making, but a complicated ‘dance’ of power and politics,” the editors write in the introductory chapter.
The book is one of two publications that emerged from a conference in May 2014 at the Stanford Center at Peking University, that was part of a joint five-year research initiative between the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) – a government agency in China that formulates and implements strategies of national economic and social development.
Wang, who was the deputy chief of staff at the NDRC and executive director of its Institute of Macroeconomic Research, facilitated ongoing scholarly exchanges, including workshops and conferences as well as joint fieldwork in China. At one point, the NDRC came to the Bay Area to interview local government officials about urbanization and affordable housing policies.
Eggleston and Oi responded to a few questions about the book.
What patterns are shaping urbanization in China?
Oi: A primary pattern shaping China’s urbanization is the movement of people from rural areas to megacities – Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere. There also is movement from poorer to richer areas within the countryside. Rural to urban migration has been taking place in China since the 1970s, but the difference now is that the government is encouraging it. The Chinese government has an officially sanctioned program that is advocating migration. A second pattern shaping China’s urbanization is administrative redistricting. Redistricting is a government-led process that changes the administrative makeup of a municipality. For example, areas originally designated as ‘rural’ can be redistricted to qualify as ‘urban.’ Additionally, smaller cities can become larger by absorbing surrounding areas. Counties can also be combined into districts.
Why are cities and counties pursuing redistricting?
Oi: One of the main factors driving redistricting in China is the perks and power that are linked to the size of an administrative unit. Government officials in charge of smaller cities or counties have incentives to become larger. The larger the municipality, the more power and resources the municipality has. Smaller cities that become larger cities gain resources; yet on the other hand, counties that become part of a district lose certain local-level rights. Municipalities are essentially competing with each other. The book dives into the incentive structures at play and other political economy issues embedded in the urbanization process.
What kind of disciplinary approaches are undertaken in the book?
Eggleston: One of the book’s strengths is its array of disciplinary approaches. Drawn primarily from the social sciences, the book includes theoretical and empirical analyses of evidence gathered from case studies and fieldwork.
Oi: The book is a true collaboration of scholars from the United States and China. About half of the chapter authors are officials from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), including our co-editor, Yiming Wang, who was NDRC deputy-secretary when we did the work for the volume. Each chapter attempts to offer a balanced perspective of the policy implications of China’s urbanization experience at both national and local levels.
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Karen Eggleston, FSI senior fellow and director of the Asia Health Policy Program, speaks on a panel about demographic change and health at the conference, "Challenges in Process of Urbanization: China in Comparative Perspective," Stanford Center at Peking University, May 2014.
What do you hope the book will achieve?
Oi: The book offers an analysis of the intricacies of and potential solutions to problems related to the process of China’s urbanization. We hope the book taken as a whole gives a sense of the magnitude of these problems, why there are no easy solutions, as well as what will be needed to address them going forward. Some of the solutions are not just about money.
Eggleston: The book aims to sketch an interesting picture of the varied aspects of China’s urbanization. Each chapter looks at a select issue, for example, land financing, spatial growth and housing security, and sets it in the broader context of urbanization. We purposely decided not to cover everything that falls under the banner of urbanization. Most of the topics could very well be made into a whole book alone. We hope the book will enliven conversation amongst scholars, policy influencers and China and urbanization enthusiasts.
What do “people-centered” solutions to urbanization challenges in China include?
Eggleston: “People-centered” is the term used in China’s official urbanization plan, the New National Urbanization Plan, published in 2014. We defined the term “people-centered” to include what makes life in urban areas attractive. “People-centered” urbanization emphasizes well-being and the factors that lead to a good livelihood, including access to public goods. For example, from a health perspective, cities around the world were historically less healthy locations to live in during the industrial revolution, before basic knowledge of how to control infectious disease with clean water and other population health measures. Now, cities can be healthier places to live in compared to rural areas. The Chinese government has a successful record of building basic infrastructure, but faces many challenges in harnessing the requisite resources to innovate and truly achieve people-centered development.
"In trying to reach a public goal like low-income housing, the Chinese government is trying to set up an incentive system so that the goal can be reached not just with taxpayer money but also by bringing in the private sector to build housing in a way that includes affordable units and doesn’t lead to segregation."
— Karen Eggleston; FSI senior fellow, Asia Health Policy Program director
An issue highlighted in the book is China’s household registration system. Why is it an issue and what is being done to address it?
Oi: Because China’s urbanization has been so rapid, institutions have not yet fully caught-up. There is a disjuncture between the institutions that exist and those that are actually necessary. One pressing example is the household registration system. Citizens who live in rural areas have a different kind of residency status than citizens in urban areas. Everyone has rights, but rights differ depending on where primary residence was originally listed. A Chinese citizen is only able to enjoy all of his or her rights where he or she is registered. So migrants tend to lose out as soon as they move away from their home locality. However, the central government has started to make changes to this system. For example, children of migrants now have access to public services such as primary education. Some localities have begun to implement a points-based system wherein families accumulate points over time and, after reaching a certain level, become eligible for citizenship in that place of residence.
Can you describe the state of housing in Chinese cities?
Eggleston: Affordable housing is a key issue of urbanization across the world, not just in China. So, the glass is half-full or half-empty depending on how you look at it. China has been remarkably successful in avoiding the development of large urban slums common in lower income countries with rapid urbanization. That said, problems associated with housing are not going to go away quickly. The macro nature of China’s population amplifies the problem, and coincides with a dramatic increase in housing prices. Continued government investment in affordable housing will help address scarcity, and could help tackle interrelated problems such as assisted living for the elderly population in China.
Oi: The central government began to offer affordable housing in 2007 with the intention of providing housing for the neediest portion of the population. In theory, it works, but in reality, it has faults. Supply and demand sometimes isn’t in sync. For example, quotas were used as a way to decide the location of its affordable housing, but some cities found that housing units remain unused. The local government builds a number of affordable housing units but then discovers no one wants them because commercial housing is less expensive or factories provide dormitory space. Part of this mismatch in supply and demand is rooted in the issue of resident permits. In most cases, the neediest portion of the population is typically migrants but they are not eligible for affordable housing in the cities where there is most need for low cost housing such as Beijing or Shanghai. As a result, migrants often live in inadequate housing in city centers – small, windowless spaces with many people living together in one room.
One of the chapters in the book focuses on food security. As Chinese migrants continue to move from rural to urban areas, are fears of declining food security founded?
Eggleston: Food security is an important issue. In the book, one chapter written by 9 co-authors applies rigorous methods to understand whether urbanization threatens food security in China. They found that fear of declining food security is mostly overblown. Continued government investment in agricultural production such as irrigation systems can help address those fears, and help enable sustainable food production.
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Jean Oi, FSI senior fellow and director of the China Program, (Center), and Xueguang Zhou, FSI senior fellow and professor of sociology, (Left of Center), take a tour of housing developments during fieldwork with the National Development and Reform Commission in August 2012. Oi is speaking with one of the village leaders about a "new rural community" concept developed in a housing development in Chengdu, where this photo was taken.
Another chapter in the book references pollution. Beijing has faced unprecedented levels of air pollution lately. Does it coincide with urbanization?
Eggleston: Although issues of pollution and “green growth” merit separate book-length treatment and are not central to this book, pollution illustrates the broader issue of concentrations of industry and people living in one area. Everyone has to share public space. Both a migrant and someone working at the top levels of government in Beijing breathe the same air. Things that are less visible like water quality are avoidable by some of the population, but air pollution is not, and therefore, quickly reveals how hard it is for the government to efficiently fix a problem. Policies to mitigate pollution often take awhile to have an effect, and in the mean time, people begin to doubt government accountability. Local governments have made strides within the past few years in revising evaluation structures so that officials are incentivized to react to public problems like air pollution. Historically, an official’s performance was based largely if not solely on GDP growth of his or her municipality, but it has since expanded to include other factors such as health insurance enrollment.
Infrastructure spending has been a driver of China’s economic growth. Has China’s rush to build quickly come at the expense of safety?
Oi: Economic growth is intimately tied to the process of China’s urbanization. Growth of cities has been driven by the ambitions of local officials who want to see their municipalities expand. But the question remains over how they’re going to finance rising needs for and costs of public goods. Each municipality receives funding from the central government and it’s based on the quantity of citizens – a number that excludes migrants. Any migrant is then – administratively speaking – a burden on the system. Municipalities have to determine how they’re going to fund public goods. This is where fiscal politics comes in. China’s fiscal system is really the most important institution in need of reform. Each chapter of the book touches upon the issue of public funding in some way.
Eggleston: China is generally known for its investment in infrastructure projects, but the goal of rapid growth can seemingly clash with a concern for safety. One of the main themes of the book is to think carefully about the incentives that govern the process. I think that theme certainly rings true with regard to infrastructure and safety. Put simply: if officials and contractors do not have incentive to prioritize safety, then safety problems are going to arise. The Chinese government efforts to develop and improve specific regulatory structures should continue, as several authors point out in different chapters of the book.
"Economic growth is intimately tied to the process of China’s urbanization. Growth of cities has been driven by the ambitions of local officials who want to see their municipalities expand. But the question remains over how they’re going to finance rising needs for and costs of public goods."
— Jean C. Oi; Stanford professor of political science, China Program director
How can a balance be struck between public and private sector led projects that address urbanization challenges?
Oi: The Chinese government is increasingly looking to establish public-private partnerships as a way to deal with urbanization challenges. Affordable housing is one area that could experiment further with the public-private model. Instead of going to local governments, the central government is now talking directly with housing developers. They say to the developers “we’ll give you permission to develop a housing estate, but within that housing estate, you’re going to have to set aside ‘X’ number of units for affordable housing.” Depending on the city, this approach has had mixed effects. Some high-end housing developers don’t want to include affordable housing because the price per unit could drop as a result.
Eggleston: It’s critical to think about public-private partnerships in the context of urbanization-related policy goals. I think we’re bound to see them grow. The government has an opportunity to harness the innovation of the private sector through such partnerships.
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Jaclyn Selby
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Former Research Scholar, Japan Program
Jaclyn Selby was a Research Scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center's Japan Program through June 2020. She joined Stanford from a postdoctoral fellowship at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where she was affiliated with the Center for Digital Strategies and the Strategy and Management Faculty Group. Selby's research is at the intersection of strategic management and technology policy for high tech and media industries. Her main areas of focus are the digital platform economy, innovation management, startups, and intellectual property. Her work has been published in Communications & Strategies, Foreign Policy Digest, and Intellibridge Asia.
Selby holds a PhD from the University of Southern California, an MA from Georgetown University, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she was a Senior Researcher at Project Argus, a global leader in federally-funded disease and disaster intelligence, where she headed three operations research and tech strategy projects. Her background also includes experience in boutique consulting, as Research & Marketing Director for the Style and Image Network, and in geopolitical consulting (Intellibridge, Courage Services, CastleAsia).
Is Financial Inclusion only an emerging markets, bottom-of-the-pyramid problem or is it also a challenge for the middle class and in developed countries too?
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Over two billion adults in the world (38% of all adults) are unbanked. Several more are underbanked and may have basic accounts but do not have access to credit or insurance services and not ‘financially healthy’. Anju will share her insights on the financially underserved (unbanked and underbanked) in emerging markets and developed world and possible solutions that are emerging in the digital age to help the financially underserved, in a commercially viable manner.
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4:15pm: Doors open
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Register to attend at http://www.stanford-svnj.org/svnj-public-forum-12516
For more information about the Silicon Valley-New Japan Project please visit: http://www.stanford-svnj.org/
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Do Startups Learn When They Fail? Using Crowdfunding Data to Compare When and If Entrepreneurs Learn from Experience and Observation
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Do startups learn from their own past experiences? What about observing other entrepreneurs' experiences? Using the results of her recent study on tech ventures on Kickstarter, Jaclyn Selby will share the circumstances under which startups do - and do NOT - learn from previous success and failure. She will also explore whether startups learn best from prior experience in related or in unrelated industries.
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Prior to PhD life, Jaclyn was a Senior Researcher heading federally-funded tech strategy projects at Project Argus, a leader in disease and disaster intelligence. Her group worked with partners at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Open Source Center, the University of Iowa Avian Flu prediction market, and the Al Fornace molecular biology lab. Prior to Argus, she was Research & Marketing Director of the Style and Image Network, a boutique consultancy, and a geopolitical analyst (Intellibridge, Castle Asia, Courage Services). A U.S. citizen, Jaclyn was raised overseas in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.
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4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking
RSVP Required
Register to attend at http://www.stanford-svnj.org/new-events-2
For more information about the Silicon Valley-New Japan Project please visit: http://www.stanford-svnj.org/
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