A new study by Center on Food Security and the Environment researchers finds that smallholder irrigation systems - those in which water access (via pump or human power), distribution (furrow, watering can, sprinkler, drip lines, etc.), and use all occur at or near the same location - have great potential to reduce hunger, raise incomes and improve development prospects in an area of the world greatly in need of these advancements. Financing is crucial, as even the cheapest pumps can be prohibitively expensive otherwise.
These systems have the potential to use water more productively, improve nutritional outcomes and rural development, and narrow the income disparities that permit widespread hunger to persist despite economic advancement. Only 4 percent of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa is currently irrigated.
"Success stories can be found where distributed systems are used in a cooperative setting, permitting the sharing of knowledge, risk, credit and marketing as we've seen in our solar market garden project in Benin," said Jennifer Burney, lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Moving forward development communities and sub-Saharan African governments need a better understanding of present water resources and how they will be affected by climate change.
"Farmers need access to financial services—credit and insurance—appropriate for a range of production systems," said co-author and Stanford Woods Institute Senior Fellow Rosamond Naylor. "Investments should start at a smaller scale, with thorough project evaluation, before scaling up."
FSE continues to contribute to these evaluations and added eight new villages to our project in Benin last year.
Roundtable at Stanford
On June 26-27, the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) hosted a circle of leaders from academia, industry, and the public sector who are driving the understanding and best practice for smart green cities to gather for a dynamic and interactive roundtable at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
The aim was to convene a productive mix of researchers and experts for presentations and fruitful discussion on the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of information technologies and energy that can transform buildings and transportation on the urban scale.
Smart and Green
Innovations at the intersection of smart and green-- in technologies, products and services--are transforming how we work and live. Smart represents ubiquitous information and communication technology, driven by advances in computing, internet, cloud, and mobile. Green signals bringing clean tech to energy consumers to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency.
Buildings and Transportation in Cities
More than half of the world’s population now resides in cities, with urbanization projected to intensify in key areas, such as in China and Africa. In cities, buildings and transportation account for the largest proportion of energy use; together they also shape the quality of daily life and work.
Learning from Innovations Deployed or Ready to Demo
In these two key application areas, there has been a great deal of R&D, investment and experimentation, ranging from designs for whole new cities in Son
"Innovations for Smart Green Cities" Conference program
Key Questions
With the early phases of technologies, products and services now deployed, it is important to take stock. What is working (and what is not)? Why? How can feedback from researchers, designers, vendors, and—importantly—users be leveraged for future improvement in design and strategy? What new developments are ready to demo or be commercialized that may also significant impact the next generation of smart green cities?
During the “Smart Green Innovations” Roundtable, discussions focused on an array of questions, such as:
Knight Management Center, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Organized by the Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE) at SPRIE, Stanford Graduate School of Business, this panel discussion will talk about the Japanese government, METI's and U.S. Embassy's efforts to promote cross border investments between U.S. and Japan.
A particular interest in the discussion will be the "fly over phenomenon", which is the tendency of U.S. based venture capital firms to fly from Silicon Valley, over Japan, and land into China.
The panel will consist an elite group of experts, Michael Alfant, CEO of Fusion Systems, Martin Kenney, Professor at UC Davis, Allen Miner, CEO of SunBridge Corporation, and a venture capitalist to be named.
About the speakers
Mr. Robert Eberhart is a researcher at Stanford’s Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship where he leads the Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship. His research focuses on comparative corporate governance of growth companies with special emphasis on Japan and the role of Japanese institutions in fostering entrepreneurship. Mr. Eberhart received a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Michigan after undergraduate studies in Finance at Michigan State University. He is a doctoral candidate in Stanford’s department of Management Science and Engineering.
Michael Alfant is the Group President and CEO of Fusions Systems Co., Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, with offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. Fusion Systems is one of Asia's fastest growing leaders in Business Technology and Systems Consulting. Michael started an IT solutions company named Fusion Systems Japan in 1992. Mr. Alfant is the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, a frequent speaker at US and Japanese Universities, and a member of the Board of Directors of listed firms in both America and Japan. Michael Alfant graduated from the City University of NY with a BS in Computer Science.
Martin Kenney is a Professor in the Department of Human and Community Development at University of California, Davis and Senior Project Director of Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author and/or editor of five books and 120 articles examining venture capital, high technology and regional development, and university-industry relations. He is an editor at Research Policy and for a Stanford University Press book series on innovation in the global economy. Martin has also been a visiting researcher at the Copenhagen Business School, and Cambridge Hitotsubashi, Kobe, Stanford, and Tokyo Universities.
Allen Miner is a founder/General Partner of SunBridge Partners and the founder/CEO of SunBridge Corporation. Allen has significant experience in Internet, enterprise and open-source software, entrepreneurship, and international technology transfer. Allen has been actively involved in each of the firm’s investments resulting in numerous successful IPOs, including Salesforce.com, MacroMill, ITMedia and G-Mode, among others. Allen is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Salesforce Japan.
Scott Ellman is CEO and Co-Founder of USAsia Venture Partners. He has over twenty years of experience in strategic alliances, marketing, and business development. Scott has held senior positions at high technology pioneers Silicon Graphics (SGI) and VMware where, among other things, he managed some of the companies' most important alliances such as those with Hitachi, Toshiba, Oracle, NEC, Dell, IBM, and HP. Scott is a strategic advisor to several technology companies as well as the Keizai Society and a member of the Japan-US Innovation in Business and Technology Advisory Council. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Brown University.
Quaeed "Q" Motiwala joined JAIC US in 2008 and brings 14 years of product and business development experience, working extensively across US, Japan, South Korea and India. At DFJ JAIC, he specializes in Mobile, B2B Software and Cleantech sectors in the US. Prior to JAIC, Q spent 11 years at Qualcomm in various ASIC product development and business leadership roles that included deploying 3G EV-DO in Korea, Japan and U.S, leading the initiative to embed wireless in notebooks and automobiles and leading business efforts at the Indian wireless carriers. He was also part of two mobile software startups - SKY MobileMedia and Azteq Mobile. Q holds 5 patents in wireless telecom, has an MBA from Anderson School of Management, UCLA, an M.S.E.E from Virginia Tech and a B.E. (Electronics) from University of Bombay. Q serves as a Board of Director at Tradescape, Innopath Software, and Vitriflex.
William F. Miller is Herbert Hoover Professor of Public and Private Management Emeritus; Professor of Computer Science Emeritus; President Emeritus, SRI International; Chairman Emeritus, Borland Software Corporation; and Chairman/Founder of Nanostellar, Inc. Professor Miller has carried out research on atomic and nuclear physics, computer graphic systems and languages, computer systems architecture, and the computer industry. His current research interests are on industrial development with special interest in local and regional industrial development, the evolution of regions of innovation and entrepreneurship, the “habitat” for entrepreneurship, and the globalization of R&D. His international industrial development studies have focused on Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Malaysia.
Directions
Map of Knight Management Center:
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/packages/PDF/GSB-kmc-campus-map-Final.pdf
Directions to Stanford Graduate School of Business:
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/about/directions.html
Presented by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship-Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (SPRIE-STAJE) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Parking on the Stanford University campus can be challenging, so please consider arriving early. Parking is free after 4PM. Parking spaces may be available at the new Knight Management Center, Stanford Graduate School of Business:
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/about/gsbvisitors.html
C102, MBA Class of 1968 Building
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Knight Management Center
655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305-7298
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
SPEAKER CHECKLISTfor conference website and printed materialsPlease email all information to yanmei@stanford.edu |
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| Item Required | Date Due |
| Short biography in paragraph format with your name, organization/institution and area of work to be used for the conference pack, not longer than 200 words. | June 6, 2011 |
| Headshot suitably large for printing (at least 350 pixels in both dimensions) | June 6, 2011 |
| Draft Presentation | June 21, 2011 |
| Final Presentation | 9am, June 27, 2011 |
KEY QUESTIONS to be addressed
important notes to speakers
Bechtel Conference Center
Minoru Aosaki, "International Banking Regulation after the Financial Crisis: Economic Impacts and Policy Challenges in the US, Japan, and the EU"
To address lessons of the financial crisis, the Basel Committee introduced a new international framework on banking regulations, known as Basel III. The world leaders subsequently committed to implement it at the last G20 summit meeting. A current key issue is how regulators in each country should/can transform their current regulatory regime to the new regime under their own economic and regulatory environments. To consider the issue, Aosaki examines how economic costs and benefits of the regulatory reform would vary among countries and discusses policy challenges of the regulators to ensure the benefits and mitigate the costs.
Pradnya Palande, "Population Dynamics: A New Approach in Understanding Cancer Development"
Cancer, the most vicious and hard to cure disease, results from an accumulation of genetic alterations best known as mutations, in our body. These mutations constantly keep evolving by natural selection. A consequence of this evolution is that a cancer treatment will tend to kill the susceptible cells but will leave the resistant ones to flourish. A few months later, the cancer will reappear and will be resistant to previous treatment. Hence studying the population dynamics of cancer will provide insight into development of cancer and will help in developing better methods for cancer prevention and therapy.
Palande has concentrated her research on population dynamics of cancer cells in chronic myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer. She is trying to study the role of the antibody diversification enzyme, namely Activation Induced cytidine Deaminase (AID), in the generation of mutations associated with cancer progression and drug resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia.
Naoki Takeuchi, "Energy Policies, Clean Technologies, and Business Innovations in the United States"
In January 2011, at his State of the Union speech, President Obama suggested setting a goal that 80% of electricity will come from clean energy sources in the United States by 2035. He also suggested that the United States will become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
In Takeuchi's research, he tries to understand the dynamic interactions among government energy policies, clean technologies, and business innovations in the United States. His research includes an overview of federal energy policies (both regulations and incentives), an overview of California State government policies, recent trends of clean technologies, venture capital investments in cleantech companies, and major areas of clean technologies and business innovations. In this presentation, Takeuchi will present case studies focusing on cleantech companies in the Silicon Valley.
Philippines Conference Room
FORUM Speakers & DISCUSSANTS (listed in alphabetical order)
Questions for presentations and discussion included:
Outcomes will include policy recommendations as well as highlights to be included in a book published by SPRIE at Stanford.
