FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.
They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.
FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.
FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.
Information for Power: Risk Management, Cybersecurity, and the Electrical Power Grid
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Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Assistance to North Korea: What are the needs today after almost 20 years of aid projects and programs?
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Due to the interest generated by this seminar, we have reached our maximum seating capacity and are not able to accommodate any more guests. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.
This event is co-sponsored by The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
About the Topic: Following several visits to North Korea in recent months, the most recent one in April 2014, Kathi Zellweger will focus her remarks on humanitarian aid, rehabilitation projects, and development cooperation in North Korea. The presenter’s findings will be supported by a number of facts and figures about the country and background information about the health sector. The speaker will identify the participants in the area of assistance along with the issues they face when providing aid. The talk will also provide insights into positive examples of projects, what is needed for projects to succeed, and how the type of aid required is changing. Based on nearly 20 years of work experience involving North Korea, Zellweger concludes that isolation and sanctions hinder development potential and that engagement is more likely to be a constructive and peaceful way forward.
About the Speaker: Kathi Zellweger is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Prior to that she was the Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, in residence at Stanford University from November 2011 to August 2013. Most recently at Stanford she gave a course entitled “An Insight into North Korea Society” for graduate and undergraduate students. She is a frequent presenter on the topic of the situation of the North Korean people, to audiences in the U.S. and abroad. Zellweger has also made significant contributions in this field through her participation in workshops, seminars and conferences about humanitarian, as well as security, issues on the Korean peninsula, more specifically regarding North Korea.
Zellweger is a senior aid manager with over 30 years of field experience in Hong Kong, China and North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006-2011) as North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The focus of her work was on sustainable agricultural production in order to address food security issues, income generation to improve people’s livelihoods, and capacity development contributing to individual and institutional learning.
Before joining SDC, Zellweger worked from 1978 to 2006 for the Catholic agency Caritas in Hong Kong in a senior post; she played a key role in pioneering Caritas involvement initiatives in China and in North Korea.
Zellweger received the Bishop Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Award in 2005 from a South Korean foundation established to promote social justice, and in 2006 the Dame of St. Gregory the Great from the Vatican for her work in North Korea.
CISAC Conference Room
Visiting Fellow, CISAC, Former Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies, APARC
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Seminars
What is synthetic biology and why does it matter?
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About the topic: Products developed using recombinant DNA methods account for over $300 billion in annual U.S. domestic revenues, underlying a so-called “bioeconomy” that has grown 10-15% annually since the invention of genetic engineering ~40 years ago. Yet most of biotechnology has not been imagined let alone made true. I will review the last decade of work to make biology easier to engineer, from basic science to applied tools. Particular attention will be given to two underlying trends that are having policy impacts beyond research labs: (i) interconversion of physical genetic material and digital sequence information via advancing DNA sequence and synthesis tools, (ii) coordination of labor across time and place via technical standards supporting composition, measurement, and data exchange.
About the speaker: Drew works on “synthetic biology.” His group invented genome refactoring to both study and extend the utility of bacteriophage. His team also realized non-volatile chromosomal digital data storage, amplifying genetic logic gates, and cell-cell communication via engineered DNA messaging. He led the BIOFAB team that engineered a professional collection of reliably reusable standard biological parts and started the BioBricks Foundation (BBF) as a charity supporting development of a free-to-use language for programming life to benefit all people and the planet. In 2013 Drew was recognized by the White House for the BBF’s contributions to “open science” and received the Seymour Benzer lectureship from the US NAS.
CISAC Conference Room
Drew Endy
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endy@stanford.edu
Martin Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Faculty Co-Director of Degree Programs, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
Faculty of Bioengineering, Stanford University
Core Faculty, Center for International Security and Cooperation
Drew Endy is a bioengineer at Stanford University who studies and teaches synthetic biology. His goals are civilization-scale flourishing and a renewal of liberal democracy. Prof. Endy helped launch new undergraduate majors in bioengineering at both MIT and Stanford and also the iGEM — a global genetic-engineering “Olympics” enabling thousands of students annually. His past students lead companies like Ginkgo Bioworks and Octant. He is married to Christina Smolke CEO of Antheia the essential medicine company. Endy served on the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) the Committee on Science Technology & Law (CSTL) the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Synthetic Biology Task Force and, briefly, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board (DIB). He currently serves on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research. Esquire magazine recognized Drew as one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.
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Why Nuclear Weapons Became Unsustainable: Modernization Theory, International Norms, and the Environmental Roots of the Nuclear Taboo, 1958-1968
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Vinton Cerf to talk about safety and security in a wired-up world
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Vinton Cerf, who helped develop the Internet while at Stanford in the 1970s, will deliver the 2014 Drell Lecture at Stanford on Jan. 22. Now the vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google, Cerf will talk about safety and security in a transnational environment.
Vinton Cerf, a pioneering computer scientist who helped launch the Internet, will talk at Stanford University on Jan. 22 about security in our highly wired, globalized world.
Cerf's talk, "Safety and Security in a Transnational World," is the 2014 installment of the Drell Lecture, which is sponsored by Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The lecture is named for CISAC's co-founder, Sidney Drell.
The event will take place from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Oak Lounge on the second floor of Tressider Memorial Union. The event is free and open to the media and public; no RSVP is required.
Cerf, who earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Stanford University, worked in the Silicon Valley computer industry before serving as an assistant professor at Stanford from 1972 to1976. During that time, he helped co-design the fundamental architecture underlying the Internet. In 1997, President Bill Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Since 2005, Cerf has worked as the vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google.
Cerf's lecture will include moderated questions and will be live-streamed online at www.ustream.tv/channel/stanford-cisac. CISAC will also be live-tweeting during the event and you can follow the conversation at #VintCerfFSI.
Clifton B. Parker is a writer for the Stanford News Service.
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