Date and Time
September 21, 2011
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Availability
RSVP

Event Overview:

In the US, entrepreneurship is the engine that drives economic growth. Especially in Silicon Valley, people understand how this engine works: how entrepreneurs behave, how they view risk, where they get their funding, how their successes are rewarded, and what happens when their ventures fail. What about their Japanese counterparts? The conventional wisdom in the US is that Japanese entrepreneurship is not only different from the American variety but is also less vibrant, less well-funded, more risk-averse, and generally a less important "engine" for overall economic growth.  Is this conventional wisdom generally correct? Or are the perceived shortcomings of the Japanese entrepreneurial system (for example, the vastly lower venture capital investment figures routinely quoted) just that -- "perceived" rather than real? What business and cultural factors could explain such misperceptions, and what are the implications for cross-border entrepreneurial opportunities?  Join our panelists, Robert Eberhart, Kenji Kushida, and Lisa Katayama, as they discuss the myths, reality and promise of Japanese entrepreneurship and its impact on the overall Japanese economy.

Keizai Society’s theme for the remainder of 2011 is “Recovery and Renewal – Toward a New Japan of Compassion and Growth.” Going forward, all 2011 programs of Keizai Society will be dedicated to building awareness of the crisis in Japan and sustaining Japan’s recovery efforts. Also proceeds from these programs shall be donated to Keizai’s Japan Relief Fund. Please come and find out what the real impact of the disaster is and where we go from here to recover, renew and grow again.

Panelist Bio:

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.  He is a member of the Academy of Management, the International Society for New Institutional Economics, on the board of advisors to Japan’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, and an advisor to Japan’s Board of Director’s Training Institute.  He serves as an academic advisor to the American Chamber of Commerce’s Task Force on New Growth Strategies and is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer in various programs at Stanford and Japan.  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.  

Dr. Kenji Kushida is a research associate at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.  He is also an affiliated researcher with the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) at the University of California Berkeley.  He completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of California Berkeley, and holds Masters and Bachelors Degrees from Stanford University in East Asian Studies and Economics.  Dr. Kushida’s ongoing research interests are focused on politics, institutions, and markets, mainly in Japan, Korea, and the United States. His publications include analyses of how Information Technologies are transforming services activities, understanding the emerging Cloud Computing markets, and the political economies of broadband and mobile in Japan and South Korea. He recently completed a study on entrepreneurship in Japan’s ICT sector, and plays an active role in facilitating exchange between Japanese startups and Silicon Valley. He has also authored two books in Japanese: “Baikaruchaa to nihonjin [Biculturalism and the Japanese:  Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities]” and “International school nyumon [International Schools, an Introduction]”.

Ms.  Lisa Katayama is a San Francisco-based journalist who writes about Japanese culture, technology, and entrepreneurship for Wired, Popular Science, Fast Company, and The New York Times Magazine. She is also the founder of The Tofu Project, a highly curated boutique program that will bring 10 of the most successful, innovative young entrepreneurs from Japan to SF for a 7-day design and out of the box thinking crash course at the end of October.    

She is also a producer for PRI's Studio360 radio show, the author of a book called Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan, and a correspondent for Boing Boing, one of Time Magazine's five most essential blogs of 2010, and has spoken about Japanese web culture to the BBC, CNN, ABC, Martha Stewart Radio, and at venues like O'Reilly's ETech conference and the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. Her personal web site, TokyoMango, was a runner up for the Weblog Awards in 2009. She has a BA in International Relations and French from Tufts University and a MA in Human Rights from Columbia University. When she's not working, she rock climbs, does triathlons, and plays the ukulele to her two dogs.

Online live cast provided via Ustream

FEES:  FREE for those who rsvp before 9/19/2011 at 5:00 p.m. (PDT)

Log-in instructions for the live cast will be sent on 9/20/2011 to those who registered