Abstract:
The Government of India is embarking on an ambitious program to provide all residents with a biometric unique ID (UID) to improve beneficiary experiences in public programs. The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Program is the longest-running biometric electronic benefits transfer (EBT) initiative in India and the experiences from Andhra Pradesh can therefore provide key insights into the process and impact of implementing such a biometrically authenticated payment system. The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Study is a large-scale randomized evaluation of the impact of using biometric smartcards on beneficiary welfare and has been underway for 18 months at this point. Professor Muralidharan will present preliminary results from this research focusing on the insights gained from studying the process of rolling out Smartcards in Andhra Pradesh.

Karthik Muralidharan is an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego where he has been on the faculty since 2008.Born and raised in India, he earned an A.B. in economics (summa cum laude) from Harvard, an M.Phil. in economics from Cambridge (UK), and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Junior Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a Member of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) network, an Affiliate at the Center of Evaluation for Global Action (CEGA), and a Research Affiliate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).

Prof. Muralidharan's primary research interests include development, public, and labor economics. Specific topics of interest include education, health, and social protection; measuring quality of public service delivery; program evaluation; and improving the effectiveness of public spending (with a focus on developing countries). Courses taught include undergraduate and graduate classes in development economics, program evaluation, and the economics of education.

Kathleen Reen is the Vice-President for Asia and New Media Programs with Internews. Reen leads media and information development programs across Asia, and a global Open Internet programs with a team of 12 international and local partner organizations. She has worked for Internews on a variety of assignments from Bosnia and Serbia, founding Internews’ program in Indonesia in as well as projects in Thailand, Cambodia, Timor, Pakistan and China. As Country Director in Indonesia she managed a project developing and implementing media legal reforms, training and productions, Internet access, and local media NGO-building efforts. In late 2004 she led Internews first humanitarian media efforts in Aceh after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

A journalist and documentary producer by background, Reen worked in Eastern and Southern Europe and Southeast Asia before joining Internews. In 2005 she was a co-founder and first Director of the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD). In 2006 she was selected as a fellow of the Asia Society’s “Asia 21″ program. In 2008 she became a fellow of the Flowfund, which supports the development of US domestic and global philanthropy with a focus on social entrepreneurs. She has helped establish several national and regional organizations in Asia that are devoted to media development and information. She represents Internews to the GNI – the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to improve freedom of expression and best practices for companies with NGOs and human rights organizations around the world.

Abstract
Will mobile phones transform the lives of the world’s poor?  In this talk, I describe how innovative sources of data can provide new insight into the social and economic impacts of Mobile Money and other phone-based services in sub-Saharan Africa.  I will focus on a series of related projects in Rwanda, which exploit a terabyte-scale database of phone calls, text messages, and mobile money transfers to explore patterns of social interaction and, ultimately, provide insight into the role of mobile phones in the Rwandan economy.  Taken together, the results indicate that phones have had a positive impact on the lives of some people but, absent intervention, the benefits may not reach those with the greatest need.

Joshua Blumenstock is a Ph.D. candidate at U.C. Berkeley’s School of Information.  His research focuses on the economic and social impacts of information and communication technologies in developing countries.  In recent work, Blumenstock has shown how terabyte-scale data collected by mobile operators can be used to provide insight into the structure of informal insurance networks (Rwanda/Uganda); the socioeconomic impacts of mobile banking (Pakistan/Mongolia); and the effectiveness of anti-corruption campaigns (Afghanistan). He has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, and the Harvard Institutes of Medicine.  Blumenstock holds a Master's degree in Economics from U.C. Berkeley, and Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Computer Science from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.

Abstract
Two and half years before there was anything called the “Arab Spring,” Wired contributing editor David Wolman traveled to Egypt to research and write about tech-savvy dissidents protesting against the Mubarak regime. Those same activists went on to play a central role in organizing the revolution that began on January 25, 2011. Wolman will share stories about his reporting, both from 2008 and during two trips in 2011, and discuss the role of social media in recent uprisings from Cairo to California.

David Wolman is an author and award-winning journalist. He is a contributing editor for Wired, and he has written for a variety of publications, including Outside, Mother Jones, Newsweek, Discover, Forbes, and Salon. Wolman is a former Fulbright journalism fellow in Japan and a graduate of Stanford University's journalism program. His latest book, The End of Money, will be out in February.

Abstract:

The 2012 Republic of China presidential and legislative elections to be held on January 14th mark the fifth presidential and seventh national legislative direct elections in Taiwan. Incumbent ROC President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) enjoyed a landslide victory in 2008 over Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Hsieh Chang-ting, winning by over 2.2 million votes. Subsequent revelations of corruption by former President Chen Shui-bian of the DPP and various members of his administration further damaged the DPP's public image and electoral prospects.

In the intervening years, however, current DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen and other members of the DPP have worked to revitalize their party's image, and as chairperson of the DPP Tsai established a special internal investigative committee to root out corruption in the party. A potentially complicating new factor in the race is the first-ever presidential bid by the People's First Party (PFP), led by candidate James Soong. Polling results to date have indicated the potential for a very close race between Ma and Tsai, with Soong also pulling a substantial portion of the vote that may affect the electoral outcome.

On the legislative side, the KMT won 81 out of 113 total seats in the Legislative Yuan in the 2008 elections, a circumstance that has facilitated the passage of various controversial measures supported by the Ma administration, including in particular the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with mainland China, and a significant shift in the composition of this body is likely to have a pronounced impact.

Regardless of the outcome, the results of the 2012 elections promise to offer much insight into the popular attitudes of the Taiwanese people and the prospects for future democratic consolidation and development in Taiwan. Ten days following the elections, Professors Shelly Rigger and Eric Chen-hua Yu will join us for a panel discussion to analyze the outcomes of these elections and discuss their relevance to the US and the world.

Speaker Bios:

Shelley Rigger is the Brown Professor of East Asian Politics and Chair of Political Science at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. She has a PhD in Government from Harvard University and a BA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. She has been a visiting researcher at National Chengchi University in Taiwan (2005) and a visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai (2006). Rigger is the author of two books on Taiwan’s domestic politics, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (Routledge 1999) and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party(Lynne Rienner Publishers 2001). In 2011 she published Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse, a book for general readers. She has published articles on Taiwan’s domestic politics, the national identity issue in Taiwan-China relations and related topics. Her current research studies the effects of cross-strait economic interactions on Taiwan and Mainland China. Her monograph, “Taiwan’s Rising Rationalism: Generations, Politics and ‘Taiwan Nationalism’” was published by the East West Center in Washington in November 2006.

Eric Chen-hua Yu is an assistant research fellow of the Election Study Center and

jointly appointed as an assistant professor of political science at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Before he returned to Taiwan to serve in his Alma mater in 2009, he has been a research fellow and program manager of Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies since 2006. His research interests include public opinion, electoral politics, quantitative methods, and American politics. He also participates in a number of joint survey projects such as Taiwan Election and Democratization Studies (TEDS) and World Value Survey. Yu recently published academic articles on Taiwan’s domestic politics in Taiwan Political Science Review, Journal of Electoral Studies, Review of Social Sciences, and Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies. Yu received a MS (2000) in Public Policy Analysis from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in political science (2006) from Columbia University.