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Jerry Kaplan

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Former Adjunct Lecturer
Former Research Affiliate
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Jerry Kaplan is widely known as an Artificial Intelligence expert, serial entrepreneur, technical innovator, educator, bestselling author, and futurist.

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 a former Lecturer and Research Affiliate at CDDRL, a Visiting Lecturer in Computer Science, and a Fellow at the Center for Legal Informatics at Stanford University Law School. 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.

Jerry Kaplan is the author of three 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 latest book, "Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know" (Oxford University Press) was a 2016 Amazon new release #1 best seller in Artificial Intelligence.

Jerry Kaplan has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, Red Herring, and Upside. He is a frequent commentary contributor to major newspapers and magazines. 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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Hub for global digital policy launches at Stanford

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The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University announced today that it has launched the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi). GDPi’s mission is to help develop governance norms for the global digital ecosystem that reinforce democratic values, universal human rights and the rule of law. It will serve as a multi-stakeholder collaboration hub at Stanford for technologists, governments, civil society and the private sector actors. GDPi will identify and incubate global policy and governance innovations that enhance freedom, security and trust in the digital realm. 

 

GDPi will be led by Eileen Donahoe who is widely recognized as a leading advocate for human rights in the digital realm, and as an experienced international lawyer and diplomat working to develop global norms for Internet governance and digital policy.  

Donahoe was appointed by President Obama to serve as the first United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. After leaving government, Donahoe served as director of global affairs at Human Rights Watch, where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with special emphasis on digital rights, cybersecurity and Internet governance. 

“Silicon Valley is a natural locus for cross-sector international collaboration on global digital norms,” said Donahoe. “Our mission will be to facilitate development of operational policies and processes to address societal challenges that arise from technological innovation. I am so excited to have the opportunity to build this global innovation hub for digital policy at CDDRL, the perfect home for this dynamic and interdisciplinary project.”  

GDPi will explore the complex roles of government and private sector technology firms in the digital environment. While rapid adoption of digital technology has brought many benefits and challenges to society, most legal and governance institutions have not kept pace or adjusted to meet the corresponding changes.  

GDPi will address governance challenges in four interrelated areas: digital rights; digital security; artificial Intelligence-based governance and trans-national Internet governance. The initiative seeks to engage stakeholders in new articulations of existing international human rights and humanitarian law.  [[{"fid":"226716","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Eileen with President Obama during her tenure as the first US Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. ","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"3":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Eileen with President Obama during her tenure as the first US Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. ","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"style":"margin: 3px 10px; float: right; height: 393px; width: 300px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"3"}}]]

Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and an affiliated faculty member at CDDRL, will serve as the principal investigator on the GDPi project.  

“We are really delighted that Eileen Donahoe has agreed to join CDDRL as adjunct professor and executive director of the new GDPi,” said Diamond. “Every month, it seems, social media and other digital tools are becoming more and more powerful and pervasive in their effects on our politics, government and daily lives. As digital technology races forward, it not only generates new platforms and possibilities for human empowerment, but it also poses growing challenges for human rights and individual, national and international security.”   

Diamond launched the Program on Liberation Technology (LibTech) at CDDRL in 2009 to examine how technology has empowered democratic progress. GDPi is a successor to the LibTech program, enabling the Stanford team to take a more comprehensive and policy-oriented approach to digital policy challenges - involving not only research but also innovation to incubate new ideas and approaches.  

Quarterly workshops and an annual global conference will be the foundation for GDPi’s work in the coming year.  

The GDPi initiative joins five other core research programs at CDDRL, which probe some of the most urgent issues facing the field of democracy and development. Working in partnership with other institutes on campus, the program will benefit from the guidance and active engagement of cross-disciplinary faculty from Stanford Law School, the Center for Internet and Society, the Stanford Cyber Initiative and the Center for Social Innovation at the Graduate School of Business. 

Michael McFaul, director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies expressed confidence that GDPi will help solidify Stanford’s role as a global thought-leader on governance challenges that flow from digital technology. 

“The Global Digital Policy Incubator will become an important hub at Stanford, as we seek to help government and private sector policymakers address governance challenges of the 21st century digital world.”  

More information about the Global Digital Policy Incubator can be found at http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/global-digital-policy-incubator

 

 

CAPTIONS:

The picture in the left upper corner: Eileen Donahoe addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, where she served as the first US Ambassador 2010-2013.

The picture on the right: Eileen Donahoe with President Obama during her tenure at the UNHRC. 

 

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Democracy Rebooted: The Future of Technology in Elections

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Please RSVP. We will close registration once the attendance list reaches 250 people. 

Abstract:

 

On September 24, Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law in partnership with The Atlantic Council will present a public address by President Toomas Ilves of Estonia on the future of technology in elections. Elections are set to take center stage in the coming year, in this country and abroad. As technology plays an increasingly large role in people’s lives, the discussion—moderated by CDDRL Director Francis Fukuyama— will explore its role in elections worldwide. President Ilves of Estonia—the only country in the world to use Internet voting for national elections— will discuss how technology can promote transparency, inclusion, and stronger democracies.

This event is a partnership between Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and The Atlantic Council, a DC-based think-tank committed to promoting constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs.

Bio:

 

Toomas Hendrik Ilves was elected President of the Republic of Estonia in 2006 and re-elected in 2011. He served as Chairman of the EU Task Force on eHealth from 2011 to 2012, and since November 2012 he became Chairman of the European Cloud Partnership Steering Board. His interest in computers stems from an early age – he learned to program at the age of 13 - and he has been promoting Estonia’s IT-development since the country restored its independence. Prior to his presidency, he served as Ambassador of Estonia to the United States of America and Canada (1993 -1996). In this position, he initiated the Tiger Leap initiative to computerize and connect all Estonian schools online. He also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1996-1998; 1998-2002) and Member of the Estonian Parliament (2002-2004). In recent years, President Ilves has spoken and written extensively on integration, transatlantic relations, e-government, and cyber security. He graduated from Columbia University in 1976 and received his Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. 

 

 

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves President Republic of Estonia
Lectures
CDDRL Special Events

Empowering Women Leaders

Sweeping reforms of Indian government institutions created space for women’s political inclusion at an unprecedented scale. As of 1993, one-third of all positions in Panchayats (local government councils) are reserved for women, and in some states as much as half the positions are reserved for women. Evidence shows that women’s presence in local government improves women’s access to justice and public goods and reduces corruption.

Conference Report: Coalition Against Corruption [Jan. 2014]

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CoCo 2014 was the inaugural edition of the Coalition against Corruption (CoCo) conference co-hosted by The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Bangalore and Sunlight Foundation, Washington DC. 

CoCo brought together participants from over fifteen countries and across a wide spectrum comprising researchers and academics, elected representatives, government officials, practitioners, civil society organisations, technologists and citizens. 

Over three days, we engaged in conversations on a wide range of issues on the following corruption types: 

  • Corruption in public resource allocation
  • Political financing and lobbying
  • Corruption in public procurement
  • Retail corruption in public services for citizens

CoCo 2014 explored these corruption-types in an innovative format across the themes of rule of law, tools of transparency and accountability and the impact of grassroots pressure groups and digital platforms. 

Besides the four plenaries, CoCo allowed plenty of time for short presentations, for showcasing practitioner successes and for open group discussions. Part of the agenda was also an “Unconference” session for surfacing and discussing critical challenges that went beyond the four corruption-types in focus at CoCo. 

For more information on the conference and its sponsors, please see here. 

Below is the link for the conference report. 

 

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Open Government Partnership - A new platform for reforms in transparent and accountable governments

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Three years ago, world leaders from 8 countries came together to launch the Open Government Partnership (OGP) - a multi-stakeholder initiative that brings together domestic reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable and responsive to citizens. Since then, the partnership has rapidly grown from 8 to 65 countries. In this talk, Linda Frey speaks about OGP's new approach to multilateralism, and how the uniqueness of its model is helping to spur progress on concrete open government reforms in a diverse group of countries.  Frey will draw on the findings of OGP's Independent Reporting Mechanism to speak to early successes, as well as implementation challenges and areas for further study.  

 

Speaker Bio

Munyema Hasan

Munyema Hasan

Program Officer
Open Government Partnership, Support Unit

Munyema joined the OGP Support Unit in January 2014 as Program Officer. She has spent the past four years working in the field of transparent and accountable governance, with organizations like the World Bank, International Budget Partnership, Stanford University and the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability. Munyema holds a M.Sc. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the American University in Cairo, Egypt and the University of California, Berkeley.

This event is part of the Liberation Technology Seminar Series. 

PLEASE NOTE: NEW ROOM

School of Education 

Room 128

 

Munyema Hasan Open Government Partnership
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