The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) hosted its inaugural research forum "Entrepreneurship for Poverty Alleviation in Developing Economies" on March 5-6, 2012.

The research forum aimed to build a research community and catalyze productive exchanges among researchers, at Stanford and elsewhere, and focused on issues surrounding the alleviation of extreme poverty through innovation and entrepreneurship in developing economies.

Attendees included faculty and PhD students from the Graduate School of Business, School of Medicine, School of Law, School of Engineering and School of Humanities and Sciences, as well as from the various research centers and institutes at Stanford. In addition, prominent scholars from outside Stanford were also in attendance.

The conference focused on three key themes:

• Institutional innovations for developing economies (micro-financing and other financing instruments, government policies, multi-government initiatives, logistics infrastructure, and communication infrastructures, etc.).
• Managerial innovations for developing economies (fostering growth-oriented entrepreneurship, and managerial development for growing companies, etc.).
• Technology innovations for developing economies (using low cost, affordable technologies to support basic needs as well as to enable the general population with productivity gains to create values).

Speakers shared their research and perspectives. The main goal of the research forum was to lay the foundation, in conjunction with the launch of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, for a vibrant community of researchers at Stanford with common interests in the alleviation of poverty in developing economies.

Speakers at the inaugural research forum included:

• Nicholas Bloom, Department of Economics & Graduate School of Business
• Joshua Cohen, School of Law & Department of Political Science
• Pascaline Dupas, Department of Economics
• Dean Karlan, Yale University, Department of Economics
• Aprajit Mahajan, Department of Economics
• Rohini Pande, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
• John Roberts, Graduate School of Business & Department of Economics
• Christopher Tang, UCLA Anderson School of Management
• Jeremy Weinstein, Department of Political Science
• Terry Winograd, Computer Science Department
• Stefanos Zenios, Graduate School of Business & Department of Bioengineering