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Safecast and Fukushima Fallout: Disaster Catalyzing Entrepreneurship, Empowering Citizen Science

This event is co-sponsored by the Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project and the Japan Society of Northern California.

When the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant experienced a meltdown after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, people scrambled to get accurate data on radiation. Geiger counters were suddenly a hot commodity. In that moment of crisis, a group of global citizens rose to the occasion to launch Safecast, an open data platform to track, monitor and share data on the radiation levels in Fukushima and throughout Japan. Safecast, a Japan Earthquake Relief Fund grantee, enlisted the help of volunteers who collected the data from all over Japan, and even built its own DIY Geiger counter kit. The Japan Society of Northern California and the Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project are proud to present a program with Pieter Franken, the Co-Founder of Safecast, will look back at Safecast’s evolution—a prime example of citizen science embracing open data and open source—over the last six years and their plans to expand their data gathering efforts to take on new environmental challenges. 

SPEAKER

Pieter Franken, Senior Advisor, Monex Group & Co-founder, Safecast

BIO

Pieter Franken's career spans over 25 years in Financial Services, specializing in O&T, Fintech, innovation and large-scale transformations. He has held C-level and executive positions with industry leaders such as Citigroup, Shinsei Bank, Aplus, Monex Securities and Monex Group. His hallmark is pioneering innovative services by implementing bleeding edge technologies while minimizing time-to-market and dramatically reducing costs. Versed in large scale IT transformation, bi-modal management, innovation, software development, datacenter operations, financial operations and FinTech, he is a much looked after advisor and speaker on a wide range of topics and is known for providing deep insights pulling from is wide experience in IT, financial services and innovation management. 

Pieter currently is Senior Advisor at Monex Group (a leading online securities and financial services company in Japan) where he focuses on the Future of Financial Services, Group IT Strategy, Fintech, and Blockchain. 

He is also a member of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) International Technology Advisory Panel (ITAP) where he contributes in the transformation of Singapore as a leading Fintech Hub. In 2011 Pieter co-founded Safecast.org - a global volunteer initiative to collect citizen sourced environmental data. Pieter also advises startups, such as ModuleQ, an AI startup based in Silicon Valley. Pieter holds a MSc in Computer Science from Delft University (The Netherlands) and currently is a researcher with MIT Media Lab (US) and Keio University (Japan) where he contributes to the advancement in IoT, Digital Currencies, Block-chain technologies and Citizen Science. Pieter is based in Japan and frequently travels across Asia, North America and Europe.

AGENDA

4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking

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LOCATION

Philippines Conference Room, 3rd floor Encina Hall, 616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA 94305

PARKING

Open parking at Stanford University available starting 4:00pm near Encina Hall unless otherwise marked. Nearest parking garage is Structure 7, below the Graduate School of Business Knight School of Management.

 

RSVP REQUIRED