Congratulations to CE Advisor Peter Drysdale

Our advisor, Peter Drysdale, was recently conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters at Australia National University.

The award recognises Peter’s dedication and contribution to the academic community. But what sets Peter apart, as Vice Chancellor Ian Chubb said at the graduation ceremony, is the influence he commands, with his name instantly recognised ‘in the corridors of power and the hallways of knowledge’ around the region. ‘In a way matched by few other academics in the world’, he said, ‘[Peter] has combined scholarship, policy development, regional institution-building and the mentoring of an extraordinarily large number of students from Australia and across the region’. The ANU’s new Chancellor, former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, described Peter as ‘a living national treasure’ and expressed his good fortune at having been able to turn to him for advice when he was in government.

New Team Member - Clint Rogers

Clint is our latest member and will coordinate our academic visits program and special projects from 2011 onwards. Soojin an I spoke to him and we were both impressed by his entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to education. His bio is as follows:

Dr. Clint Rogers has a heart for engaging in international collaboration (intercultural/interfaith/interdisciplinary) & poverty alleviation (physical, mental, and emotional/spiritual) in creative ways - using technology and collaborative techniques that are born for this moment. He holds a doctorate in Instructional Psychology and Technology, was the first to teach web analytics at a university, and has worked with world-class entrepreneurship, development, and web promotion efforts. He was invited to join the international business mastermind group led by Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes, serves on the board of directors for several hyper-growth companies, and has been requested as a speaker to organizations, businesses, and universities around the world. Clint is commonly asked to present on synergistic cross-cultural collaboration, innovation, global virtual teams, mobilizing online movements, fostering human potential, social entrepreneurship, and the impact of media and technological diffusion on international development. He is active in consulting, teaching, traveling and research, is currently coordinating the Consortium of Universities in ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development), and supervising dissertations of some of the brightest students around the world. The last course he taught was on using ICT for international collaboration -- over 60 Masters and PhD students from over 20+ countries participated, and he taught it while traveling through more than 10 different countries.

Meeting at DPRK Embassy in Singapore

We had a meeting with diplomatic staff at the DPRK Embassy in Singapore. The meeting was arranged by our advisor Wee Lin and the purpose of the meeting was to keep the embassy informed of our work in North Korea and to discuss the best partner institutions in North Korea and outside of North Korea for our upcoming legal training program.

We also want to make this project transparent and wanted their opinion on what funding sources for our project would be acceptable to them. We gave the staff a brochure of our work and promised to keep them informed if any future event takes place in Singapore.

Another Warm Welcome to Ms. Seung Hee Nah

I had the opportunity to talk to Ms. Seung Hee Nah, who is actively involved in the Korean American community and a passionate believer in supporting Koreans everywhere. She is interested in introducing the work of international financial institutions to North Koreans and her expertise spans healthcare, education and investments in transitional economies. She recently retired from the World Bank and now Chairs the Korean-American Sharing Movement. Her bio is below and she will join us as an Advisor: Until her early retirement in 2009, Ms. Nah spent 23 years at the International Finance Corporation (“IFC”), a member of the World Bank Group. Ms. Nah’s work at IFC included corporate finance advisory services, particularly in the context of privatization assignments in Eastern Europe and Kenya in the early 1990s, and analyses and processing of new investment projects in East Asia in the mid-1990s. Her assignments included business development and analyses of investment proposals in East Asia, mostly China and Korea, and portfolio project management in various Asian countries. During the 1998 financial crisis, Ms. Nah represented the IFC in Korea on a special assignment coordinating IFC’s response to the crisis situation, liasing with various government entities, opening the IFC office in Seoul, as well as searching for candidates for IFC investments in various industries in Korea.

In the early 2000, IFC created the Health and Education Department, which Ms. Nah joined. She took the responsibility for formulating the department’s business development strategy for East Asia. She initiated unique market survey projects for the private education sector in South Africa and China (private universities) as part of her strategy work. She led the IFC team for structuring and negotiating investment packages for the Franco-Vietnamese Hospital, the first large scale, wholly foreign-owned private sector hospital in Vietnam, and the RMIT Vietnam International University, the first foreign-owned private university in Vietnam. She also worked on a private university project in Cambodia. Later, she led the team that analyzed performances of 18 different IFC investment projects in the health and education sectors in 10 different Sub-Saharan African countries. Ms. Nah later joined the IFC’s Special Operations Department and managed work-out cases in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jordan, Mexico, and Egypt.

Before coming to the U.S. as a student, Ms. Nah worked as an accountant at several private sector companies (including the Korea Investment and Finance Corporation, which later became the Hana Bank) in Korea.

In 2007, her first book, “Establishing Private Healthcare Facilities in Developing Countries: a Practical Guide for Medical Entrepreneurs”, co-authored with Dr. Egbe Osifo-Dawodu, was published by the World Bank Institute.

Ms. Nah is currently serving as chairperson of the Board of Directors of KASM (Korean American Sharing Movement), an IRS Section 501c(3) non-profit organization, of which she has been a member since its inception in 1997.

Ms. Nah holds an MBA and a BBA from the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Warm Welcome to Advisor Peter Drysdale

I was at a conference in Australia recently and had the opportunity to meet Professor Peter Drysdale, a leading economist in Australia. Peter was previously in charge of training for North Koreans in economics and policy-making in the early 2000s with a focus on economic reforms. The programs, sponsored by the UN, were held both in Australia and Pyongyang and catered to participants under the age of 35. We are proud to have him on board as an advisor to Choson Exchange. Bio:

Peter Drysdale is Emeritus Professor of Economics and a Visiting Fellow in the Crawford School of Economics and Government at The Australian National University. He is Head of Australia’s East Asia Forum. He is widely recognised as the leading intellectual architect of APEC. He is the author of a number of books and papers on international trade and economic policy in East Asia and the Pacific, including his prize-winning book, International Economic Pluralism: Economic Policy in East Asia and the Pacific. He is recipient of the Asia Pacific Prize, the Weary Dunlop Award, the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun with Gold Rays and Neck Ribbon, the Australian Centenary Medal and he is a member of the Order of Australia.

Revised Itinerary for September Meetings

Sep 9Arriving at Pyongyang Discussion on the itinerary - Status of other requested meetings Sep 10 Visit to Kim Il Sung University and meeting with the professors of Financial College and Law College of Kim Il Sung University. Sep 11 Grand People’s Study House & Other Usual Touristy Stuff (Optional) Preparation for following week Sep 12 Morning: Kumsusan Memorial Palace Afternoon: Korean Central Art Museum Night : Walking along the street of Pyongyang. Sep 13 Morning: Opening Ceremony of 7th PISTBF Afternoon: Meeting and lecture at Korea Daesong Bank Evening: Welcome Party for the Participants of 7th PISTBF **During the meeting and lecture at Daesong Bank, Mr, Calvin Chua is to have a meeting with Paektusan Academy of Architecture and students may visit Kim Hyong Jik University of Education. Sep 14 Meeting and lectures at Korea Daesong Bank Meeting with Korea Writers’ Union Meeting with Ministry of Education Sep 15. Morning: Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies Afternoon: Closing Ceremony of 7th PISTBF Pyongyang Middle School No.1 Sep 16 Returning by train or by air

- Daesong will provide the training space. Audience will be a mixed group of professionals, academics and government officials.

General Update – New Partnerships & North Koreans Abroad

Over the last two months, we have established a series of exciting partnerships to improve our ability to deliver quality training. We will work with an international financial institution to share knowledge and to develop some course content. In addition, we are also discussing with several law schools from around the world how we can work together to start a legal training program. We are also in touch with a few companies to discuss partnerships in support of our programs. Most exciting is that we might start our program sending North Koreans abroad to participate in conferences and academic programs earlier than expected. This year, we expect to send two North Koreans to the Asia Society Asia 21 Fellows program in Jakarta, Indonesia. This experience will help us better develop our screening process to identify individuals worth supporting.

We have also established contacts with Swedish, German, Swiss and Australian authorities in charge of their North Korean technical assistance programs. In addition to coordination and collaboration in the future, we plan to learn from them what works, what does not and what needs to be done to raise the effectiveness of training programs.