Dr. Richard Dasher has been Adjunct Professor and Director of the US-Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University since 1994. His research focuses on the impact of new technologies on industry value chains, open innovation management, and the flow of people, capital, and knowledge in regional innovation systems. Dr. Dasher concurrently served as Executive Director of Stanford’s Center for Integrated Systems (1998 – 2015) and on the Board of Directors and Management Council of Tohoku University (2004 – 2010). He has been on the Program Committee of Japan’s Word Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI Program) since its beginning in 2007. Dr Dasher advises business accelerators, startups, and think-tanks in the U.S., Canada, and several Asian countries. In 2022, he became a Founding Partner of the venture capital firm Global Hands-On Venture Capital (GHOVC). He received the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation in 2023 for long-term promotion of economic relations between Japan and the U.S. Dr. Dasher received the Ph.D. in Linguistics with a minor in Japanese language from Stanford University.