H.E. Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta is a 1996 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, the President of Timor-Leste and a Patron of the International Peace Foundation.
Jose Ramos-Horta was born in Dili, Timor-Leste, on December 26, 1949. He is one of 11 brothers and sisters. He is divorced and has one son.

He began his early education as a child in a Catholic mission in the small village of Soibada and then went to further studies in Dili at the Portuguese Lyceum. Later he studied journalism and was trained as a photographer and TV cameraman. He worked in print media as well as radio and TV from 1969 to 1974. He holds an MA in Peace Studies from Antioch University, Yellow Springs, Ohio (1984) and is still working on a Ph.D. with Universidade do Minho, Braga. He was a Senior Member in International Relations with St. Antony’s College, Oxford, in 1987 and studied Human Rights Law and Public International Law at the Strasbourg International Institute of Human Rights and the Hague Academy of International Law, respectively.

Dr. Ramos-Horta has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees by numerous universities in Australia, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Portugal, Brazil and the US.

He is the Founder and for years Executive Director and lecturer with the Diplomacy Training Program of the University of New South Wales where he is also a Visiting Professor. Dr. Ramos-Horta is also a Professor of International Relations with Ewha Women’s University in Seoul. He has lectured extensively in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Portugal, France, Germany and the US.

Besides Tetum and Portuguese, his two mother tongues, he is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

In 1996 Dr. Ramos-Horta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Bishop Carlos Belo, the religious leader of East Timor, “to honor their sustained and self-sacrificing contributions for a small but oppressed people”, hoping that “this award will spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict of East Timor based on the people’s right to self-determination”.

In 1999 a referendum was held on the status of East Timor, and the referendum results showed more than 80% favoring independence. After the entry of a UN peace-keeping force Dr. Ramos-Horta returned to his homeland to help rebuild the country. Working closely with the UN and Sergio Vierra de Mello, the head of the UN Administration in East Timor until 2002, he helped to bring about peaceful elections of the country’s President and Parliament, who in turn drafted the country’s constitution.

Dr. Ramos-Horta was appointed as the country’s first Foreign Minister in 2001 and served in this position until his resignation on June 25, 2006, amidst political turmoil. On June 26, 2006, following the resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, Dr. Ramos-Horta was appointed acting Prime Minister by the President, Xanana Gusmão. Two weeks later, on July 10, 2006, he was officially sworn in as the second Prime Minister of Timor-Leste.

In May 2007 Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta was elected President of Timor-Leste, winning nearly 70 percent of the votes, a post he has held since. On February 11, 2008, he was seriously injured after being shot by rebels outside his home in Dili.

Dr. Ramos-Horta is Timor-Leste’s most popular leader with 83% approval rate in a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in late 2008. He has been credited as having been the most credible and effective bridge-builder in Timor-Leste and with having contributed most to heal the wounds and stabilize the situation in the country following the crisis in 2006.

Topic: Building a culture of peace and development in a globalized world

Schedule:

Wednesday, April 21, 2010:

12:00  Luncheon hosted at the University of Cambodia

14:00  Keynote speech and dialogue at the University of Cambodia followed by a reception

19:00  Dinner hosted by the University of Cambodia at Cambodiana Hotel

Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is the Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 together with Prof. Luc Montagnier for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Professors Barré-Sinoussi’s and Montagnier’s discovery made rapid cloning of the HIV-1 genome possible. This has allowed identification of important details in its replication cycle and how the virus interacts with its host. Furthermore, it led to development of methods to diagnose infected patients and to screen blood products, which has limited the spread of the AIDS pandemic. The unprecedented development of several classes of new antiviral drugs is also a result of knowledge of the details of the viral replication cycle. The combination of prevention and treatment has substantially decreased the spread of the disease and dramatically increased the life expectancy among millions of treated patients worldwide.

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi received her Ph.D. in virology from the Pasteur Institute and the University of Sciences in Paris, France, in 1975. After a brief internship at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, she returned to the Pasteur Institute where she now heads her own research group within the Virology Department. 

Professor Barré-Sinoussi has been involved in retrovirology research since the early 1970s. She is recognized for her contributions to HIV/AIDS research, in particular as the first author of the publication that reported in 1983 the discovery of a retrovirus, later named HIV. In 1988 she became responsible for her own laboratory at the Pasteur Institute and initiated resrarch programs on viral and host determinants of HIV/AIDS pathogenesis.

Between 1988 and 1998 Professor Barré-Sinoussi has been implicated in collaborative programs on HIV vaccine research, while today the research programs of her team are focused on regulations of HIV/SIV infection (intracellular restrictions of HIV-1 infection and innate immunity, in particular regulations of T-cell activation resulting from the NK-dendritic cell interplay).

Professor Barré-Sinoussi has actively contributed to several scientific societies and committees at the Pasteur Institute as well as to other AIDS organizations, such as the National Agency for AIDS Research in France, several International AIDS Conferences and as a consultant to the WHO and the UNAIDS-HIV. She is President of the Scientific Committee of the National Agency for AIDS and Viral Hepatitis Research (ANRS) and head of the ANRS site in South East Asia.

Professor Barré-Sinoussi has established numerous collaborations with countries deeply affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and has promoted integration between HIV/AIDS research and actions in resource limited countries, in particular through the Pasteur Institute’s International Network and the coordination of ANRS research programs in Cambodia and Vietnam. Since the early 1980s she has been committed to capacity building, training and technology transfers on site in Africa and Asia.

Professor Barré-Sinoussi has published more than 220 articles in international scientific journals, has presented more than 250 papers at international conferences and has 17 patents. Her team of around 20 scientists is currently working on how the HIV virus is transmitted from mother to child, on innate mechanisms that control HIV infection and on HIV-related simian viruses that infect monkeys.

Professor Barré-Sinoussi has received numerous national and international awards including the Sovac Prize, the Körber Foundation Prize for the Promotion of European Science, the French Academy of Science Prize, the King Faisal International Prize and the International AIDS Society Prize. She has been Officer in the Order of the Légion d’Honneur since 2006.

In 2009 Professor Barré-Sinoussi wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI in protest over his statements that condoms are at best ineffective in the AIDS crisis.

Topic: Future challenges in HIV/AIDS prevention and therapy

Schedule:

Wednesday, April 7, 2010:

12:00  Luncheon hosted at the University of Cambodia

14:00  Keynote speech and dialogue at the University of Cambodia followed by a reception

19:00  Dinner hosted by the University of Cambodia at Cambodiana Hotel

Vladimir Ashkenazy is one of the most renowned pianists and conductors of our times.  Formerly Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic (1998 to 2003) and Music Director of NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo (2004 to 2007), he will take up the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in January 2009.  Alongside these positions, Mr. Ashkenazy continues his longstanding relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London of which he was appointed Conductor Laureate in 2000. 

            With this orchestra he has developed landmark projects such as ‘Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin’ in 2003 (a project which he also took to Cologne, New York, Vienna and Moscow) and ‘Rachmaninoff Revisited’ in 2002 at the Lincoln Center in New York.  Mr. Ashkenazy also holds the positions of Music Director of the European Union Youth Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.  He maintains strong links with a number of other major orchestras with whom he has built special relationships over the years, including the Cleveland Orchestra (of whom he was formerly Principal Guest Conductor), San Francisco Symphony and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and Music Direcotr 1988-96).  He returned to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in October 2007. 

Among his many recordings as a pianist are the 1999 Grammy award-winning Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Rachmaninov’s Transcriptions, Bach’s Wohltemperiertes Klavier and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Mr. Ashkenazy’s TV projects include Music After Mao, filmed in Shanghai, and the Ashkenazy in Moscow programs which marked his first visit in 1989 to the country of his birth since leaving the USSR in the 1960s.  More recently he has developed educational programs with NHK TV, including the 1999 Superteachers with inner-city London school children, and in 2003-4 a documentary based around his ‘Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin’project

Prof. Torsten N. Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981 in recognition of his pioneering work on the neural basis of visual perception, carried out at Harvard Medical School in collaboration with Prof. David H. Hubel. Their studies showed how visual information collected by the retina is transmitted to and processed in the visual cortex of the brain. Their experiments greatly expanded the scientific knowledge of sensory processing and showed that the ocular dominance develops irreversibly early in childhood development. These studies opened the door for the understanding and treatment of childhood cataracts and strabismus. They were also important in the study of cortical plasticity.

Born in Uppsala, Sweden, Torsten N. Wiesel began his scientific career in Carl Gustav Bernhard‘s laboratory at the Karolinska Institute, where he received his medical degree in 1954. He went on to teach in the Institute’s department of physiology and worked in the child psychiatry unit of the Karolinska Hospital. In 1955 he moved to the United States to work at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine under Stephen Kuffler. Torsten Wiesel began a fellowship in ophthalmology, and in 1958 he became an assistant professor. That same year he met David Hubel, beginning a collaboration that would last over twenty years. In 1959 Torsten Wiesel moved to Harvard University where he became an instructor in pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, beginning a 24-year career with the university. He became professor in the new department of neurobiology in 1968 and its chair in 1971.

In 1983 Professor Wiesel joined the faculty of Rockefeller University as Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology. Under his leadership as president of the university from 1991 to 1998 thirty new laboratories conducting vanguard research in key areas of biology, chemistry and physics were established. At the Rockefeller University he remains the director of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior.

In 1998 Professor Wiesel was elected president of the International Brain Research Organization, based in Paris. Since 2000 he has served as Secretary-General of the Human Frontier Science Program, an organization headquartered in Strasbourg, France, which supports international and interdisciplinary collaboration between investigators in the life sciences. Professor Wiesel also currently chairs the scientific advisory board of China’s National Institute of Biological Science (NIBS) in Beijing and co-chairs the board of governors of the Okinawa Institute on Technology (OIST). He is also member of the boards of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Hospital for Special Surgery and an advisory board member of the European Brain Research Institute.

Professor Wiesel has served as chair of the board of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (1995-2001), president of the International Brain Research Organization (1998-2004), chair of the board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences (2001-2006) and member of the board of directors of the Population Council (1999-2008).

In 2007 the Torsten Wiesel Research Institute was established in Chengdu, China, by the World Eye Organization at West China Hospital, Sichuan University, to engage in basic and clinical research, especially on eye diseases most prevalent in Asia.

Professor Wiesel is the recipient of the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (1978), of the David Rall Medal from the Institute of Medicine (2005) and of the National Medal of Science (2005), the United States’ highest honor for scientific achievement. In 2006 he was awarded the Ramon Y Cajal Gold Medal from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas). In 2007 both Professors Wiesel and Hubel were awarded the Marshall M. Parks MD Medal of Excellence from The Children’s Eye Foundation.

Professor Wiesel has done much work as a global human rights advocate. He served for 10 years (1994-2004) as chair of the committee on human rights of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). He is a founding member of the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies, assisting colleagues who have been imprisoned or harassed for their peaceful opposition to the policies of their governments. He is also a founding member of the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization, a non-governmental non-profit established in 2004 to support collaborative research between scientists in Israel and Palestine.

In 2001 Professor Wiesel was nominated for a position on an advisory panel in the National Institutes of Health to advise on assisting research in developing countries. He is a member of many distinguished societies including the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Philosophical Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Topic: Science for peace

Schedule:

Wednesday, February 3, 2010:

12:00  Luncheon hosted at the University of Cambodia

14:00  Keynote speech and dialogue at the University of Cambodia followed by a reception

19:00  Dinner hosted by the University of Cambodia at Cambodiana Hotel

Oliver Stone is an American film director, screenwriter and producer whose work, frequently focusing on contemporary political and cultural issues, has earned him three Academy Awards (Oscars), namely for Platoon, filmed in the Philippines and starring Willem Dafoe, (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July starring Tom Cruise (1989), which were both centered on the Vietnam War, and for Midnight Express starring John Hurt (1978). A Hollywood legend, his films have been nominated for a total of 31 Oscars. Born on the Fourth of July alone earned eight Oscar nominations and was one of Oliver Stone’s most successful films.

Oliver Stone was born in New York City. His father was a Jewish stockbroker and his mother a Roman Catholic of French birth. He was raised an Episcopalian as a compromise, but has since converted to Buddhism.

After dropping out from Yale University and teaching English at the Free Pacific Institute in South Vietnam, Oliver Stone, by then a Vietnam War veteran, graduated from Film School at New York University in 1971 where he was mentored by director Martin Scorsese.

Oliver Stone directed Seizure in 1974, The Hand starring Michael Caine in 1981, Salvador starring Jim Belushi in 1986, Wall Street, a film focusing on the greedy business world of tycoons and stockbrokers which earned Michael Douglas an Oscar for Best Actor in 1987, Talk Radio starring Alec Baldwin in 1988, The Doors starring Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in 1991, Heaven & Earth starring Tommy Lee Jones, a film made in Thailand about the true story of Le Ly Hayslip, a Vietnamese girl whose life has been drastically affected by the Vietnam war, in 1993, Natural Born Killers starring Juliette Lewis in 1994, Nixon starring Anthony Hopkins in 1995 and U-Turn starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez in 1997.

JFK, arguably Oliver Stone’s best film, was released in 1991. It centers on the assassination of John F. Kennedy with Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones in leading roles. The film represented a change in Oliver Stone’s work as he began to explore different camera styles combining them together to create a multi-dimensional way of experiencing a movie. Following JFK’s release Oliver Stone addressed the U.S. Senate over the continued secrecy of documents relating to the John F. Kennedy assassination. Partly through his efforts the government began to declassify documents.

Other films which were screen-written by Oliver Stone are Conan the Barbarian, the movie that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, (1982), Scarface starring Al Pacino (1983), Year of the Dragon starring Mickey Rourke (1985), 8 Million Ways to Die starring Andy Garcia (1986) and Evita starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas (1996).

He also produced the films Reversal of Fortune, which earned Jeremy Irons an Oscar in 1990, The Joy Luck Club in 1993, Milos Forman’s Oscar nominated classic The People vs. Larry Flynt, Indictment: The McMartin Trial, Killer: A Journal of Murder and Freeway in 1996, Savior and Assassinated: The Last Days of King and Kennedy in 1998, The Corruptor in 1999, The Art of War in 2000 and The Day Reagan Was Shot in 2001.

In 1993 Oliver Stone produced a series for ABC Television called Wild Palms which has developed a cult following and has recently been released on DVD. In 1997 he published A Child’s Night Dream, a 1,400 pages strong and largely autobiographical novel based on his experiences in Southeast Asia. In 2003 he made two documentary films: Persona Non Grata about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Comandante about Cuban President Fidel Castro, followed, in 2004, by a second documentary on Castro titled Looking for Fidel.

In the past decade Oliver Stone has directed Any Given Sunday starring Al Pacino, Charlton Heston and Cameron Diaz (1999), Alexander starring Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie (2004), a biopic about Alexander the Great which was partly filmed in Thailand, and World Trade Center starring Nicolas Cage (2006), which centered on two Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) officers during the September 11, 2001, attacks. Stone’s latest film is a biopic about George W. Bush, named W., starring Christian Bale and Richard Dreyfuss (2008). He is currently filming Wall Street 2, again starring Michael Douglas.

In 2008 Oliver Stone accompanied Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s President and self-appointed negotiator with the Colombian guerilla group known as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), on a mission to secure the release of three hostages held for over six years. This was part of his research for an upcoming film he will be directing about Columbia’s war on drugs.

Topic: Film-making and peace-building 

Schedule:

WEDNESDAY: January 27, 2010

12:00  Luncheon hosted at the University of Cambodia

14:00  Keynote speech and dialogue at the University of Cambodia followed by a reception

19:00  Dinner hosted by the University of Cambodia at Cambodiana Hotel

Prof. Eric Stark Maskin is an American economist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2007 “for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory”, a specialized form of game theory which attempts to maximize gains for all parties within markets and which examines whether trading mechanisms are the best ways of allocating resources. Professor Maskin is the Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and a visiting lecturer with the rank of Professor at Princeton University’s Economics Department.

Eric Maskin graduated from Tenafly High School in New Jersey in 1968 and attended Harvard University where he received his A.B. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics. After he earned his doctorate Dr. Maskin went to the University of Cambridge in 1976 where he received an honorary M.A. degree while being a research fellow at Jesus College. He taught as a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1977-1984 and from 1985-2000 at Harvard where he was named the Louis Berkman Professor of Economics in 1997. In 2000 he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Much of Professor Maskin’s early work in the mid 1970s was in the area of “implementation” theory, which addresses the question of when one can devise procedural rules ensuring that society will make the best choice from among a set of alternatives. A vast literature on implementation, influenced by Professor Maskin’s groundbreaking work, has since evolved. In the early 1980s Professor Maskin began his work on the subject of “optimal” auctions, exploring the question of what sort of auctions or selling procedures, raise the most revenue. Partly as a result of this work, Professor Maskin was asked in the early 1990s to give advice to the Bank of Italy on possible reforms in their system of auctioning treasury bonds.

Today Professor Maskin works in diverse areas of economic theory including game theory, the economics of incentives, contract theory and social choice theory. He is particularly well known for his papers on mechanism design, implementation theory and dynamic games. Much of his current research focuses on the theory of coalition formation and the theory of repeated games, comparing different voting systems and electoral rules and exploring which methods of voting best promote democratic values, examining the causes of income inequality and exploring the benefits and drawbacks of protecting intellectual property.

The theories developed by Professor Maskin introduced mechanisms to the market that would lead to optimal outcomes for all participants. This work has applications in the financial sector, in studies of voter behaviour and in business management. It has helped economists to identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes and voting procedures. A leading economist Professor Maskin’s work has had a deep influence on many areas of economics, political science and law and has been drawn on extensively by researchers in industrial organization, finance and development.

A financial crisis — like the one we are witnessing now — could be averted by mechanism design theory, Professor Maskin says. “We can do a lot better in reducing the risk of such a crisis by having a regulatory system to oversee what is happening in the financial market”. While mechanism design theory has been around for many years, with successful applications in telecommunication, “its most important applications are still to come,” he adds.

Lectures Professor Maskin has given on his work include, among others, the Churchill Lectures at Cambridge University, the Kenneth Arrow Lectures at Stanford University, the Alfred Marshall Lecture of the European Economic Association in Santiago de Compostella, the Seattle Lecture of the Econometric Society Eighth World Congress, the Vilfredo Pareto Lecture in Tel Aviv and the Lionel McKenzie Lecture at the University of Rochester.

Professor Maskin is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Past-President of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the European Economic Association, an Honorary Fellow of St. John’s College in Cambridge and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He was named Monash Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Monash University and Honorary Professor at Wuhan University and at Tsinghua University. He received various honorary doctorate degrees and was awarded the Erik Kempe Award in Environmental Economics in 2007. Professor Maskin has served as Editor or Associate Editor for many journals including The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Economics Letters, Social Choice and Welfare, Games and Economic Behaviour and International Journal of Game Theory.

Topic: Why global markets have failed to reduce inequality

Schedule:

Wednesday, January 20, 2010:

12:00  Luncheon hosted at the University of Cambodia

14:00  Keynote speech and dialogue at the University of Cambodia followed by a reception

19:00  Dinner hosted by the University of Cambodia at Cambodiana Hotel

Prof. David Jonathan Gross is a 2004 Nobel Laureate for Physics, the director and holder of the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California in Santa Barbara and a Member of the Advisory Board of the International Peace Foundation.

Born in Washington, D.C., David J. Gross received his undergraduate degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1962 and then returned to the United States to continue his education at the University of California, Berkeley, from where he received his Ph.D. in physics in 1966. He left Berkeley later that year to serve as a junior fellow at Harvard University.

David J. Gross began his professional teaching career at Princeton University in 1969 and was appointed professor of physics in 1972. During that same period, between 1970 and 1975, he also became a fellow at the Sloan Foundation. David J. Gross remained at Princeton until 1996, where he was named Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics (1986-1995) and Thomas Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics (1995-1997). In 1997 he was appointed director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a position he holds until this day.

Professor Gross has also been a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of the J. J. Sakurai Prize of the American Physical Society, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Dirac Medal, the Oscar Klein Medal and the Harvey Prize of the Technion. He has received various honorary degrees and was selected to receive France’s highest scientific honor, the Grande Médaille D’Or, for his contributions to the understanding of fundamental physical reality.

In 2004 David J. Gross, together with H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for discoveries regarding the strong force—the nuclear force that binds together quarks (the smallest building blocks of matter) and holds together the nucleus of the atom.

The prizewinning work of David J. Gross and of his first graduate student Frank Wilczek—with H. David Politzer working independently—arose from physics experiments with particle accelerators conducted in the early 1970s to study quarks and the force that acts on them. During their research the three scientists observed that quarks were so tightly bound together that they could not be separated as individual particles but that the closer quarks approached one another, the weaker the strong force became. When quarks were brought very close together, the force was so weak that the quarks acted almost as if they were free particles not bound together by any force. When the distance between two quarks increased, however, the force became greater—an effect analogous to the stretching of a rubber band. This phenomenon became known as asymptotic freedom, and it led to a completely new physical theory, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), to describe the strong force.

This theory was an important contribution to the Standard Model, the theory that describes all physics connected with the electromagnetic force (which acts between charged particles), the weak force (which is important for the sun’s energy production) and the strong force (which acts between quarks). With the aid of QCD physicists can at last explain why quarks only behave as free particles at extremely high energies. In the proton and the neutron they always occur in triplets. QCD has been widely accepted to be the best understanding of how the universe works and has brought physics one step closer to fulfilling a grand dream: to formulate a unified theory comprising gravity as well as a theory for everything.

More recently, Professor Gross has been engaged in research in superstring theory being the co-inventor of a new superstring model.

Topic: The future of science and human development

Schedule:

Wednesday, January 6, 2010:

12:00  Luncheon hosted at the University of Cambodia

14:00  Keynote speech and dialogue at the University of Cambodia followed by a reception

19:00  Dinner hosted by the University of Cambodia at Cambodiana Hotel

Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer who has appeared in over 100 films. He has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons and video games. Having released 20 albums, he is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star who sang many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred. In 2008 he performed at the Summer Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing.

Jackie Chan began his adult career in 1971 in the Kung Fu film A Touch of Zen. He worked as a stuntman in the Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon  and received his first starring role in Little Tiger of Canton in 1973. Jackie Chan’s first major breakthrough was the 1978 film Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, the film which established the comedic kung fu genre. He then directed The Fearless Hyena and starred in Drunken Master, which propelled him to mainstream success.

In the 1980s Jackie Chan’s films began to reach a larger audience in East Asia, with early successes in the Japanese market including The Young Master (1980) and Dragon Lord (1982). Project A, Wheels on Meals and the original Lucky Stars trilogy followed. In 1985 Jackie Chan made the first Police Story film, a US-influenced action comedy in which he, as in most of his films, performed his own stunts. It was named the “Best Movie” at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards. In 1987 Jackie Chan played “Asian Hawk”, an Indiana Jones-esque character, in the film Armor of God. The film was his biggest domestic box office success to date. 

Jackie Chan established a foothold in the North American market in 1995 with a worldwide release of Rumble in the Bronx, attaining a cult following in the United States that was rare for Hong Kong movie stars. The success of Rumble in the Bronx led to a 1996 release of Police Story 3 in the United States under the title Supercop. He then starred in Jackie Chan’s First Strike (1997), Mr. Nice Guy (1998) and the buddy cop action comedy trilogy Rush Hour (1998, 2001, 2007) as well as in Shanghai Noon (2000), The Tuxedo (2002), The Medallion (2003), Shanghai Knights (2003) and Around the World in 80 Days (2004). In 2003 he started his own film production company with films including New Police Story (2004), The Myth (2005) and Rob-B-Hood (2006). 2008 and 2009 saw the films The Forbidden Kingdom, Jackie Chan’s first onscreen collaboration with fellow Chinese actor Jet Li, and Shinjuku Incident.  

Jackie Chan is a cultural icon, having been referenced in various songs and television shows. He has created his own comic book character in Jackie Chan’s Spartan X and has been the inspiration for manga such as Dragon Ball, Tekken and Pokémon and the television cartoon for children Jackie Chan Adventures. A number of video games have featured him including Stuntmaster, Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu and Jackie Chan the Kung-Fu Master. In addition, a series of Japanese Jackie Chan games were released based on several of his films.

Jackie Chan has always wanted to be a role model to children, remaining popular with them due to his good-natured acting style. His greatest regret in life is not having received proper education, inspiring him to fund educational institutions around the world such as the construction of the Jackie Chan Science Centre at the Australian National University and the establishment of schools in poor regions of China. A Jackie Chan museum in Shanghai is due to open in October 2009.

In 2004 Jackie Chan launched his own line of clothing, and he also has a number of other branded businesses including a sushi restaurant chain, Jackie’s Kitchen, with outlets in Hong Kong, South Korea, Hawaii and Las Vegas. Jackie Chan’s Cafe has outlets in Beijing, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and the Philippines. Other ventures include Jackie Chan Signature Club gyms, a line of chocolates, cookies and nutritional oatcakes. With each of his businesses, a percentage of the profits goes to various charities, including the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation.

Founded in 1988, the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation offers scholarships and active help to Hong Kong’s young people and provides medical services and aid to victims of natural disasters or illness. The Dragon’s Heart Foundation was founded by Jackie Chan in 2005 to fulfill the desperate needs of children and the elderly in remote areas of China. The foundation has built over a dozen schools, provided books, fees and uniforms, and has raised millions of dollars to give much-needed educational opportunities to the poor.

Jackie Chan is a keen philanthropist and a UNICEF/UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, having worked tirelessly to champion charitable works and causes. He has campaigned for conservation, against animal abuse and has promoted disaster relief efforts during floods in mainland China and the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he donated RMB ¥10 million to help those in need. He also announced the donation of half his assets to charity upon his death.

Among other honors, Jackie Chan was awarded an M.B.E. (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to entertainment and was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture.

Topic: Arts and culture as a pathway towards peace

Schedule:

Wednesday, November 11, 2009:

12:00  Luncheon hosted at the University of Cambodia

14:00  Keynote speech and dialogue at the University of Cambodia followed by a reception

19:00  Dinner hosted by the University of Cambodia at Cambodiana Hotel