Keynote Speaker
JAMES W. D. FRASCHÉ

Jim’s first trip to the Middle East in 1971 began as a lark, and ended up lasting 5 years. From 1971 to 1975, he drove eleven times in a truck from Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to Germany and Denmark, trading in carpets heading West, and in German appliances and power tools when heading East. Between trips, he worked for the US Information Agency and RCA Globcom Systems as an English teacher and curriculum writer in Teheran, the University of Pennsylvania Museum as an archaeological expedition photographer in Iranian Azerbaijan, and as a tour guide for the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul. After returning to the US to get a Masters’ degree in international business management from Thunderbird, he worked at the Denver Research Institute at the University of Denver as a contractor to USAID in Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and India.

After visiting Afghanistan for the first time in 1972, Jim always harbored dreams of returning to run a successful business which would also have a real impact on the quality of life of the Afghan people. He followed that dream in April, 2003, returned to Afghanistan, and founded and operated the bottling company Afghanistan Natural Beverages in Kabul to provide safe drinking water to local markets, high security military accounts, and to the international community. At the same time, he was Deputy Director of The International Foundation of Hope, an American NGO engaged in opium poppy crop substitution programs with extensive tree nursery operations in Jalalabad which continues to provide millions of fruit, nut, and woodlot trees per year to Afghan farmers. He returned to Denver in December, 2007, after his landlord was kidnapped and his presence in Kabul posed too great a security risk to his employees and business partners.

Jim is Chief Operating Officer of Shelter Homes, a Denver manufacturer of emergency and transitional housing structures for the international disaster relief community. He has two food projects under development in Kabul, consults to government and private sector organizations on Afghanistan policy and business development, and teaches a course on Afghanistan at the University of Denver. His white papers have been posted by the Denver Council on Foreign Relations and other blogs. He is a frequently invited speaker at public and private venues in Denver.

Jim is a graduate of Colorado Academy, holds a BA in Anthropology from Colorado State University, and an MIM from the American Graduate School of International Management.

Keynote Speaker
DAVID J. AKERSON

 When David returned to the United States, he sought to replicate his experience in South Africa. Miami, Florida seemed like a good bet. He went to work as a public defender in the Dade County Public Defender's Office. After defending poor people for ten years or so, he yearned to go back to Africa.

He applied for a trial attorney position with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and was offered the position of Chief of Information and Evidence. The United Nations was impressed with the fact he had both law and computer degrees. He tried to tell the United Nations that his computer degree, now 15 years old, was slightly out of date, but they hired him anyway.

And so, from 1999-2000, he was the Chief of the Information and Evidence Section at United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Office of the Prosecutor, Kigali, Rwanda and Arusha, Tanzania. The Tribunal prosecuted the genocide in Rwanda with a staff of over 300 employees. He directly managed an international staff of twelve persons. He was responsible for the development of systems to facilitate, support and integrate the work of the legal and investigative teams of the Office of the Prosecutor. He was responsible for the receipt, organization and custody of the results of over five years of intensive field investigation of the genocide. He supervised the collection of over 400,000 documents, audio and videotapes, photographs, forensic material and physical artifacts. He conceived and supervised the creation of a digital evidence archive.

From 2001-2006, he was an international war crimes prosecutor and technology advisor to the Chief of Prosecutions at the Yugoslavia Tribunal. At the Yugoslavia Tribunal, he worked in both a legal and technology capacity. He acted as senior attorney in Prosecutor v. Dragomir Milosevic and lead attorney of a special prosecutions unit responsible for prosecuting miscellaneous matters such as contempt of court violations. He supervised five lawyers, three investigative staff, two military analysts and a case manager in all aspects of case analysis and preparation. In addition, he served as the Office of the Prosecutor project coordinator of trial technology reporting to the Chief of Prosecutions. He was responsible for assessing existing trial practices and workflows of an office with over 300 attorneys, investigators and support staff, and for formulating and executing a business plan to improve overall efficiency through greater automation of the work environment. He supervised the implementation of the project plan and monitored the delivery of new technologies into the existing work processes of ten investigation teams, thirty-one trial teams, and three courtrooms. He reported to senior management on a weekly basis. He regularly consulted with attorneys, investigators, information technology staff, and general support staff and incorporated their feedback into project protocols. During this time, as an ancillary function of my job, he advised and trained prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges from the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Adhoc Human Rights Court of Centre Jakarta, the Special Department for War Crimes of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Iraqi Special Tribunal, and others in case management, evidence management and legal technology.