Ken Shibusawa is one of my friends. He is a businessman who studied at UCLA Andersen Business School and is recently popular known as Eiichi Shibusawa’s 5th generation. The amount of information he sends out is substantial as in his blog "Alternative investment diary" (Japanese title:「オルタナティブ投資日記」) and "Thinking of Eiichi Shibusawa’s 『Analects and abacus』" (Japanese title:「渋沢栄一の『論語と算盤』を今、考える」). Also he has recently published several books related to Eiichi Shibusawa’s philosophy. Please look it up at Amazon.
A while ago, in the afternoon of Sunday, September 9th, I was invited to talk at "Project 13%" which is run by Mr. Shibusawa and went to International House of Japan, a historic building in Roppongi. About 150 people gathered mostly young people at a glance, and a lot of women. Most of them were entrepreneurs which is something unique for a lecture in Japan. I found it a different society from the Red Herring which I recently introduced, but most of them seemed to share the same spirit.
The lecture began with my keynote speech. I started by asking "Please raise your hand if you are 40 and above." Around 30% of the participants raised their hand and about 40% were women. I began to talk about innovation referring to this point.
Photo1: My speech. Casual Sunday afternoon.
After my speech was Kaoru Iokibe (University of Tokyo) followed by Naoko Nishizawa (Keio University) and Masakazu Shimada (Bunkyo Gakuin University). It was a panel by young energetic 3 scholars. Dr. Iokibe talked about "Shigenobu Okuma", Dr. Nishizawa talked about "Yukichi Fukuzawa" and Dr. Shimada talked about "Eiichi Shibusawa." They each introduced the great predecessors, shared their opinion and went into panel discussion (photo2). It is very encouraging to see such young and passionate scholars. Dr. Iokibe who talked about Shigenobu Okuma turned out to be the son of Dr. Makoto Iokibe, Professor of Kobe University who later became the President of National Defense Academy in Japan whom I introduced in my blog in August. No wonder, they have an uncommon surname and their academic field is similar. They were all wonderful, but time was not enough.
Photo2: Panel. From left, Dr. Iokibe, Dr. Nishizawa and Dr. Shimada. MC was Mr. Shunichi Ozasa (Bloomberg TV)
The last part of the lecture was a talk session between Mr. Shibusawa and Dr.Hiroshi Tasaka, Professor of Tama University Graduate School whom I have recently introduced on several occasions.
Photo3: Dr. Tasaka (left) and Mr. Shibusawa
It was a wonderful sunny Sunday afternoon. It’s been a while since I had a nice meeting, seeing a garden surrounded by shiny sunlight and refreshing nature. I met a lot of people. They all seem to have spent a happy afternoon.
There are a lot of blogs introducing this seminar of Project 13%, so let me introduce some of them (in Japanese only).
「クロスワイズ代表取締役です☆」 (I am company executive of Crosswise corp.)
「港区ではたらく女社長のblog」 (A blog of a female CEO in Minato-ku)
「Capriのゆる～い日記」 (A loooooose diary by Capri)
「team_yama with Toshi」 etc.
It’s exciting to see a lot of people full of energy.
Take care, to all the participants!
See you again!