A collaborative research with Stanford titled Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE) is going on since last year. We set this up jointly with people from Stanford including Dr. William Miller, a former Vice President well known for "MOT" and we had an open symposium at the University of Tokyo on May 29.
Dr. Miller and I gave greeting speeches. Dr. Miller is just over 80, but he is still very active and said that he started another new business lately. Professor Shigeo Kagami of Todai and Professor Robert Eberhart are the organizers.
As for my part, my message to the audience was that "eco-platform", the "Kurofune (U.S. battleship that arrived in Uraga in 1853 to negotiate opening of Japan for trade)", pressing for the opening of the country and innovation has come; last week TEDxTOkyo and next week the opening of TiE Tokyo Office.
It was a rainy day, but I was told later that approximately 250 people gathered and joined in very lively discussions (I had to leave the place for a while and miss some of the programs). Forbes reports on this symposium.
We talked about the advantages that Japan and Silicon Valley have respectively, but I will leave the details to the report that is coming soon. Japan has countless possibilities. What we need is action. It’s "Think Locally, Act Globally" (the article is in Japanese only). I intend to think of some ideas for fermentation with several partners.