Two days after I returned from Okinawa, I went to the Hoshino Resort Risonare at Kobuchizawa located at the foot of the Yatsugatake and Kaikoma mountains. My plan was to participate in the G1 Summit hosted by Mr. Yoshihito Hori and his colleagues. I saw Mr. Hori on several occasions: in the Davos Meeting conferences; at India, Singapore, Dalian, Tianjin, etc. He is a young colleague of mine.
It was cold, but the weather was so beautiful that the low temperature did not bother me. The view was all white. The participants consisted mainly of young people, and I felt a great energy of desire to move Japan forward. To my regret, I had work to be done in Tokyo on the first day (in spite of the 11th being a national holiday), but thanks to Twitter, I was able to sense what was happening at the conference. The guests were fantastic; for instance, from the policy and economy sector were Mr. Yoshimi Watanabe, Dr. Heizo Takenaka, Mr. Tetsuro Fukuyama, Hironari, and Mr. Hiroshige Seko. The business sector included people such as President Hasegawa of Takeda Pharmaceutical, Mr. Kazuhiko Toyama, CEO of Industrial Growth Platform Inc., Mr. Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, President and CEO of Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., Mr. Miki Watanabe, the founder of Watami Co., and Mr. Yoshikazu Tanaka, the founder of GREE Inc.
I arrived at the venue in the afternoon on the 2nd day to host the panel on science and technology policy(in Japanese) with Mr. Kan Suzuki, Senior Vice Minister of MEXT, Dr. Keiji Tachikawa, President of JAXA, and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of iPS cell. I claimed that the science technology is dependent on human resource development – whether it is a basic research or a Big Science new sprouts must spring from the seeds. After witnessing the examples of their seniors, many young talents will spring. This is the challenge that we must address. While I admit that it was a great achievement for Japan to produce 10 Nobel laureates in the 21st century, I think we must also think seriously about the fact that 3 of them were residing in the U.S…
The closing program was a dialogue between former Prime Minister Abe, and Ms. Ryoko Sakurai under the title of ‘As Proud Japanese, we ….’. In the evening, we went to the Suntory Hakushu Distillery and the aroma of whiskey made me feel mildly intoxicated. We also enjoyed the entertaining talk of Mr. Rome Kanda, a speaker of last year’s TEDxTokyo.
On the next day, I hosted a panel; ‘Is Heavy Social Welfare Compatible With Economic Growth?(in Japanes)’ with Prof. Yoshikazu Kenjyo, Mr. Motohisa Furukawa, and Dr. Yuji Yamamoto. The discussion somewhat strayed away from the title, I thought. I also feel a bit responsible for letting each panelist talk too much (they had difficulty keeping the requested time of 5 minutes……).
The closing was gracefully hosted by Mr. Yoshito Hori, with Dr. Ikujiro Nonaka, Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka, and Mr. Seigo Matsuoka.
It was a nice gathering. I congratulate and thank Mr. Hori, the organizer, and his staff, as well as all the participants.