Visits to the UK in October and November – 2

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After returning from London, I gave a speech at the international conference for the Red Cross in Fukushima, met with Peter Piot, and participated in many lectures. It was November before I knew it.

I participated in the World Dementia Council’s Legacy Event Japan for the entire program on both November 5th and 6th. On the 7th, the OECD-HGPI held an event that focused on the activities of private sector companies and NGOs.

I have written in my previous entry up to this point.

On November 10th, I flew to London again. This time it was for a board meeting for the GHIT fund. It was held at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, of which Peter Piot is the President. It is a prestigious university with a long tradition. Dr Piot is from Belgium, this reflects the strength of the UK, where people in the top positions are recruited regardless of nationality.

Similarly, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England is Canadian. This has received much attention around the world and is likely to increase global trust in the institution.

On the evening of my arrival, we had dinner at Bocca Di Lupo. The Vice President of the Royal Society, and a friend of mine, Anthony Cheetman also attended the dinner.

The next day, after finishing the board meeting, I attended a public event by GHIT Fund hosted by the Embassy of Japan as well as a reception at the Embassy in the afternoon.

I gave the closing remarks. It required much thought, as it had to convey to the audience and hosts the main message of the event as well as the remarks of the panelists and speakers. I decided to focus on two past winners of the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, the only award given by the Japanese government: Brian Greenwood (1), the keynote speaker of the event and first person to receive the award, and Peter Piot, who was the chairperson of the panel at the event and the second person to receive the award. Both of their partners also made an appearance afterwards and I was happy to see Mrs. Greenwood again after six years.

After this evening event at the Embassy, GHIT board members were invited to dinner at the Ambassador’s residence. I am grateful to Ambassador and Mrs Hayashi as well as the people of the Embassy for the entire evening events

The Poppy Installation at the Tower of London was on at the time and it was a shame that I was unable to go see it.

Visits to the UK in October and November – 1

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Over these past two months, I have had the opportunity to be involved with the UK on several occasions.

At the beginning of October, I served as a panelist at a conference held by Chatham House and the Japan Foundation.

Chatham House is a world-renowned British think tank. I have visited and worked with them many times.

Last year, Chatham House launched a five-year seminar series in cooperation with the Japan Foundation. This year was the second conference, entitled, “The Role of the Nation State in Addressing Global Challenges: Japan-UK Perspectives.” I was invited to be a speaker on the “Fukushima” panel held on the second day. The panel chair was Sir David Warren, who was the British Ambassador to Japan at the time of the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami in 2011. I was also asked to write an essay for the conference and will introduce it here on my blog when it has been published.

In mid-October, I was in London, my last trip there having been in April. It was for the third meeting of the World Dementia Council (WDC) . Similar to the first meeting, it was held in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I briefly touched upon documents provided by the Japanese government in preparation for the WDC Legacy Event Japan, which will be held in Japan in November. However, since I am not the representative of Japan, I focused on participating in the discussion as an independent board member.

Also in London, I had the chance to meet up with a few young people, whom I have worked with in the past.

After returning to Japan, I met with the Senior Partner of BLP, Mr Paisner, who has participated in the IBA Tokyo twice. He was well received at the GRIPS Forum, with a turnout of around 200 students and faculty members.

Before I knew it, it was the end of October and I welcomed Professor Peter Piot, the Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (this is only comprised of a graduate school) to give a lecture at the GHIT.

Thirty-eight years ago, he discovered Ebola in the Congo and was awarded the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize (it is the only award given by the Japanese government and I am the Chairperson of the prize committee). It was very busy, with over seventy organizations at the press conference, countless questions asked on Ebola and many other lectures to give.

In my spare time, I had the opportunity to meet with people from British companies in London and in Tokyo.

Legacy Event Japan: Dementia Summit in Japan

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The World Dementia Council (WDC) (1) was launched last year in the UK at the G8 Summit. Until now, the Council has met three times, in London, Paris and London, with the Legacy Event being held in London in June, in Ottawa in September and in Japan on November 5-7th.

As a Council member, I have had many roles, including giving a speech at the opening ceremony, as you can see from my website and my twitter, at the Lagacy Event Japan of November.

I was pleased that the first day was even more successful than I had anticipated, due to the strong will and leadersip of the UK government and the ongoing events that were held five times over the past six months in London, Paris and Ottawa, allowing members to share many experiences. The Japanese government and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, who were the hosts of the event this time around, were also very pleased.

On the second day, both Minister Shiozaki and Prime Minister Abe spoke at the event, pledging a strong, ministry-wide commitment to dealing with dementia. I had the pleasure of presenting Dennis Gillings, the WDC Special Envoy, who spoke via video message as he could not be present at the event. After opening remarks were given by Mark Walport, the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Prime Minister and an old friend of mine, as well as by the World Health Organization (WHO), the panel commenced.

The first two-days of the event in Tokyo were comprised not only of presentations and panels by experts but also by people with dementia themselves; thus, it was evaluated very highly by people in the field from the participating countries.

On the third day, there were government-organized events held in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kyoto. In Tokyo, one of the events was a TED Talk-style presentation, led by my Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI), in cooperation with the OECD okyo office and ten private companies and NGOs that are independent from governments. The presentation included the topics of city planning and the potential use of robots. It was a huge success.

This kind of “social investment,” in which multi-talented people and stakeholders from different backgrounds actively come together, will play a key role for society in the decades to come.

The UK government has displayed a strong commitment to tackling this problem and the British Embassy held two other events in parallel to this Legacy Event, including a dementia workshop led by young people on the second day and a meeting of Japanese and British pharmaceutical companies and ventures on the third day, both of which I attended.

I am incredibly impressed by the will of the British government, as well as their imagination, strategy and implementation in dealing with dementia.

Two visits to JFK in September

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I have not posted very often in September and October. It is not that there was nothing to report, but I had many engagements that took up my time, such as lectures and conferences both in Japan and abroad.

On September 15th, I flew to JFK. From there, I headed to Philadelphia where I had a dinner. The next day I sat on a panel at a conference. After staying one more night, I left early in the morning to catch a flight back from JFK.

In the two days after this trip, I attended a couple of very important conferences in Tokyo and was able to finish them successfully. After spending the weekend at home, I headed to JFK once more on Monday, the 22nd.

This time, I went to NYC. I attended an educational session for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and a conference by the New York Academy of Sciences. This was held last year in San Francisco where I attended the conference as part of the Prime Minister of Malaysia’s advisory group. As this session was held during the United Nations General Assembly, the security in Manhattan was very tight and it was hard to get around.

On the evening of the 22nd, SONY CSL held its special annual event at MoMA for the first time. As I had some time, I attended the dinner. This big jump to MoMA must have required lots of practice from the participants. It is a wonderful idea.

The next evening, on the 23rd, I had dinner with Japanese doctors (1) who are conducting clinical residency training, which has become almost customary for my visits to NYC. There were also two medical students from Jichi Medical University who were there for two weeks of clinical clerkship. I enjoyed the dinner very much.

It is nice to be in New York in the autumn.