Summer Davos at Dalian: ‘D.Light’ and other flourishing Social Entrepreneurs

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As at elsewhere, ‘Social Entrepreneurs’ is in the spotlight at Summer Davos also.  Japan as a high tech country tends to see the world just from her perspective making international contribution with philosophy or products that lack ‘knowledge or sensitivity to the local situation’ or having ‘too much focus on cutting -edge technology’ – both being the ‘weakness’ that Japanese must recognize.

The D-Lab of MIT which I have introduced to you in my blog is a good example of the project that started with consideration to these points.

At IdeasLab, the session on social entrepreneurs, many examples were introduced but I would say Ned Tozan of ‘D.Light’ (Ref.1) caught most attention.  In India and Africa, many places are without electricity so some people burn kerosene at night.  This is apparently dangerous, unhealthy, and costly for poor people.  What can we do about it?  Their work starts from this question.  Their enthusiasm was felt to all who listened.

Other examples included:  1) Activities to provide modest education and skill training to migrant workers for their possible career opportunity after their return to homeland. 2) Helping people with only small land to be financially independent 3) Helping young women forced in prostitution in Cambodia and other lands to become financially independent.

I asked Mr. Tozan ‘Did your project stem out from D-Lab (Ref.1) ?’ and his answer was ‘Yes’.  Recently I posted a column on D-Lab, a wonderful new course that started at MIT.  I was told that this activity spread through the alumni and heard about a successful example of a Stanford student.  I had a feeling that D.Light was it, and correctly so.  Just looking at the background of Sam Goldman (Ref.1), CEO and founder of D.Light, you will see how American youth are aware about the world affairs, have energy and vitality to do something about them.  I also admire from the bottom of my heart the innovative ways elite universities of America treat the students and their ambitions.

I think that more social entrepreneurs would emerge from Japan if more Japanese business people or youth see global issues through their own personal experience. Letting them pass time in ‘Hikikomori (Social Withdrawal)’ is ‘mottainai’.  I wonder whether young people in Japan find it difficult to draw a bright picture of future when they see people 20-30 years older and think to themselves that those kind of life are their only options.  But they are so wrong!

In order to open up Japan to the world, it is crucial to ‘let young people experience and see more of the outside world’ (Ref.1, 2, 3).  It is now almost my mantra, but once again, I confirmed its importance.  The world is big.  As Steve Jobs puts it, ‘Don’t Settle, Keep Looking’(Ref.1)

World Economic Forum Japan meeting in commemoration of the opening of Tokyo Office, then to New Dheli, Taipei, and Summer Davos in Dalian

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WEF annual meeting in Davos may be described as the world famous place for the so-called “Track II” dialogue by members of the global society.  On the year of its 39th anniversary WEF opened Japan Office in Tokyo.  I understand that the Tokyo office is the fourth office of WEF in the world.  How exciting!  But then, why?  Might it be because of their high expectations for Japan?  Then, we certainly must do our best.

On September 4th and 5th, a meeting to announce the opening of Japan office  was held in Tokyo.  Large number of people gathered making this meeting very lively.  As the election of the Shugi-in (i.e. House of Representatives) just ended with the implication of the possibility of establishment of historical new administration, Mr. Hatoyama, the head of Democratic Party of Japan (and Davos meeting caucus)  joined to deliver a reassuring message.  I also participated in the panel afterwards.

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In the afternoon of the opening day of this meeting I left for New Delhi.  Arriving early next morning via Singapore I went straight to the meeting titled “India and Japan of Clean Energy Technology”(Ref.1, 2).  The conference opened with the keynote lectures of Dr. Pachauri of IPCC (it’s been a year)  and myself followed by a number of presentations from Japan introducing ecological technologies through which they seek “Win-Win” partnership of India and Japan. Ambassador Domichi also came to greet, and we had an honor of having him at the reception party in the evening.

India has a population of 10 million with expectation of annual 6-8% growth in economy for many years to come, but to my regret, Japanese business people residing in India are only 3,300 in total.  Isn’t this sad?  Although high potentials for establishing “Win-win” partnerships exist, we have such few Japanese doing business in India.  I think this is such a waste of opportunity, as I always say. (Ref.1)  Chinese and Korean industries are making quick moves into India.  I did point this out clearly to people participating from Japan.

Img_1815_2 At Sotokufu, the office of governor-general of Taiwan. The bust behind us is Sun Yat-sen.

Next day, I went to Taipei to join in with my colleague at GRIPS, Dr. Sunami and others.  Here again, the topic is “Japanese clean energy technologies” but it seems that the world does not know how good Japan is in this field.  Japan’s existence is not prominent.  Why?  I discussed on this, too.  In this global age, it is important to recognize your advantage or weakness about global issues and collaborate with others so that you can quickly spread into the society or the world.  This “Creation of new social values.” is what the innovation of the 21st century is all about. 

After Taipei, I went to Dalian via Shanghai to participate in the “New World Champions”, the so called ‘Summer Davos’ organized by WEF.  It’s a bit busy travel, but this is diplomacy, making friends world wide.  The first New World Champions took place in Dalian,   the second in Tensin. Participants included many young business people so naturally the event was quite energetic.

From the very first day I attended 3 sessions.  I was happy to hear that as many as 80 people came from Japan and was participating actively.  I saw many friends from the day 1.  Dr. Yoko Ishikura’s Blog  also reports on this event so please take a look.  Premier Wen Jiabao of the People’s Republic of China delivered a speech as in the first and second meetings.  He talked about the policies China took to respond to this global economic crisis, explaining how their outcomes were, how the current status is, and sent out strong confident message that China is ready and willing to continue taking up responsibilities.

In the evening, I attended several receptions including Japan dinner hosted by Taiyokeizai no Kai.

Democratic Party of Japan has won the election and?

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On August 30th, Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a historical and land-slide victory over Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the political party that held political leadership since 1955 building so-called ‘Regime 1955’ and ‘Iron-Triangle’ structure of Japan Incorporated (a brief break by Prime Minister Hosokawa lasted less than one year, but the Regime ’55 did not change a bit).

The result has far-reaching implications on the future of Japan. The results may not indicate the public at large tried to punish LDP for economic downturn, rising unemployment, and widening of income disparity or ‘Kakusa’, a view popular by the media here and there. Rather the results may indicate a rising awareness of the public’s thirst for ‘Change’ and realization that JDP cannot Change of resistance from heavily tied ‘establishments’ and ‘stakeholders’ of the ‘Regime ’55, eg, centralized powerhouse of bureaucrats-run ministries silos, big corporate establishment, farmers, civil construction and other interest groups.

This view which I portrait above seems consistent with the views of other opinion leaders outside of Japan who have watched and closely worked with and in Japan.  An Op-Ed appeared in September 7th of New York Times by a well known author of Japan, Ryu Murakami, ‘Japan Comes of Age’ also portays the public perception of reality of Japan.

The Economist, September 5th and other issues, for example, provide several pages of coverage such as ‘The vote that changed Japan’  , ‘Lost in transition’, ‘New bosses’ and ‘Banzai; A landslide victory for the DPJ Japan’ . Other media and presses abroad share similar commentaries.

In Huffingtonpost, a liberal on-line news and blog, which President Obama is one of frequent contributors, Dr Sunil Chacko (Ref.1), another frequent contributor and a friend of mine, also wrote on the DPJ victory with a title ‘Japan’s New Era’.

A writer, journalist, and a well know observer of Japan, Bill Emmott sent me an email in February saying ‘I also wrote a quick column for The Guardian the same evening I bumped into you for their online version with a title ‘A silver lining for Japan; The economic suffering here has been harsh and long, but at last political change is coming’.

When you read his column, it is of particular interest to note its concluding sentence (underlined) of the last paragraph, precisely the pointing to our democracy as I have been often pointing out in my speaking engagements and writings （Ref.1, 2, 3) (the sites are in Japanese except Ref.2). The paragraph reads as:

‘It is a country, in other words, that is in desperate need of a change of government, and the election of a party dedicated to repairing broken social services as well as shaking up the economy. No doubt as and when the DPJ wins power, it will bring disappointments and its own occasionally shambolic ministers. No matter. The important thing in a democracy is to punish those who have failed and to bring in a new crowd capable of making new mistakes. Japan has waited far too long for that.’

Be aware, Japan remains still second largest economy of the world, thus Japan must and is expected to carry its own responsibilities in the world affairs even in ‘The Post-American World’. Indeed, Japan has lots to offer to the global challenges, but not much signs of proactive action and engagements matched to its own economic power, at least to me.

A Guest Article by Donna Scott on Education Reform

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In this site and elsewhere I often discuss education reform in the world and in Japan because it is the most important policy issue of Japan and the world.  Frequent visitors to this site understand my points and views well.

Recently, I received a message from Donna Scott, who asked if I would consider a guest article. Obviously, she is involved with new types of educational system, ie, <onlineschool.net> as below;

http://onlineschool.net/2009/08/11/100-awesome-ways-to-use-duct-tape-in-your-dorm-room/
http://onlineschool.net/2009/08/04/100-best-book-blogs-for-history-buffs/

So I replied ‘why not?’

Below is her essay with a timely topics at the time of Lower House election of Japan, ‘New Party Could Mean Changes in Educational Testing’. (Full text is also copied below)

Your thoughts? And get involved in the connecting world.

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New Party Could Mean Changes in Educational Testing

The Democratic Party of Japan has stated that if it wins the upcoming election it would make some changes to the current educational system. Announced Monday, the party would drastically scale back the national achievement examinations given to students in their sixth year of elementary school and third year of junior high.

It doesn’t all have to do with education, however, as the concerns are more budgetary than anything else. The party believes that by only have a few sample schools take the exams that the government could save nearly 4 billion Yen each year, a large sum considering current economic difficulties facing leaders.

The tests themselves would also be altered, focusing on a wider variety of subjects rather than just focusing on Japanese and Math. Students from a wider range of grades would also take part in the testing, showing the performance levels of students in more than the two grades currently tested.

The exam is far from being an academic tradition; it was only reinstated in 2007 after leaders felt there had been a marked decrease in the quality of education and the academic abilities of students. As of present, all public schools participate in the testing and over half of private schools submitted their students? results. New regulations would test only a few of these schools as a means to find a balance between the need to gauge academic performance and cut expenses from the budget.

The current ruling party, if it maintains power, has no plans to scale back the testing, citing that students are still having difficulties with the utilization of knowledge as tests from the past few years have shown little change in this respect. It is expected, however, that the DPJ will score a landslide victory in the election, almost guaranteeing changes to the current testing plan, for better or worse.

This year it was the students in Akita and Fukui prefectures who scored the best in exams taken this April. This is their third straight year at the top of the ranks. Overall, the percentage of correct answers rose significantly from last year, but many believe that this is because the overall difficulty of the test was decreased. Problems still remain as there is a large gap between the schools in the top and bottom prefectures, showing that some schools may need additional resources and help to bring their students up to the level of those in other public education systems.

This post was contributed by Donna Scott, who writes about the best online schools. She welcomes your feedback at DonnaScott9929 yahoo.com

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A course of Prof. Mario Tokoro, e-mails in English

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Dr. Mario Tokoro of SONY CSL whom I have introduced to you in my posting of August 24  is also a Professor at Keio University (actually he moved to SONY CSL from Keio) and is offering a course on “Innovation” for graduate school students of science and engineering.

I was invited to give a lecture at the Yagami campus of Keio University.  The audience was about 120 students (master course and doctoral course), and I spent very enjoyable 90 minutes talking to those earnest students and answering to their questions.

In the end, as always, I requested them to listen to the 14 minutes’ commencement speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005.  I asked the students to listen and understand this speech by the creator of Apple, iTune, iPod, iPhone, etc. and tell me by e-mail via my website their reaction to it; what they felt or thought.

In the evening of that day, I received 4 e-mails.  I sent reply to all of them.  But after that – none came.

After having waited for several days in vain, I telephoned Dr. Tokoro to ask why.  He said “I think the students couldn’t believe that an important person like you could really mean what you said.”  So, I asked Dr. Tokoro to “Please tell the students to send me e-mails.  No need to be shy.”  Few days later, a flood of about 50 e-mails came in in two days!  Many of them were written in English.

I read the mails for 2 nights, sent my response to each one of them, and reported so to Dr. Tokoro.  I included Dr. Tokoro in CC to some of my responses since I thought he would enjoy reading them, too.  I stayed up for most of those two nights, but well worth it because there were so many things being said, including reactions to my lecture, in those e-mails.  Being able to exchange views with the students is also very amusing.

About a week later, one student sent me a message saying “Dr. Tokoro said that you responded to all e-mails from the students.  But I’m afraid I haven’t received your reply.”  I rushed to my PC to check.  Yes, I missed just one.  It was a fairly long, good writing.  I started my response by an apology for overlooking his e-mail.

By the way, I write my e-mails in English most of the time.  Even to the messages in Japanese, I reply in English.  When Dr. Tokoro introduced me to the students, he said “Dr. Kurokawa’s e-mails are always in English” so quite a few students challenged sending me an English e-mail.

Why English?  It’s not because it’s cool.  I have mainly 4 reasons.  My typing is not fast and not blind touch, to begin with…

1. Writing in Japanese needs converting typed letters to Kanji etc. which is time consuming.

2.  If I mistype one key of a word or phrase, I have to repeat all over again for that word or phrase, which is time consuming.

3.  In English, the meaning is understood even if I misspell a bit so I don’t have to be too nervous about hitting wrong keys.

4. And most importantly, language reflects culture.  In Japanese, ‘vertical’ relations such as titles or positions in society must be considered when deciding how you begin the letter.  You must first write some phrase of greetings such as “It’s been long time since I contacted you last time…” and so on (not a short one), to show respect politely.  Sometimes when I read those messages, I wonder what their point is.  English of course also has many polite ways of expression, but since people are basically “equal” as a person you can go straight and clear into the point without being rude.  In a ‘vertical’ society like Japan, one has to be mindful of the social positions of his/her counterpart; superiors vs. subordinates, professors vs. students, etc.  In my case, since most of the people I correspond with are younger than me, such as those students, it should be convenient for them to use English because they do not have to worry about greetings or being polite.  But I do have an impression that Japanese people are not used to writing in English.  My advice is ? ‘just get used to it’.

Writing e-mails in English has an advantage of being able to convey your message clearly without worrying much about misspellings.   But sometimes your expressions could be too straight forward and there are times when you have to be fairly careful about it.

Jaques Attali; A brief history of the future ? a brave and controversial look at the twenty-first century

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To trace the history of humans and predict the future ? this is always important at any time.  “Wise men learn from history, fools learn from experience”, “Historia Majistra Vitae”…. East or west, same kind of sayings are inherited.  They are the “wisdom of human kind”. Here in this site also, I have sent out messages of the like for a number of times. (For references in Japanese, please see 1, 2, 3, 4)

In my last posting I introduced a book by Fareed Zakaria, but “a brief history of the future ? a brave and controversial look at the twenty-first century”  written by Jaques Attali, one of the greatest intellectuals of France today, is equally very powerful and provocative.  This book predicts the world in the 21st century by sorting out “keywords to analyze the past and predict how our world will look like in the 21st century” from the long history of human beings. “Laws of history, rules for success are also applicable for future.  Understanding them will enable us to predict how the future will be…”.

For the Japanese edition, a short chapter titled “21st century ? will Japan survive?” is added as well as a chapter titled “Will France survive in the history of the 21st century?” in the end.  Anyway, the Japanese edition looks much more voluminous compared to English edition although I cannot read French original to compare.

Many of you might have seen the 2 hours’ interview with Jack Atari regarding this book on NHK.

The book’s content is structured by 6 chapters:
1. A Very Long History
2. A Brief History of Capitalism
3. The End of the American Empire
4. First Wave of the Future: Planetary Empire
5. Second Wave of the Future: Planetary War
6. Third Wave of the Future: Planetary Democracy

It was first published in 2006, but in “The Beginning of the End” of 2nd chapter it says: “Proliferating, excessive, limitless, and out of control, the American financial system requires profitability rates that industry cannot deliver, to the point where industrial corporations now lend their money in the financial sector rather than invest it in their own activities…” and “”Salary-earners are also increasingly indebted, especially in regard to two public corporations (Fannie Mae, second-ranking American corporation, and the fifth-ranked Freddie Mac), which hold or stand behind five trillion dollars’ worth of mortgage loans, a debt multiplied by four in ten years….” (p.98,99)  Here, we may say that Attalie predicted the subprime mortgage crisis as the financial panic started in the summer of 2007.

Attalie also introduces concept of “Core cities” and writes that “It constantly reinvents itself in a unique shape, around a single center, a single core, which attracts an innovative class (shipbuilders manufacturers, traders, technicians, and financiers) marked by its taste for the new and its passion for discovery.  Until a crisis, or a war, leads to replacement of one core by another. (p.35)

Many “lessons for the future” are given, but here I will list just a few:                  “transmission is a condition of progress" (p.5)
"a new communications technology, seen as a centralizing influence, turns out to be the implacable enemy of the powers that be." (p.50, footnote *1)
"the authoritarian state creates the market, which in its turn creates democracy." (p.69)
"the link between technology and sexuality underpins the whole dynamic of the mercantile order." (p.81)
"many major innovations result from the work of researchers paid out of public funds to look into something utterly different." (p.90)

Sub-titles illustrate brilliantly of the 21st century phenomenon that appears.  For example;
“Nomadic Ubiquity” (Arrival of Nomadic Ubiquity that Changes History)
“Irretrievable Scarcities” (Environment of Earth in the Future)
“Time: The Only True Scarcity” (Time: The Only True Scarcity Left)
And so on…
(In the parenthesis are sub-titles from Japanese edition for your reference.)

Then, the 4th Chapter begins.  First, second, and third waves of the future are described.

How can I describe the content?  Stimulating, horrifying, provocative… I have a feeling that most of them will actually realize.  There are many signs even now.

After reading, I thought of Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”

I recommend these books in addition to “The Post-American World”.  Please keep them in your mind and read whenever you have opportunities.

Footnote 1:  I also have been pointing out the weakness of “Vertical Society” in a “Flat World” by quoting Latin words “Incunabulum, Incunabula” in number of lectures.  For instance, please see my columns 1, 2, or 3.

Keynes and Schumpeter

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Lehman Shock (September, 2008) that started from Wall Street has triggered financial crisis and doldrums of economy in a global scale which still seems to be far from ending.  Each nation crafted stimulus packages and put them into action that now the picture looks more like policy competition in a broad sense.

Here is where Keynes, and Schumpeter who set "Innovation" at the center of economics attract attention.  Schumpeter seemed to have been a strong opponent of Keynes.  Why is it then that these two "contradicting" economists are both necessary?

Recently a book on these two giants of economics in the early 20th century was published; "Now is the time to learn from Keynes and Schumpeter (Imakoso Keynes to Schumpeter ni manabe)" by Dr. Hiroshi Yoshikawa.  This is a very stimulating book.  Dr. Yoshikawa has written this book based on strict verifications and inspections – which is his style.  The content is even entertaining – not written for economists – so it was fairly understandable even for a person like myself.

These two giants, Keynes and Schumpeter, were born in 1883 with just 4 months’ difference; in Cambridge, Great Britain and Vienna, Austria (Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary・・・ current eastern Czech Republic), and the year they died were only 4 years apart (Keynes in 1946, two years after Bretton Woods Agreements and Schumpeter in 1950.)  I recommend "Currency in Flame (Tsuka Moyu/the URL is in Japanese)" by Tomohiko Taniguchi on this topic.  It gives you good understanding of the age and place they lived, the background of their upbringing, education they had, relations with their mentors, and so on.

The book is a good reference with inspiring, rich content on policymaking which could be useful to Japan today.

There were many places that I found especially interesting and below are just few of the examples:

1. "・・・what are the motives for the enterprise operators (footnote) to go into new joints?  By no means they seek after financial benefits or money.  Schumpeter declares・・・and even goes on further to say "If this sort of desire appears it indicates not stagnation of their conventional activities but decline, not fulfillment of their missions but sign of their mortal deaths."  ・・・Schumpeter very clearly writes about typological classifications of industrial people・・・" (p.56,57)

Footnote: I telephoned Dr. Yoshikawa about difference between "enterprise operators" and "entrepreneurs".  He said that economists do not use the term "entrepreneurs" but instead "enterprise operators".  However, he added, "entrepreneurs" might be better understood by average readers.  So, please feel free to understand the term "enterprise operators, business operators" as "entrepreneurs".

2. "The business people as defined by Schumpeter – the heros/heroines that make capitalism the capitalism as is meant to be – are people born with special talents that are not bestowed to ordinary people.  Innovation is by no means created solely from rational calculations.  Rather, it is created only by business people who have irresistible impulse or ‘talents’ as I put it, that make them yearn for innovation.

Here, The Birth of Tragedy(1872), maiden work by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche(1844-1900) comes to my mind.  Nietzsche discussed the history of classic Greek tragedies by using two opposing ideas of ‘Apollonian’ and ‘Dionysian’.  Apollo, the god of Sun gives clear figure to everything through its light.  Intellect/reasoning is thus Apollonian.  On the other hand the essence of Dionysus, god of wine, is frenzy/intoxication.  ‘Business operator spirit’ defined by Schumpeter is clearly Dionysian just as ‘Animal spirits’ in Keynes is." (p.227, 228)

About economy and decline in population

3. "Keynes discussed relations between decline in population and economy in a very scholarly way as economist – as this is very much his style.  On the contrary, words by Schumpeter are by far "discussions on civilizations"". (p.210)

And

4. "But eventually, as capitalism develops, business operators as plain human beings start transformation to ‘ordinary people’ that maximize ‘benefit’ of self.  What happens at the point of maximization of individuals’ benefit?  The moment people start rationally calculating the cost of bearing a child and raising it, decline in population will begin.  Schumpeter counts decline in population as one of the signs of decay in the spirit of business operation." (p.229-230)

How did these two giants of economics perceive of each other?  This is another very interesting human drama.

I strongly recommend this book to you.  It is "Onko Chishin (to learn new lessons by studying the past)."
Also, "Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism" by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller was published recently.  After reading this book, here are some of my thoughts about policy makings of Japan during these 6 months.

Speed is of course important but it does not justify pumping in tax payers’ money into society easily without inspection saying this is "once in 100 years" crisis (Greenspan, former chairman of FRB).  Sometimes it is forced by political dynamics but if you look into supplementary budgets, for instance, the budgets are almost scattering about of money with bureaucratic sectionalism.  I must say that people lack leadership; policy makers, industries, academics, and scientists… all of them.

If it is "once in 100 years", although doubt remains, clear vision and policies must be introduced for the major changes that need to take place several years from now.  And we don’t have them.  I have been pointing this out repeatedly in my blog and many other places. (Ref: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6  *3,4,5,6 are in Japanese.)

Is the industrial framework OK as it is?  Can we expect "Innovators" to emerge in current industries?

What we need in society, in any place of the society, are "Innovators".  In other words, "Nails that stick out", "People with spirit of enterprise" ・・・.  These kinds of people are strongly needed at time like this.

Trainings of Indian IIT students in Japan

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ASIMO Demonstration@Honda Aoyama Welcome Plaza from Kihoko Suda on Vimeo.

Indian Institute of Technology is well known as one of the top universities in India that produces world class leaders.

For these excellent undergraduate students of IIT, Honda Foundation is organizing Young Engineers and Scientists project since 2007.  5 winners are selected in India each year and Dr. Pachauri of IPCC and I delivered speech to congratulate the winners at the first awarding ceremony of last year as you may have read in this blog.

The Foundation then invited 4 winners to Japan for 2 months' research and trainings.  This way, young people of India will not only learn more about Japan but will come to like Japan, and will eventually act as "Ambassadors to Japan."  It is such a wonderful project.  I certainly would like to see Japanese students given more chances of the same experience.

This year, all of the 5 winners spent 2 months in Japan.  2 students at Okazaki National Institutes of Natural Science in the field of gene technology, two at the research institute of Honda (in Miyazaki city, Miyazaki prefecture and Asaka city of Saitama prefecture), and one at Shibaura Institute of Technology.  They apparently enjoyed the stay and told us enthusiastically about their experience in a different research environment of foreign country, different city environment, different values, about punctual train operations, hospitality of Japanese people, etc.

Upon their returning back to India, we arranged a farewell dinner with people from the Honda Foundation, Dr. Sunami of GRIPS, and students from IITN (it was a pity that one student could not make it).  3 people from the meeting of the other day, which included graduates of IIT, were also present making the gathering even more stimulating.

Encounter with foreign country or different culture at an early stage of life is an valuable asset.  It would broaden one's view, as well as one's alternatives of life.  It can also very possibly help "Connecting Dots" in the "Flat World."

Many thanks to people of the Honda Foundation, faculty members who were involved in the training of the students, and everyone who supported this project.

 

“Nobel Prize and Academy Award” dialogue ? a follow up

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A short time ago, I posted a story about my experience of being offered a rare opportunity of hosting an extremely charming dialogue under this title.

The dialogue was published on "Weekly Diamond" magazine so please have a look.

Enjoy reading the views and insights of Dr. Tanaka and Mr. Kato.  Also included in the article is my opinion, in short, "out of the box kind of people of the age bring changes to the society."  Search by key word "out of the box" within this site.  The search engine should hit a number of columns, since I have written repeatedly about it.

ACP Japan Chapter

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This institution is quite unique.  Why does American College of Physicians (ACP) have Japan Chapter?  This is exactly the point.  Please refer to my "Message from the Governor" (in Japanese) at the start of Japan Chapter and my blog (in Japanese) for explanations.  Ever since its foundation, we organized annual meetings (reports in Japanese) with the presence of the President from the headquarters.  The first meeting was held in April, 2004.  I have been involved since the beginning, and am scheduled to serve as Governor for another year.

The annual meeting of ACP-Japan Chapter is different from other domestic meetings in that participants do not care much about his/her position/hierarchy.  I hear this especially from young people, i.e. medical students and residents.  Here are some of the scence from the meeting for you to enjoy.  I posted a report on annual meeting of last year in my blog also.

This year’s annual meeting was, like others, held in Tokyo in April with support from The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine.  Many enthusiastic discussions took place on topics such as activities of female doctors, case studies, etc. This conference lets us feel high spirits, particularly of young generation.

Two weeks after Japan meeting, the annual meeting of ACP headquarters was held at Philadelphia, and many Japanese members participated in spite of their tight schedule.

A report on series of activities of ACP-Japan Chapter is now uploaded on its web site (in Japanese).  Anyone interested are cordially invited to have a look and learn about their activities or browse through messages from the members as well as various photos.