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Recently, the interim report "Innovation 25" was presented. We had received high expectations and a lot of support from various sectors including http://dndi.jp, which created some pressure, and there was some difficulty to bring it to completion. This interim report is unusual as this kind of report. It starts as a message from Ms. Sanae Takaichi, Minister of State for Innovation and continues to a day in the life of the Innove Family (an image of Japanese family in 2025). Afterwards, I explain my fundamental policies as a chairperson and the normal report follows.

The focus of the report is on the innovation of science and technology and the development of society and the social system. This development will require the cultivation of human resources. How to promote these priorities together is the agenda of this report. The immediate policy issues of overriding priority are (1) increased investment for young people, (2) reform of the university system, and (3) making environment issues as an engine for economic growth and international contributions. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has demonstrated his recognition of these three policies as high-priority issues that we need to remedy and directed us to promote these goals.

We have received various opinions and comments about this interim report in the newspapers and blogs and we appreciate them. The interim report "Innovation 25" is on http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/innovation/chukan/070226.html. Please read this report.

The reform of the university system was discussed in the Council of Economic and Fiscal Policy on the 27th and I think the councilmen and the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology are of the same opinion. Of course each opinion and viewpoint is different in detail and methodology. Everyone has the perception that the reform of the university systems is a very important pillar of the national policy. Ultimately, the reform of university systems means the Ozumo-nization of the university of which I always speak.

In addition, developed countries have a common perception that the global environment and climate change has risen as a top-priority issue. Not only in EU countries and the UK, but even in the United States, energy and environment has become a top priority as mentioned in President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address. Former Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Seeing these movements, the worldwide push for the environmental reform is obvious. Countries are beginning to compete with each other for leadership of the G8 summit this year in Germany and next year in Japan. Japanese leadership and our message concerning environmental problems is going to be challenged by the rest of the world.

For the proposal of Innovation 25, Prime Minister Abe himself stated that we should try to make an environment engine for economic growth and international contributions a top-priority issue. I think this is a very important thing. Related government ministries and agencies will be questioned on how to get public support for this proposal. Information is global and the entire world is watching us.

I introduced Mr. Tetsuya Iizuka, the chief executive of THine Electronics, Inc. in my blog "The Society to Foster Innovations" on December 25th, 2006. The other day I found his interview article.

　　　Mr.Tetsuya Iizuka,THineElectronics-interview.pdf

I hope that the number of the people like Mr. Iizuka who have ambition and who put those ambitions into action increases. A society which has more and more innovative people and in which these people are active is an innovative society. This is what innovation is all about.

We don’t need any more critics. If you are thinking of something, concentrate on the issue and discuss it with somebody if needed (With whom you should talk to? You don’t have anyone to speak with? You don’t have any friends? Maybe that’s the problem you should think about.). Just do what you think is right. Nothing will start if you just make excuses as to why you cannot do something.

Innovation is not a magic wand, a secret or a trick. It depends upon your mind-set and actions alone!

If you want to know more about innovation, please visit http://dndi.jp.

The column "My wry Smile" is a series in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and my story was on January 29th. The article is as follows:

●Title reads as ‘I joked that "I will open a yakitori restaurant in L.A" and a sudden visit has made me confused’
●In 1979, ten years had passed since I moved to the United States. I originally planned to stay there for two to three years. However, I liked the open atmosphere in that you could be successful if you had the ability and even if you were young. Therefore, I decided to take a chance in the States. I got a medical license in California and was also qualified as a diplomat of Internal Medicine and in 1979, I became a professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at UCLA School of Medicine. I felt I was finally recognized as an accomplished doctor and professor.
●I was invited to an international academic conference in Strasbourg, so in the summer I visited France with my wife. Four years earlier, I stayed in Paris for two months to research in Tenon Hospital, a prestigious hospital for kidney disease. I had not noticed at that time, but a yakitori restaurant (Japanese grilled-chicken restaurant) was open near the Opera, so we went there a few times.
●Many Japanese companies expanded into L.A. and sushi and eel restaurants received good business from the expatriate employees. Yakitori restaurants in Paris were much more popular to the local French people than to Japanese. Their food was great also. I spoke across the counter, a typical Japanese Yakitori style, with a cook who was working in a restaurant and who looked 12 years younger than I. He told me he had no experience as a cook in Japan, but that he just came to Paris and found a job and got trained because he thought he can make it in there. He told me that once a chicken was butchered, all of it could be eaten and there were no parts that should be wasted. I was impressed and thought that made sense.
●I told him that I didn’t see any yakitori restaurants in L.A., so I thought to own one. Of course I didn’t mean it seriously. However, in the States, even professors have to earn salary and undertake research expenses. Jobs in the States, unlike in Japan, are often unstable, so an individual might get fired at anytime. I admit that in order to eliminate my anxiety over the future, I thought that if something were to happen and I lost my job, a yakitori restaurant may not be a bad idea at all
●One year later, my house phone rang. "Professor, what happened to the yakitori restaurant?" The call was from the cook I met in Paris. "I am in New York and if you can, would you hire me?" My sense of nostalgia suddenly disappeared. He told me that he quit the restaurant in Pars and just came to the States without an apparent purpose.
●My wife accused me of making extravagant claims but I couldn’t abandon the cook. Therefore, I asked him to come and stay at our house for a month. I introduced him to a Japanese restaurant where we were regular customers.
●Since then I had not heard from him for a while, but he called me after one year. He told me "Thank you for helping me with a lot of things. Now I own my own restaurant in New Jersey and I am driving a Lincoln Continental."
●A life in which you always fear failure is boring. Whenever I meet young people gifted with remarkable talents, I encourage them to explore the world from a rather insular society like Japan. I do not think those experience will be wasted.
●However, I sometimes open my mouth without deep thinking. It is then that I regret that I may have said too much, as my comments can change a person’s life.
●One day, Dr. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, former president of Science Council of Japan, told me that I appeared outspoken, but that in reality am quite caring and thoughtful. I was happy to hear that comment.

Furthermore in the column,

●< Lesson from the mistakes >
●Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa, who became the Cabinet’s Special Adviser in charge of science, technology and innovation to Abe administration, has been working on the reconstruction of the Japanese medical education for ten years. Dr. Kurokawa states that his responsibility is to develop the human resources who will lead the next generation properly.
●Dr. Kurokawa has had a bitter experience. One of my former students in University of Tokyo was an Aum Shinrikyo cult member and was responsible for a mail explosion in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. "He was an earnest and excellent student. If I had noticed that he joined a cult at the time he told me that he would quit his residency (sighs)…. I feel deeply ashamed of myself."
●(by Toshihiko Yano, Science and Technology Department, Nihon Keizai Shimbun).

Thank you Mr. Yano, you put my story together really well.

Then I got an email to my homepage from a lady who read this column. I will introduce it here:

Dear Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa: After reading the January 29th column….

Please forgive me for sending you this unexpected mail. I am reading the Nikkei newspaper one day late, because my husband brings them home everyday. This morning I read the column "My wry smile" about you before I went to work and I was moved to tears.
I just wanted to thank you for giving me this warm feeling, so I searched for your homepage and found this. Because I like L.A., I started reading this column in this newspaper, and I was encouraged by your warm personality and affection towards young people.
Ten years have passed since I opened a pharmacy as a pharmacist, and I have grown through encounters with many people, including patients. I want to grow more and more through experiences.
I didn’t know about you before I read this newspaper column (I might even have your book…I’m sorry). I will treasure this article. Thank you so much.With gratitude.

I was really glad that somebody responded to my feelings.

January 26th was the busiest day in Davos. In the morning, we had a panel discussion, "Who Funds Research and Innovation?" and I was a facilitator. The eight panelists were as follows:

They are all preeminent people and we had a great discussion. I think we all have different opinions, although sharing a mutual understanding and a common goal is very important in the process of having an open discussion.

At the same time of my panel discussion, Dr. Yoko Ishikura and Mr. Thomas Stewart, the Editor Managing Director of Harvard Business Review co-chaired a panel discussion: "How Cities Drive Innovation." Of course I couldn’t attend it.

In the afternoon, a very interesting panel discussion "How Much Should World Spend on Healthcare?" was held and the facilitator was my friend, James Kondo. Dr. Michael Porter, who has risen in the field medical policy as of late, was one of the panelists. He attended the panel discussion of the same theme with me last year.

I was not able to attend Dr Kondo’s discussion, because I was invited to another closed-door, unofficial discussion, "The Meeting of the Chemical Industry’s Presidents." Mr. Sadayuki Sakakibara, the president of Toray Industries Inc. and Mr. Hiromasa Yonekura, the president of Sumitomo Chemical (Picture 1) were also invited. Dr. Daniel Esty (Yale University) was present as well (Picture 2).

Picture 1 Mr. Yonekura, the president of Sumitomo Chemical (second from the right).

Picture 2 Dr. Esty, myself, and Dr. Siwei, Chinese big-name. You can see the book, Green to Gold.

I got along with Dr. Etsy very well and he gave me his recent book, Green to Gold. This book will be very helpful in explaining how companies should function in the future. Dr. Etsy wrote with clarity on companies and their environmental responsibility. I want many Japanese corporate workers to read this book. I believe the book helps to predict upcoming world business trends. Actually, in this year’s Davos Forum, the panel discussions which attracted the largest number of people were those on environment and climate change. Over ten such discussions were held. In the area of energy policy, Dr. Steven Chu projected his strong presence.

From 4:15 in the afternoon, I went to attend a panel discussion, "Scaling Innovation in Foreign Aid." Panelists were Mr. Bill Gates, Dr. Paul Wolfowitz (a neoconservative in the first Bush administration and currently the President of the World Bank), Dr. William Easterly, a professor of Economics at New York University, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia (Picture 3). The facilitator was Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International (he’s always willing to ask the tough questions and is unafraid of authority. I thought he is a model journalist). I saw Dr. Tachi Yamada, who became the Executive Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health program and my friend from UCLA. Dr. Yamada introduced me to Mrs. Melinda Gates. While I was listening to this panel discussion, I thought Mr. Bill Gates was very insightful.

Picture 3 From the left, Mr. Bill Gates, Prof. Easterly, and Dr. Wolfowitz, the President of the World Bank.

Afterwards, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bono from U2, and Mr. Gates were the panelists of the discussion, "Delivering on the Promise of Africa." Ms. Sadako Ogata is always a panelist in this kind of theme panel discussions. Whenever I see Ms. Ogata, I feel proud of that she is Japanese.

In the evening, I was invited to a discussion of space project in the future. I was with my sworn friend Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity College. I had a great time there. Dr. Yoko Ishikura was present and sat next to Load Rees. I went back to the hotel with Dr. Ishikura and Ms. Tsubouchi (Picture 4).

Tomorrow morning I will leave Davos for Japan. This year Ms. Sadako Ogata and Mr. Heizo Takenaka attended many panel discussions and showed great charisma. I feel that as the world’s second strongest economy, Japan needs more people who have such an outstanding presence. I would like to thank everyone who was involved in this Forum.

Picture 4 From the right Dr. Ishikura, myself and Ms. Tsubouchi.

I was busy the whole day today. I attended a session called "Islam/South East Asia" in which my old acquaintance, Dr. Jusuf Wanandi, was one of the panelists. The panelists include those from Malaysia and The Philippines. At the same time, another panel focused on Japanese economic trends, entitled ‘Japan: Beyond the Recovery" was held (obviously I could not listened to); my associate James Kondo, whom I mentioned in yesterday’s column, was the moderator. Dr Heizo Takenaka, Dr Takatoshi Ito and Mr Kakutaro Kitashiro, Chairman of the Board of Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai-Doyu-Kai), were panelists among others. I was told Dr Takenaka concluded the session very well.

In the afternoon, I attended a session Madame Yuriko Koike, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for National Security Affairs (Picture 1) was a panelist. Afterwards, I had a preliminary discussion with the person in charge of the panel discussion tomorrow, which I will be moderating. I also saw Shri Kamal Nath, the Minister for Commerce and Industry for the Government of India. I met him in India last November. I saw Dr Hirotaka Takeuchi, Dean of Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University and his wife. They said they hadn’t visited Davos for a few years. I met with Mr Yoishi Funabashi, a well known journalist whom I last saw almost three years ago (he had already written two columns in Asahi News and elsewhere about Davos Forum of this year…impressive!).

In the evening, there was a reception ‘Japan Night’. The Japan Water Forum hosted this reception but I thought it was a bit strange: more official bodies or corporate sector should organize this kind of gathering. The Japan Water Forum is an NPO and the president is former Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori. This NPO is working on solving water problems around the world. Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki, the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, whom I met in Geneva when I visited the WHO last week attended the reception. Hiroshi Komiyama, the president of the University of Tokyo, Yuichiro Anzai, the President of Keio University and his wife, Haruhiko Kuroda, the President of Asian Development Bank, and Hiroyoshi Watanabe, President of JETRO were attendees of Japan among many others. The founders of Google, Mr Larry Page and Mr Sergey Brin, also showed up among many guests. I have posted a picture with Mr. Page; Mr. Brin was near us too. If you check the history of Google, you can find many interesting things. I heard Ms. Koike attended a panel discussion, ‘Military/ Asia’ that began eight o’clock that night.

From eight o’clock at Japan Night, ‘Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story’ (45 minutes movie) was screened. Everyone watched until the end and was touched by the movie. My appreciation to those individuals that came all the way from Japan for the movie.

From ten o’clock, I went to the reception by ‘McKeinsey Global’ and met Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard and few others. Today was indeed a long day was for me.

Picture 1 With Ms. Yuriko Koike, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for National Security Affairs.

Picture 2 With Prof Heizo Takenaka.

Picture 3 With Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki and Prof Yoko Ishikura.

Picture 4 From the right, ProfHirotaka Takeuch, me, Prof Hiroshi Komiyama, Mrs. Anzai, Prof Murasawa (Special Advisor to the President of University of Tokyo), and Prof Yuichiro Anzai.

Picture 5 Mr. Larry Page, one of the founders of Google.

As those of you who have visited this website before may know, I serve as a Commissioner of the Commission for Social Determinations of Health (CSDH) of the WHO (World Health Organization). Thus far I have visited Santiago de Chile, Cairo, Nairobi. This time the Commission was held at its headquarter in Geneva. I had planned to leave Tokyo at 9:55PM on January 16th by Air France, but I had some work to do for the Cabinet Office. Therefore, I left in the morning of 17th and missed the first day of the CSDH conference.

You can see the picture of all the Commissioners on the WHO website. It is a commemorative photo with Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director-General (in the center). Can you find where I am? You can also see a picture of Dr. Chan, Dr. Amartya Sen, and Sir Michael Marmot and myself on the report of "Commissioners meeting in Geneva, 17-19 January"

Dr. Amartya Sen attended this conference for the first time. When I met him in Tokyo two years ago, I asked him to come to more conferences. I’m sure you know Dr. Amartya Sen. He is one of today’s greatest contemporary philosophers. In 1998, Dr. Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. He used to be Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University and three years ago, he returned to Harvard University. I introduced him in Dokusyo Manyu, in my article "Reaching the Depth of India and Rethinking Japan," so please read it. Dr. Amartya Sen was a mentor to Kotaro Suzumura, current Vice-President of the Science Council of Japan whom I respect very much; he is a professor at Hitotsubashi University.

Dr. Sen made pointed remarks during the conference and I had a nice chat with him at the evening reception. I also found out that I have many mutual acquaintances with not only Dr Suzumura, but Dr. Hirofumi Uzawa, Dr. Masahiko Aoki, Lord Martin Rees, Dr. Monte Cassim of Asia Pacific University and others. Dr. Sen is indeed an extraordinary person.

My opinion in the conference was that social inequities occurred because of historical male-oriented societies. In any society, except for a few exceptions, half are men and half are women. Therefore, no matter if you are rich or poor, in every country and every community and civilization, people should aim for social equality between men and women. I think this is an extremely worthy goal. Many female commissioners told me that they agreed with my opinion and many women (even Commissioners!) hesitate to make such remarks in this kind of ‘official’ meetings. They thanked me for voicing it to the conference members.

As you see in the picture above, I met Dr. Margaret Chan, the new Director-General of the WHO. (I’m sorry for Dr Shigeru Omi who lost the election; He is a very good and competent man). It was a matter of political will of a nation.

Thank you so much for your hospitality, Dr Shibuya, Mr. Mochizuki, Dr Tamura from Tokai University and Dr Enami form Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. At night, I had dinner with Dr Shinozaki, former Director of Health Policy Bureau of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and Mr. Tsuchiya, working for World Economic Forum in Geneva Headquarters: I had a really good time.

Tomorrow I have to leave for London, but the weather is quite stormy in northern Europe. I am a bit worried about my flight out tomorrow.

As I wrote from Washington, DC, and back to Japan on 10th. On the 11th, I went to work in the morning and in the afternoon I left for Okinawa. In the evening, I had dinner with Hirokazu Nakaima, Governor of Okinawa Prefecture. On the 12th, I visited the new Graduate University of Science and Technology. Hakuun sou, an old building in Onna village, is in the area where the university is planning to be built. The Hakuun-so building has been renovated and has become quite beautiful. I hope this building with additional facilities on this site will become a showcase of the university. Within this calendar year, construction of research institutes will start. In constructing such buildings, we need to consider environmental impact assessments and civil engineering work of the land.

I also visited the transitional research laboratories and had lunch with some scientists. As I reported in the last blog, "Jenelia Farm" in Washington DC, would well serve as a good model for this university. Design of the new University buildings will be great too. I am really looking forward to seeing them.

In the afternoon of that day, I gave a lecture for senior staff of Okinawa prefecture. I spoke about how Okinawa should use its strength. Although geological and historical problems exist, Okinawa can take advantage of the special information-communication and financial business zones, while working to create more. Okinawa can also use an international personal network by using ICT (I think largest number of immigrants to the United States and elsewhere are from Okinawa and Hiroshima). The Graduate University of Science and Technology will play an important role in developing human resources for the future of the world. Okinawa has produced world-class golf players. Developing and producing world-class human resources who can make the future in a mid to long-term prospective is important. In addition Okinawa is a popular clinical training place. I have introduced in this website that Okinawa is really popular for the young doctors and produces many great doctors.

Furthermore, Okinawa has the advantage of tourism resources, such as an exotic atmosphere of the tropical islands, beaches, and scuba diving spots in Kerama Islands. The annual income from tourism is 400 billion yen or almost 3.5 billion US dollars. About five-million Japanese tourists visit Okinawa in a year but only 150 thousand from overseas. Direct flights to Okinawa airport are from Manila, Taipei, Seoul, and Beijing. I heard these flights are only once a day, so I suggested advertising in the north and inland China such as Shenyang, Dalian, Beijing, Nanjing, Xian which have opposite climates from Okinawa, which will be very attractive to come throughout the year. I also recommended having two to three direct flights (even chartered at least initially) in a week to those Asian cities. I think they can start with two to three charter flights in a week. The tour in warm Okinawa will be attractive for Chinese people especially in fall and cold winter. I suggest thinking about what kind of tourists Okinawa will attract. What do you think?

January 13th was Saturday, but I had an interview with Ms. Waki from London, a Reuters journalist whom I met last year at the Davos conference. We had a nice chat about what kind of people can acquire an international way of thinking even subconsciously.

In the afternoon of 13th, I met Dr. Barbara Sherwood Lollar of University of Toronto. Her research discipline is geochemistry, but we had a great talk. She came to Japan as a part of "Japan-Canada Woman Scientists Exchange Program," which the Science Council of Japan and Canadian Academy started three years ago. The purpose of this program is to have seminars in high schools in each host country. (However, when Japanese scientists go to Canada, seminars can be with elementary school students because of little language barrier.) Although the visits lasted for only for one week, everyone had a great time. I heard the workshops went very well because she received great feedback and many questions from the students. I also met Dr. Kato of Ochanomizu University who visited Canada last year in the program. You can read reports by Dr. Kato and Dr. Honma on the efforts of Canadian Universities’ science education. (Japan-Canada Woman Scientists Exchange Program), who visited Canada last year. You might notice that there is something wrong with Japan’s science education for students.

In an era of globalization, I want people to go, see, and feel the world from their earlier years. I want to increase those opportunities. In the future all the world is for the young people. This is what I think is most important to put into practice.

On January 16th the "Innovation 25" committee meeting was held. On the 17th, I will leave for Geneva for the WHO HQ.

Happy New Year! Time has passed so quickly. I have been in Washington, DC since January 6th. The daytime temperature is almost 23-5℃ here. This is unusual weather. I can see people are drinking coffee on terraces in half sleeve shirts. In winter, I’ve heard that this is the first time in the past hundred years that the temperature has reached low 20℃ in the winter in Washington, DC.

I had an opportunity to have lunch with Dr Harvey Fineberg, president of Institute of Medicine. We had a highly productive discussion about many challenging problems. That night, I accidentally received an e-mail from an official of the Gates Foundation. It was an inquiry about the "Disease Control Priority Project, 2nd edition," of which I am involved and had spoken about with Dr. Fineberg during lunch. What a coincidence!

I also had a great time with Dr. Zerhouni, director of National Institutes of Health (NIH). We had such a fruitful discussion session that we overran our schedule. Afterwards, I was able to visit Janelia Farm, to which I was really looking forward. Janelia Farm is a completely different institute with a new concept. Dr. Gerald M. Rubin, director of the institute, is a great person too. Only 30% of the whole building was built, but I could see that it has a wonderful construction. I received useful information that I could implement at the new graduate university in Okinawa, where I am working as a founding member. While I was in Washington, DC, I also visited National Association for Manufacturing (NAM).

I met Dr George Atkinson, the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of States (STAS) for an hour. I also had a great time with Ralph J. Cicerone, director of National Academy of Science and John Boright, Excective Diretor of International Affairs at the US National Academy of Science and in the meeting we covered a great number of topics. At night, I got an e-mail from Jeffrey Sachs about his visit to Japan in March for Millennium Village Project. I spoke with him as he was in New York.

Anyway, the people I met during this visit were all at the top of each of their important institutes or holding key posts. Their perspectives and ambitions are international, and I felt my level of intellectual stimulation is slightly different from when I meet Japanese people holding the same kind of posts. I imagine you have same kind of experience.

I would like to thank young staffs of Japanese embassy that made my visit truly eventful. I hope they can play an important role in the future. Each of them was really great. Please try to use your individual strengths, since overall strength cannot be brought out only by an organization.

I came back to Japan on 10th. This was a really busy but fulfilling trip.

→Japanese

Five years ago, the Ministry of Economy started a project called, “The Industrial Cluster Program.” The goal of this project was to create clusters of universities and companies that interact intensively and facilitate the generation of innovative ideas. As the project drew to a close, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Economy, and Nihon-Keizai Shimbun Inc (literally, The Japan-Economics Paper; the Japanese equivalent of The Wall Street Journal) jointly held a final forum, “The National Forum of Intellectual and Industrial Clusters,” at “Tokyo Big Site,” on November 29th. I had just arrived at Narita airport from India that morning. After returning home to change my clothes, I hurried to the forum to give my presentation entitled, “Innovation”. The outline of my presentation was published in the Nikkei (Nihon-Keizai) Shimbun on December 25th.

The next challenge for Japan: How do we facilitate “innovation” in our society?

“Innovation” has become the key word for economic growth all over the world. In the European Union, in 2000, the European Council created the “Lisbon Strategy 2000” project, whose main objective was to deal with stagnant economic growth through innovation. Its final report, “Creating an Innovative Europe,” also known as the, “Aho report,” after the former Finish prime minister, was published in January 2006. In the United States, the innovation leader of 90s, The Council of Competitiveness (an NPO group that has significant influence over US trade and industrial policies) published a report called “US competitiveness 2001” and in 2004 released another report called “Innovative America”, also known as the, “Parmisano Report.” The report begins by declaring: "Innovation will be the single most important factor in determining America’s success through the 21st century." In Japan, Shinzou Abe, the new prime minister declared a long-term strategy called “innovation 25” in his first speech. I am the chairman of that strategy council.

There have been many innovations in our lives over the past decades. For example, in 1980, almost no one carried around a cell phone. Computers and Internet were restricted to a very limited number of users. These technologies had a significant influence on the structure of our society itself; therefore they are truly, “innovative.” I believe that true innovations have immense economic value and that they have the power to change the structure of our society.

To be truly innovative in that sense, to create something new with immense economic and social value to the people, we must ask ourselves what technology and service we need to make our society a better place. What do consumers and users really need? It takes a noble and pioneering spirit to keep the bigger picture in mind; our task is to create a society that will serve as a breeding ground for people with just such a spirit.

Being sensitive to the needs of people also helps us to cooperate with people in Asia and the world. Unfortunately, Japanese people are still somewhat closed off to the outside world, and do not care much about what people outside Japan might need. We have many advanced environmental technologies that could be useful in fast developing nations such as India or China if only we care to lend a hand.

More importantly, we need to foster talented individuals with leadership skills. Japanese universities have so far been rather parochial; faculty and students have little interaction with people outside of Japan, the curricula are not meant to train people to compete in a global market. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, only about 10 Japanese universities rank among the top 200 in the world. Outstanding universities recruit and educate talented individuals, but Japanese universities have failed to attract talented individuals from outside of Japan.

Japanese traditionally excel at perfecting things, and we have produced some innovative products in the process. Our weakness, however, is that we are not good at grasping the bigger picture, i.e. creating a generalized idea from individual events and using that new idea to foresee how our society is going to progress. In order for Japan to compete in the global market, we need to keep our strong points while working to improve on our weak points by interacting with and learning from people outside Japan. We need to change the structure of our society so that the next generation will not have the weakness we have, and will be innovative in upcoming decades.

Mr. Tetsuya Iizuka, the chief executive of THine Electronics, gave a special talk after me. I had heard rumors about his passionate personality but had never had a chance to meet him. As I had expected, his talk was impressive and passionate. Here is the summary of his talk published in Nikkei Shimbun;

We need to revolutionize our universities and small venture businesses.

Big corporations on the one hand and universities and small venture businesses on the other should equally contribute to our technological advance. However, when we look at the Japanese industrial world today, it seems to me that one of those two driving forces is not working well; universities and small venture businesses are not functioning to their full capacities.

The Japanese government and people have always seen Japan as a technology-oriented nation. However, will this continue to be the case in the future? Some statistics reveal that over the decade between 1995 and 2005, the number of students who applied to engineering departments decreased by about 50%. Our slowing birthrate will further decrease the number of future engineers. The lack of engineers is starting to become a problem in the industrial world, and the situation will become serious if we don’t act now.

The major reasons that students avoid engineering departments, I think, are that they are losing their sense of hope about a career as an engineer, and that the turnover rate for Japanese small businesses is very high. It used to be different; Japan produced plenty of innovative engineers in the past. Today, talented Japanese baseball players get to transfer to American major league baseball teams and succeed globally, whereas there seems to be less hope for a young engineer to achieve such global success. Our governmental support system for new small businesses is far from perfect, and it is still very risky and difficult, even for talented individuals, to found venture companies.

I founded my company, Thine electronics, after I had worked in the semiconductor division of a large company. Our company is an IP firm that does not have its own factory, a style of company that became common in 1980’s in the US. However, because of this, some customers in Japan are hesitant to do business with us. In contrast it has become a well-accepted business model outside of Japan. Also, partially because of recent scandals involving venture businesses, some people think of venture businessmen as little more than unscrupulous worshippers of the almighty dollar.

In addition, Japanese culture is not forgiving of mistakes and that inhibits the growth of venture businesses. According to the “Statistics on business establishments and organizations” published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the growth rate of new enterprise between 2001 and 2004 was 3.5% whereas the rate of market exit was 6.1%. This is a very high number compared to other developed nations; in other words, our industrial world is also suffering a low birthrate.

We need to alleviate this harsh environment for new businesses. In the United States, research and development departments in big companies and universities/small ventures are both strong driving forces of innovation. We need to establish structural support in our industrial world that allows venture business owners to explore new ideas efficiently without first building large establishments with many employees. The activities of venture businesses are vital to the progress of our innovation.

The closing lecture was given by Mr. Masao Horiba, for whom I happen to have the utmost respect. (Unfortunately I had other commitments and could not listen to his talk). Nikkei Shimbun summarized his talk:

Cooperation between the industrial and academic worlds will activate low-tech fields.

The biggest challenge for Japan in the 21st century, I think, is to stimulate economic growth in the rural regions of Japan. There is no doubt that creating intellectual and industrial clusters will be the most effective solution to the problem. In doing so, innovation is the key.

So far, the definition of the word “innovation” has been unclear. Some use this term simply to describe new ideas while others say it defines ideas that can be eventually exploited as business seeds. Today, Mr. Kurokawa argued that, “We cannot call something truly innovative unless it has created a social value.” I agree and I think we should make his definition our standard and the goal for intellectual and industrial clusters.

In the panel discussion, people pointed out that our public demands results immediately, i.e. too soon. Ideally, intellectual and industrial clusters should foster the seeds of ideas that can grow into big businesses. The process of research and developments takes time; sometimes it takes more than 10 years for an initial idea to become an actual product. We should not give up on promising projects just because they take time to develop. On the other hand, we should not spend our tax revenue on projects that stagger along for decades without producing results. We need to make sure that projects are evaluated mid-term.

Last but not least, we always think about research and development in high-tech areas when we talk about academic-industrial alliances. I think however, that low-tech areas can also benefit from establishing such alliances.

<Reference websites>
(1) National forum of intellectual and industrial clusters
(2) Industrial cluster project

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