Let the People Trigger “The Third Opening of Japan” ? The Start of a New Movement

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I think many people feel that the credibility of Japan has fallen sharply after the event of “3.11 Fukushima”.  I also regret to say that we do not see any signs yet of trust in Japan recovering.  Why is this so?  The recent issues of TPP or Olympus could be examples of reasons for such mistrust.

On the other hand, we witnessed how the people at the “3.11” stricken area have manifested their wonderful energy.  The whole world saw the fundamental strength embedded in the genes of the Japanese people.  But this is only one side of the coin, and if seen from the other side, we might also see the weakness of the Japanese people in being rather too quiet or obedient.

However, the local victims of the 3.11 Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami are now taking actions towards recovery.  While the government sector is doing nothing much than reciting the mantra of “the third opening of Japan”, the series of concrete actions taken by the civilian section may, in the end, pave the way in the real word towards the true “third opening of Japan”

Recently my colleague and I wrote an opinion in  Japan Times.  Hope you will take a look at it.

 

 

 

 

A Trip to Taipei, Many Events in Japan

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A week after Seoul and Okinawa, I flew to Taipei.  I was invited to give a plenary lecture at the Society of Internal Medicine in Taiwan.  Another invited speaker was Dr. Virginina Hood , the president of the American College of Physicians whom, by the way, I happened to see in San Diego this April.

In the Sunday afternoon, I made an excursion to Jiufen (Ref.1),   a village located about 40 minutes by car from Taipei. This village is well known as the site where the movie “A City for Sadness” was filmed, and also the model of the unique architectures and shopping street that appear in “Spirited Away”, an animated fantasy-adventure film  by Hayao Miyazaki.    It was very amusing to stroll around and listen to those interesting stories about the village.  I recommend that you visit here some time.  The only thing was that since it was a sunny Sunday, the busy traffic and crowded tourists was somewhat overwhelming…

Taipei seemed to be less energetic than the time I was here before.  They might be experiencing economic recessions, too.

Other events scheduled around this weekend were; my annual general health check up, UCLA alumni gathering, hearing session of the Canon foundation research grants, and “The Entrenpreneur Awards Japan 2011, Second Annual Awards Ceremony” at the U.S. Embassy. This event is very strongly supported by Ambassador Roos and I have participated in the first ceremony, also.

Each day is passing quickly and busily.  It is not a very pleasing situation, I have to say.

Discussing Pharmaceutical Evaluation Process at Seoul, Energetic Youths of Japan

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The problem of “Drug Lag” in Japan – that approval of pharmaceutical products take longer time and thus is behind western countries – had been being pointed out by many since quite a while ago.

One of the endeavors to address this issue is “ICH -International Conference of Harmonization”, a conference launched about 20 years ago by Japan, USA, and EU.  It continues its activities to date, and I had been a part of it.  Last year, we held a joint conference (Ref.1) of Japan, Korea, UK, and USA to discuss the issue of “Cancer Clinical Trials”

Growing countries such as China and Korea have already introduced the system into their country, and it was to discuss mainly on this theme that I went to Seoul from 14th (Mon) as an overall moderator of the one and a half day conference by the invitation of a pharmaceutical company. 

Upon my arrival, I went right away to see Mr. Richard Samans at the “Global Green Growth Institute”　 , an organization founded by current President, Mr. Lee Myung-bak with Mr. Han Seung-Soo (Ref.1), the first Prime Minister of the Lee administration, as the Head of the Board.  Mr. Samans and I are friends from the time he was working for the World Economic Forum.

On the following day, I led the one and a half day conference to discuss from various aspects the pharmaceutical evaluation/assessment issues with special focus on the evaluation system in Japan, Korea and China.

After dinner at the hotel, I decided to stroll a bit at the “Myondon” street, a shopping area.  Here I saw many young people, and felt a good energy.  I saw the new shop which UniQlo, a Japanese casual clothing shop, just opened as its flagship shop close to ZARA and H&M.  It was a good feeling to see this energetic Japanese enterprise performing actively at this busy area.

Another good feeling was that after the one and a half day conference, we became acquainted with each other, and I could sense that many new exchanges were about to begin.

It was about a two hours’ flight from the Gimpo airport to Haneda Airport.  From Haneda, I went directly to Swiss Embassy.  A reception for “Global Shapers Community” (Ref.1) was being held.  I always enjoy seeing young people working actively in various fields.  Being with them also gives me energy.  After the reception, I spent about an hour with a reporter from “The Economist”, partly to be interviewed, and then went back to my home at around 11pm.

It was a long but a very fulfilling day.

 

Bilateral Exchange with Botswana

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I had the opportunity at the beginning of last year to visit the country of Botswana (Ref. 1, 2, 3) at the request of the Botswana government and meet with high-level government representatives of many different ministries.  I also had the opportunity to meet with Minister of Foreign Affairs who accepted a report on science, technology and innovation policies which I proposed at the time.  The Minister has accompanied the President on his recent visit to Japan.

During this current visit, Dr. Ponatshego H. Kedikilwe, a Minister with the Botswanan government received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun and a reception was held in his honor by the Botswana embassy.  The reception was held in a small, intimate space which was permeated with a friendly and celebratory atmosphere.

During the Minister’s stay in Japan, I was able to meet for around an hour with a number of individuals who are heads of different government bureaus and had accompanied the Minister to Japan. My proposal of the previous year had made its way through the Parliament, and they reported on its passage and we also talked about what the future holds. It is also important that cooperation be offered from a variety of perspectives including outside of the auspices of the government.  This is particularly true in the modern world we live in.

Japan has started to actively provide assistance and support to Africa.  In particular, the cooperation (Ref. 1, 2) of JICA, which is in charge of ODA, and JST, which is in charge of science and technology policies, over the past several years is encouraging.

The exchange of human resources through multiple different levels and venues is at the core of a strong and vital foreign policy in our global world of today.

 

An Invitation to the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW)

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The Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) has been held simultaneously over the past three years around the world for one week in the middle of November.  You can access a list here [Ref. 1, 2] of the participating countries and the main events which are scheduled for this year.

As I have touched upon numerous times on my own site [Ref. 1, 2, 3, 4] we in Japan would like to expand the reach of these activities throughout the whole of Japan.

Many of the individuals who are involved in these activities were also involved in the establishment of Impact Japan which I have also introduced on this site.

The Honda Foundation served as host for the past three years. Currently the Kauffman Foundation, which has become a central figure in these types of global activities, is acting as the Japanese host with Impact Japan scheduled to take on these duties from next year.

This year’s GEW will be held from November 14th through the 20th.  Many events [1, 2 ] will be held in Tokyo and Kyoto that are open to the public.  I highly encourage you to take a look at the schedule and think about attending.  I am sure that you will meet many interesting people there.

I hope that these activities can spread further throughout Japan and the rest of the world as we move into the coming new year.

A Sunday in Sendai – to TEDxTohoku

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Today is a beautiful autumn Sunday.  I left Tokyo for Sendai early in the morning to participate in TEDxTohoku. 

ImpactJapan has been supporting TEDxTokyo since three years ago, but it was a while since I met Patrick and Todd, the organizers, last time.  This particular event, TEDxTohoku, was initiated by the young people as actions to respond to the great disaster.  The venue of this event is the kawauchi Hagi Hall at the Tohoku University.  It is a very good hall.

By the way, quite surprisingly, I came across Mr Shinzo Abe, the former Prime Minister, in the Shinkansen bullet train. Mr Abe was on his way to the coast line of Iwate Prefecture to deliver a lecture.  I asked him “If it is all right with you, would you like to stop by at Sendai upon your return and give us a small talk?”, but of course, this sudden invitation did not suit his itinerary.  I wished he could come, though..

Each speaker told wonderful stories and these talks were broadcasted live on the Ustream.  I think you they will be posted on internet soon.  The speakers were actually quite good story tellers.  One of the presentations I particularly liked was the one by Ms Hideko Oikawa , the president of the Oikawa Denim (in Japanese)  of Kesennuma city, and the ordeal of her,three sons and the company  The story itself was very moving but the way it was told – in a simple stammering manner -  was another element that so much moved us. The last presentation was given by Mr Paul Bennett of IDEO, who came all the way from California.  It was a message to Japan in metaphor using four animals. Unfortunately, the powerpoint slides did not work smooth enough so it made the speech a bit distracting.

Sendai is indeed the city of forests.  I enjoyed the beautiful autumn daylight and refreshening air outside the hall.  I joined in the reception, and left the place earlier to go back to Tokyo.

I very much enjoyed spending the day with youths who are working together to make Tohoku, the disaster stricken area,  a drive force in bringing changes in Japan.

 

The United Nations University ? Higher Education and Sustainable Development in Africa

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I assume that many of you readers have heard of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of UN.

It is an ambitious goal which the member nations of the UN promised to achieve by 2015.  However, the situation has changed drastically in these 10 years and now the world is shifting to a very different stage from the 2000’s, the time when the MDGs were planned by the UN.

Given this background, ”International Symposium on the Role of Higher Education for Sustainable Development in Africa” was held at the United Nations University in Aoyama, Tokyo, on October 13th and 14th.

I myself have been working on this theme with the world’s science community (ICSU, IAP, IAC, etc.) (in Japanese) personally and through various organizations such as the Science Council of Japan (in Japanese), the government of Japan, the United Nation’s University (in Japanese), and the World Bank.  Perhaps partly because they knew this, they invited me to give a Keynote lecture.  Unfortunately, I had to go to Abu Dhabi and Washington DC during those days as posted earlier, so with their permission, I decided to prepare a video message.

By coincidence, Dr Miriam Were, the laureate of the Hideyo Noguchi African Prize (Ref.1) was in Japan and planned to visit me on that same day of recording, so I asked her to join in the video.  It was a nice, unexpected, great “Surprise” to the audience of the UNU Symposium.  I thank Professor Masafumi Nagao, and staffs for their support in making this happen.

A report on this Symposium posted on the web site of the UNU (Ref.1) has commented on my video message, too.  I was very pleased and thankful to know this.

I plan to create a link to this video on my web site, so please look forward to viewing it.

A Speech at the Board Meeting of Project Hope, Washington DC

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After leaving Abu Dhabi, I came to Washington DC to give speech and express our appreciation to the board meeting of Project Hope, for their support and cooperation in the restructuring of Tohoku.

It was early in the morning when I arrived at Dulles airport, Washington DC, from Dubai. I checked in to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, prepared  myself quickly to join with Dr. Noritake of HGPI and Dr. Fred Garber of Project Hope (Ref.1) to visit Ambassador Fujisaki at the Embassy of Japan.  Collaboration with  Project Hope and our Impact Japan  - HGPE all started with one phone call from Ambassador Fujisaki at Washington DC to my blackberry, shortly after the “3.11” Tohoku disaster, suggesting that we work together.  

After seeing Ambassador Fujisaki, we went to the National Academy of Sciences, then to Global Knowledge Initiative, an organization which I am part of, located in the AAAS building of the National Academy of Sciences.  

Project Hope holds board meeting four times each year, and invites guest speakers to two of those meetings. I asked “What sort of people are invited for speech?”, since I knew that Project Hope was a global scale disaster relief health care team – one of the largest in the world. But when they said it was “James Jones  recently” , to be honest, I panicked a bit.  Mr Jones was the National Security Advisor to President Obama.  Condoleezza Rice came to speak, too, they said.

There were about 40 people in the room.  After having cocktails, we were seated at tables and enjoyed conversation until it was time for dessert,  when Dr John Howe introduced me as the guest speaker.  I talked for about 20 minutes on topics such as the Tohoku great disaster, activities with Project Hope and Ambassador Fujisaki, Operation Tomodachi, future plans, perspectives of Japan-US relationship, and so on.  By the way, this year is the 70th year from the “Pearl Harbor” in December, and is also the 100th anniversary of the planting of the famous cherry  trees in Washington DC. 

After the speech I received many questions and we were able to enjoy dialogues actively.  Mr Dr Gerber later told me that “It was a good speech.  We don’t usually have so many questions raised from the audience after speech at this board meeting…. I am so glad that you came….”

At about the same time of the day, a reception for the President of Korea, Mr Lee Mhung-Bak, who was visiting the United States then, was being held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel banquet room.  I saw many Korean people at the lobby gathering from early evening, their faces gleaming with happiness and pride, making long lines in excitement.  How wonderful.

I understand that President Obama welcomed President Lee with special treatment of State Visit (Ref.1). I envy this energy of Korea admitting that Korea has many of its own problems.

In contrast, Japan, the neighbor of Korea, has had six different Prime Ministers in 5 years.  It is hard for us to see what the government is up to, and I suspect it is even harder for the government to make any big decisions….  Our Lost Decade continued for more than 20 years now, long ahead of EU or US in this sense.

Just a week before, US Japan Council was held at Washington DC. The Keynote Remarks was delivered by the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, with many political leaders present, including Daniel Inouye, senior United States senator….  I wonder how the event went.

I started the next day early in the morning discussing our collaborative project with CSIS, the meeting we plan to organize in Fukushima in November and other issues to take care of.  After finishing these tasks, I headed to the airport.

This was a trip around the world – departing Narita on the evening of 8th (sat), staying one night each at luxury hotels in Abu Dhabi and Washington DC, spending 3 nights in airplane, arriving Narita on 13th (thur).

I slept well in the plane.

 

To Abu Dhabi for GAC, then to Washington DC

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In the evening of 10th, I departed Narita for Abu Dhabi on a direct flight by Etihad.  The objective of trip is to attend the Global Agenda Council organized by the World Economic Forum.  The conference, for your information, was held in Dubai annually for the past three years. I saw many of my Japanese friends also boarded on this flight to Abu Dhabi for this meeting.

After arriving at Abu Dhabi early in the morning I checked in to the YAS Hotel, the venue, which is also the scheduled venue for the Formula One Car Race (Ref.1, 2) in November.  The Car Race was being held at Suzuka, Japan from October 7 to 9, too.  Anyway, I was amazed to see the strikingly gorgeous facilities of this Hotel.

I attended the full two days of the conference at the building standing next to the Hotel.  I understand that this place is going to be used for the Formula 1 also.  As for the meeting, I was in the session of the “Japan Council” for the whole day as the sub-Chair. Thanks to the nice support of Mr. Takashi Mitachi of the Boston Consulting Group  and many others, we managed to facilitate good discussions.  The problem was that there was not much information available from Japan after the “3.11” Disaster (not to mention that six Prime ministers changed within these five years….)  thus offering issues for discussion was not easy, and we had to think hard in order to share views with each other.  However, I am thankful that we had nice constructive discussions with many people.

The reception was at the Royal Tower of the Race Track.  It had a nice view over the straight course of the car race.  Many political leaders including the Prime Minster of UAE were present, too.

After attending the full schedule of the 2nd day, I took a car to Dubai, and boarded on a midnight flight to Washington DC.

It was a very full, busy two days.

 

From Paris to Kyoto ? Attending the STS Forum

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After enjoying Paris for two days in the beautiful autumn weather, I returned to Japan at Kansai airport in the morning of Monday, October 2nd, to head for Kyoto where STS Forum (Ref.1) will be held for three days.    I have been participating this Forum since the 1st meeting, and therefore have enjoyed the expansion of networks with wonderful people of the world.  I am now acquainted with a number of extraordinary people.

This year’s Forum had special sessions in the beginning dealing with energy policies, nuclear power and such because of the Fukushima disaster.  I was seated next to Mr. Amano, Director General of the IAEA, at dinner, so had the privilege of talking with him in person on many topics.

Many sessions were held simultaneously, so I chose to participate mainly in sessions on education.  I also participated as one of the panelists in the session on the change in human behavior (in energy consumption, obesity, etc.) chaired by Philip Campbell, Editor-in-chief of “Nature".

On 4th, I returned to Tokyo to have dinner with several political leaders.  In the next morning, I had a breakfast meeting with people related to the American Hospital in Paris, and hosted in the entire afternoon a panel organized by JETRO.  Here, the panelists consisted of six people who participated in the STS Forum; Ellis Rubinstein (YNAS、President)、Mohammad Hassan (TWAS,Treasurer), Risalia Arteaga （former President of Equador, female）、Dr Annette Lraegelou (Leibniz Institute of New Materials, female), Ananda Chakrabarty (Univ Illinois), and Sanwen Huang (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences).  Joined to the conference include quite a number of people from METI, NEDO, and JETRO.  We all participated in a good exciting discussion.

I always enjoy discussions with friends from all parts of the world.  I learn a lot from them, too.