‘Because This is the Time of Uncertain Future, Be More Courageous’

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I often hear people say that young people today are not interested in going abroad.  I sometimes feel that way, too.

However, did those older people who blame the young go abroad by their own will?  I suppose many of them did. But on the other hand I think many ‘had’ to go, or were ‘sent’, for business.  Such was the historical background of their time when Japan was growing in high speed.

In these 20 years, the world has changed dramatically.  I have been telling you about this over and over again.

In this column, please allow me to introduce you (since this is somewhat personal) a recent article about myself which appeared in the ‘Nikkei Business’ as part of the advertisement essay series ‘Clef de Temps’ titled ‘Because This is the Time of Uncertain Future, Be More Courageous’  (in Japanese).
 
The essence of this essay is basically the same as what I wrote in ‘How to Build a Global Career’, a book with Prof. Yoko Ishikura, or what I repeatedly write in this blod postings.  However I am impressed with the way this essay is written – a professional stylish writing.

The world trend difficult to forecast, sluggish situation of Japan economy, rapidly changing world.  ‘Secluded, insular minded’ Japan.

Well, we can begin with having some courage and ‘going outside, abroad’(Ref.1,2).  Especially while you are still young.

Will ‘Japanese common sense’ still work when you are ‘out’ abroad?  You will be able to see, know, feel yourself and Japan much better there.  You will find much, much broader possibilities, different values.  Nobody is sure about what will happen in the future.

Also, I recommend that you listen to the speech by Steve Jobs of Apple, the creator of iPad, at the commencement ceremony of Stanford University.

Nuclear Plants in the Middle East; Japan has ‘Soft Power’ on Public Infrastructure

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I have posted in January a series of 6 reports (Jan.2nd, 3rd, 5th, 12th, 20th, and 23rd ) about the news of Korea having won the international competition in bidding for the nuclear power plants in Abu Dhabi.

In Japan, social infrastructure of cities such as energy, water, railway, electric power generation-distribution systems were constructed primarily by public service enterprises.  The cost (or a large franciton of) was covered mainly by our tax money.

Were you aware that this is precisely the ‘Soft Power’(Ref.1) that Japan can take pride in?

In the world today where many countries are rapidly developing, social infrastructure is huge business opportunities.  Loans, donations, i.e. public ODA, are good as they are but there is also an alternative for Japan to grow together by building ‘Win-Win’ relationships with those countries through investment in their social infrastructure systems.

In the August 2nd issue of ‘Globe’, the Asahi shinbun featured a special report on the nuclear plants in the Middle East.  Please take a look and think about their points.

Discussions on this seem to be accelerating in Japan recently and I feel that my reports on Abu Dhabi offer a lot of information and insights that you will find useful. There are in some places of these postings where my expressions are moderate than I really meant, though ….  Anyway, the point I wanted to make clear was the critical importance of developing human resource and building its networks for business in this global age.  Strategic thinking and actions are utterly needed to achieve this goal.

This is one of the major themes that I discuss in this website again and again.

Take Leave of Absence from School: Human Resource Development of Web2.0 Era

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On July 31st, I was invited to give a special lecture at Annual Meeting of Japan Society for Medical Education (in Japanese) at Annual Meeting of Japan Society for Medical Education.  The title of my lecture was ‘Take Leave of Absence from School: Human Resource Development of Web2.0 Era’

Before my lecture Dr. Maxine Papadakis, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at UCSF delivered a special lecture.  I happen to have worked with her to write a chapter of ‘Fluids and Electrolytes Disorder’ in the book by Professor Lawrence Tierney ‘Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment’ (revised every year), the most selling book on medicine in practice for these 10 years.  She is also one of the Editors of the book.  We managed to have a small chat between our lectures.

Dr. Sakae Iwasaki, chair of my lecture, introduced me and said ‘What does this title mean?  I can’t wait to find it out’.

I am sure that many of the frequent visitors of my website will sense some idea from this title.

Here is the summary of my lecture (PDF file, in Japanese).  Do you see what I mean?   I know that some people seem to have really understood my points.

See-D Contest: Technologies Appropriate to Local Needs Will Save the World

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The ‘See-D’ which I introduced to you recently, was held at the Fukutake Hall of University of Tokyo on July 31st Saturday.  About 200 people participated, mainly young students, including those who by coincidence came across the event and decided to join.  Kopernick is one of the important supporters of this meeting..

This event is hosted by Ms. Riku and Mr. Tsuchiya (also members of MIT D-Lab, currently living in Boston), D-Lab Japan office, other organizations, and some students from Boston who are in Japan for their summer vacation.  These people are the main driving force for planning and carrying out this conference.

It is very important that such projects/actions are created, spread and encouraged for action, particularly by young people.

At the See-D conference room, twitter and Ustream（Ref.1) were displayed on the screen in real time.  Live program with East Timor through Skype enabled the audience to  communicate by writing some comment via Post-It to moderating staff.  The three people in East Timor responded in English and those comments were instantaneously summarized in Japanese and shown on the Screen; a kind and considerate service!  The report of this event is posted on the web site of See-D Japan  (in Japanese).

Those gathered are eager and enthusiastic in search for what they could do. Three panelists with overseas experiences through JICA programs shared their work and thoughts with us.  One of them was Mr Ide who now works at Sumitomo Chemicals and its mosquito net or BetNet in Tanzania. I met him first time last March year in my flight to Dubai, sitting next to each other and we met a few time since then.

I had an opportunity to further encourage them in my ending remarks.  Here again my focus was on ‘the importance of first hand experience' (Ref.1, 2)　and ‘advice to take leave of absence from school and go abroad’.  I think the event was very hot.  I had the same impression by browsing through the many tweets. 

Anyway, everybody was so lively and high spirited.  The conference fully utilized high-technologies, too.  It was truly a motivating, good, happy conference.  By the way, Mr. Miyoshi (in Japanese)  whom I have introduced in this site many times, currently working in Bangladesh, also joined via twitter.

After this meeting, I moved to join ‘Global Health Summer Course'  which we co-host with the University of Tokyo.  It was almost 7 pm, but everybody was still working hard to make policy recommendations, presentations, having discussions. Thanks to all participants and staffs.  Tomorrow, they will present their policy recommendations in the presence of several legislators.

Students Passionately Driven to Practice ‘Take Leave of Absence from School’

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Photo 

Since this spring, I have been repeatedly sending out messages concerning the too insular mindset of Japanese youths (actually, the fact is, that older generation is basically insular minded…setting undesirable examples for young people to follow…) and the huge gap which seem to exist between the global world and current status of the Japanese society.  This theme appears regularly in the blog of one of my friends, Dr. Yoko Ishikura.

Starting this year I also talk much about ‘Let Us Take Leave of Absence from School’  （Ref.1) to students and youths who are about to start  thinking of their careers.

Now I see several students responding to my message and taking actions.  In fact I received e-mails from two senior students (undergraduate) who happened to have listened to one of my lectures.  In short they wish to take leave of absence from school for one year to carry out their plans. As expected, they had to face some disagreements from their family, teachers and friends – not to speak of their own inner struggles.

One is a female student planning to go to Moscow where she lived for 2 years with her family as a junior high student (just after the end of the Soviet Union… It must have been a very difficult time…).  She wishes to live in Moscow for 1 year and see how Russia and its people have changed.  She also wants to study Russian.  Another student is a male who, after giving it a lot of consideration, decided to go to Ghana to work with the local NGO.  Both students have worked out and arranged everything by themselves.  I think this is quite impressive accomplishment to these students..

So, I decided to introduce these two students to Vice Minister of education Mr. Nakagawa (Ref.1) (the links are in Japanese) (Top photo)  As you may see from his background, he studied undergraduate years at Georgetown University in Washington DC, which is quite a unique background for a Japanese, so my expectation was that Mr. Nakagawa will instinctively understand the mind of these two students.  I also felt that many officials at MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) had positive feelings for such movements of students.

We had a nice lively conversation with the Vice Minister and I am sure that this opportunity provided a happy experience for the two students.

The female student left for Moscow the next day, and the male student will leave for Ghana in the end of this August.  What kind of career will they follow?  What will their work be like in the future?  Well, for the time being, what I can at least say is that they will without doubt become Japanese of the next generations who have acquired senses to feel Japan from outside and the global point of view (which is very much needed for the global age) and develop their own human networks connected and expanding to the world.  It would be such a pleasure to see them grow.

University of Tokyo and Health Policy Institute Co-Organize ‘Global Health Policy Summer Program’

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Global Health is now a hot topic at the University of Tokyo.   In this context, our Health Policy Institute and the University of Tokyo co-organized‘Global Health Policy Summer Program 2010’ (in Japanese.  English version will be posted soon) with participation of about 30 very eager and movited students (including graduate students and those who are currently studying abroad).  I joined this event on the opening day, July 26th, and enjoyed mainly interactive dialogues for 90 min. The session was carried out half in English and half in Japanese.

Everyone spoke up actively which I think resulted in good exchange of views.  After my speech, Professor Kenji Shibuya, the host from the University of Tokyo, gave another session in English.

As always, I asked the participants to send me e-mails, which they responded, so I continue to hear and exchange views even after the event.  Through these correspondences I realized how each student are thinking hard in spite of all sorts of difficulties and uncertainties that they feel because of their strong interest to this topic.  I sincerely wish that their experience in this program will help each of them think about next steps, in whatever way possible, in the future.  I look forward to seeing what sort of policy recommendations they will come up with.

Fly and soar, you future leaders of the Global Health! 

Sharing Time with Dr. Muhammad Yunus

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Dr. Muhammad Yunus is known for starting a program to support poor women in Bangladesh to earn living through a system called Microfinance (Grameen Bank). Today, the method of Microfinance is spread throughout the world.

Dr. Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, and I have touched on it describing its effect/meaning to the world in my Opening Keynote at the Meeting of Ministers of Environment, 2008 G8+5 Summit.   Also, there are several postings in my website introducing him to you (Ref.1,2).  

As you may know, Dr. Yunus visited Japan just recently.  Media reported that President Yanai of UniQlo  will collaborate with him.  Many of you may also have seen the media coverage of other variety of activities Dr. Yunus was involved during his stay in Japan.  Kyusyu University and Rikkyo University (the links are in Japanese) (Ref.1) also have been working with Dr. Yunus.

I had an opportunity to join dinner with Dr. Yunus and talk about many things.  His words are always impressively passionate and clear.  I understand that now he is helping the issue of poverty in the United States; his activities are quickly expanding to such fields as poverty, education, health care, job creation.   We enjoyed listening to many of his thoughts including his very clear and persuasive view on ‘why women?’.

Dr. Yunus and I also talked about the project of the students of Waseda University which we helped get started.  Two of the students took leave of absence from the University to begin a new Japanese project with the local Grameen bank.  They also launched Grameen Change Maker Project (Ref.1) (the links are in Japanese) in Japan to encourage participation of more Japanese university students and youths.  What they are doing is absolutely wonderful and full of young energy.  I am very pleased to see this happening.

Visit their websites (Ref.1) (the links are in Japanese) and you will see how enthusiastic and passionate they are.  I believe youths must be ‘full of enthusiasm’.

Just as Dr. Yunus and I were talking about them, an e-mail from these students, Mr. Miyoshi and Mr. Saisyo, came in from Dhaka.  I quickly sent reply to them and said to Dr. Yunus that ‘I have copied my reply to you, too’.  Such things can happen because we live in a very inter-connected world.

World is getting smaller and smaller.  I recommend young people to go outside to see the world.  ‘Let Us Take Leave of Absence from School’(Ref.1) is the key.  This will provide you with a very good opportunity to broaden your view, look at your ‘self’, see Japan from outside and find your ‘self’.   I ask universities (and government) for their support and encouragement, too.  I say so because this is also the direction in the major universities of the world, which recognize such programs very important for nurturing the leaders of the global age.

Dr. Jonathan Dorfan to Assume the Presidency of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

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As you know, a plan to build a new graduate university in Okinawa had been in progress for quite a while.

Almost 10 years have passed since the inception of this idea, and ever since the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Promotion Corporation (OIST P.C.)  was launched as an Independent Administrative Agency with Dr. Sydney Brenner as the first President, we have been working hard for many years.  This institution’s concept is revolutionary in every aspect; the Cabinet Office of Japan is responsible in taking charge of this project, it is a scientific institution totally open to the world for the new global age.  Also, I would like to especially point out the fact that Dr. Brenner is extraordinary by his broad views and rich connections and greatly helped build OIST PC..

Since this was a very new concept, we did have some difficulties along the way such as in trying to gain understandings of the stakeholders including Japanese science community.  However, now we have paved the path enough to set up a graduate school, and finally are proud to announce that Dr. Jonathan Dorfan of Stanford University will assume his office in July as the first President elect of OIST (Ref.1).  This is truly an epoch making event.  That Japan will at last have a scientific institute with longer perspectives open to the world is something we all should celebrate.  Again, this is a revolutionary achievement.

As I have written in my past postings, conventional Japanese universities were unable to materialize such concept, although they were willing to discuss it (Ref.1, 2).  

I am determined to support President Dorfan and continue working with everyone to make this institution a success.  The credibility of science research in Japan is being evaluated and watched even through such a seemingly ‘small’ event like this in Okinawa.  I think the world might have started seeing some hopeful signs of change in Japan after a long time.

For up until now, even in the ‘academic arena’ the situation in Japan is yet closed and quite insular minded (Ref.1).

At Chatham House: From G8 to G20, Issues on Health and Development

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Photos by the courtesy of NHK Asian Voice and HPI-Japan

Chatham House in London is more formally known as The Royal Institute of International Affairs, one of the world’s top Think Tanks on international issues, a place for debates, famous also for the rule often referred to as the ‘Chatham House Rule’

This Chatham House, CSIS, an American Think Tank in Washington DC (Ref.1), and  our Health Policy Institute Japan have spent about a year preparing for this meeting at the Chatham House which was held on June 30.  The meeting was scheduled at the timing of the G8 Summit in Canada that took place a few days earlier, and the theme of the meeting was ‘Global Health: What’s next for the G20? Investing in health and development’.

Its agenda, panel speakers, and sponsors were all superb.  I understand that the total number of participants was around 200.  Dr. Shigeru Omi (in Japanese), former regional director of WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, represented the government of Japan.  Also, some Japanese officials in London were present including Minister Oka of Japan Embassy, from JETRO, and NHK crew came to report this meeting.  I would like to extend my sincere thanks to them all.

Now and in the future, such process of independent Think Tanks or other non-governmental institutions hosting and organizing conferences to set global agendas to lead discussions that in the end can come up with some overall understandings or agreements is and will be extremely important.  Organizing and participating in such conferences have been a very good experience to us, too.  I myself was honored to have a role of listening to the discussions of the day and wrapping them up in the closing.  We also tried to make clear what we could do with the outcomes of this meeting, or what our next steps could be.

These things are easy to say, but actually to reach to this point was truly a tough task. I did write several postings on this process in this site (Ref.1, 2, 3) in addition to the reports which are posted on the web site of the Health Policy Institute, Japan.  Most importantly, we must understand that in the global world, building ‘personal’ credibility/trusts’ amongst ‘colleagues of the world’ is the basis of everything. 

It seems to me that one of the fundamental problems of Japan lies in the conventional attitude of the majority of the Japanese people who think that those global issues must be handled by ministries in charge, i.e. government offices or bureaucrats, or big companies if talking about industry.  In other words, our society is not yet mature enough as the ‘Civil Society’ – at least in my view.

So, let us all together nurture as many human resources and capitals as possible who are capable of taking actions based on the deep understanding of the importance of actions by independent individuals who do not necessarily rely on ‘governmental authorities’, as well as the importance of development of mutual trusts in individual levels, particularly in this ‘global’ and ‘flat’ world.

‘Nurturing Tough Todai Students’: Lecture Series of The University of Tokyo

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Last December, President Hamada of the University of Tokyo sent out a message ‘Let Us Nurture Tough Todai Students’.

As part of this effort, a new lecture series titled ‘The Way of Life in the Global Age ? New Possibilities Suggested by Professionals’ was launched this April mainly for the freshman/woman and sophomore students.  Please refer to the Todai web site for information on lecturers, topics, abstracts, etc.  The list of invited lecturers is pretty impressive.  I felt honored to be invited.

The last lecture for this semester was on June 25th (Mon).  I was assigned for that day.   Early in the morning of this day the World Cup ‘Japan vs Denmark’ game was being played, with the result of Japan defeating Denmark by ‘3-1’, which entitled Japan to go to the final tournament so I was not sure whether students would come because I imagined that they must be sleepy after staying up all night watching the game live on TV.  However, this anxiety proved to be unnecessary.

Students seemed to have enjoyed my lecture.  I talked about the importance of going on journies abroad to discover one’s self, about ‘Let Us Take Leave of Absence From School’ (Ref.1 2),  watching and listening to Steve Jobs’ speech , and thinking of the ‘strength’ and ‘weakness’ of oneself as well as that of Japan.

At the ‘questions and answers’ session, many interesting questions were raised and I enjoyed the time very much.  The eyes of every student were shining.  My wish is that each one of these students  grasp wonderful future in their hands.

I want Japanese youths to see the world in broader perspectives as they live the ‘global age’, thus to spend more time to find out what they really want to do, or want to be.  I would like to encourage them to connect to people around the world, look for their identity, and to find opportunities to be active internationally.  All this, I have been saying repeatedly in my web site also.

Faculties at universities, people in industries, I urge you to give students support and opportunities, in any way possible, to ‘take a leave of absence, if necessary, and go out to see and feel the world’.  Any time spans, styles, programs, are OK.  I think even having students to plan and launch his/her own projects would be a good idea.

Our future lies in the hands of the youth.