From Harvard University

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I came to Boston on January 14.  It’s been a long time since I was here before.  The purpose of this visit is to attend a conference planned by Prof. Lisa Berkman, Director of ‘Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies’ of Harvard School of Public Health (SPH) for two days on 15th and 16th.

The conference aims to discuss social determinants of health, which, in a sense, is a process for putting into actions the pertinent recommendations of the report of the WHO Commission for Social Determinants of Health （CSDH）(Ref.1). On the first day, we discussed what the major social determinants were, and on the second, we tried to identify issues and how to take them into account the situation as well as the determinants of each country.

Dr. Berkman, the host, Dr. Julio Frenk, the Dean, and Dr. Michael Marmot, the Chair of WHO-CSDH Committee delivered lectures which were all superbly done.

On 15th, we divided discussion groups by themes of; ‘Aging’, ‘Equity from the Start’, ‘Gender Equity’, ‘Health Equity in All Policies, Systems and Programs’, ‘Health People, Health Places’, ‘Political Empowerment’, and ‘Intergenerational Transfer and Social Protection’.

On 16th, we continued discussions by separating in the 8 participating countries of Brazil, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Uganda, United Kingdom, USA.

I served as leader for the Japan delegate consisting of Dr. Katsunori Kondo known for his work on studies of social determinants of health, Dr. Keizo Takemi, former Senior Vice Minister of Health, very productive in the field of global health policy,  and Dr. Soshi Takao; Professor Ichiro Kawachi,  who leads Harvard SPH Social Epidemiology. joined our discussion. We discussed issues of Japan by focusing on ‘Aging’, ‘Gender Empowerment’, ‘Suicide’, and ‘Poverty Index’.  Dr. Ikeda, a post-doc at SPH, served as Rapporteur; she has many years of study in US.

Eight countries participated in this new meeting which was apparently a new kind of effort in promoting CSDH, and I had a strong impression that the government of Great Britain had a clear commitment in drafting and executing policies on the basis of reliable data, the process which I was very envious of.  This process of UK was very much in contrast to that of Japan.

By the way, The Royal Society is celebrating its 350th anniversary this year and many events are being planned under the catchphrase of ‘The Home of Modern Science’.  I felt that Great Britain has rich history and tradition in the field of science (mind you, not ‘science technology’).

In the evening of 15th, we were invited for dinner at Loeb House of Harvard Yard (the center of the University.  Dorms where all freshmen stay, major libraries such as Widener Library, venue of the commencement ceremony are at this place).  Loeb House used to be (not for past many years) the residence of the President of Harvard University.

Library tomoko 090 

  Harvard yard 1 tomoko 092Harvard Yard 088
 Quincy House tomoko 082Another building of Quincy House tomoko 085
                    
Photos: From top, Widener Library, two scenes from Harvard Yard, and two photos of Quincy House, one of student dormitories outside Harvard Yard

On 16th, about 12 people – not only people in medicine whom I am familiar with, but also students, post-docs, and faculty at Harvard and MIT in the field of natural sciences and engineering – had dinner together at Legal Seafood (photo below), a restaurant located behind the Charles Hotel where I stayed; we all enjoyed dinner very much. Some of the people have appeared in this blog postings (Ref.1, 2).

Dinner with Students Harvard
Photo:At Legal Seafood

A graduate student in physics, a medical researcher who came back to Boston after post-doc for a few years in Boston then once returned to Japan etc.  They are all working with high spirits.  As always, we shared good time together.  Those who have spent more than 5 years in the USA seemed to be struggling about which country (US vs Japan) to build their further career, but at the same time had strong desire to contribute to Japan in one way or other.  I see great possibilities in them although they will face many challenges on their further career building  It is very important to support and encourage these young people.

Although I was anxious about the weather in Boston because of the season, but fortunately, we had bright sunny sky all through the 3 days.

‘Global Agenda Seminar’ of Professor Ishikura

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I assume that many of the visitors of my web-site know about Professor Yoko Ishikura.  We co-authored a book titled ‘Sekai kyu kyaria no tsukurikata (How to build a global career)’.  But to tell you the truth, she kindly did most of the work.  She recently published another book with a title with a strong impact ‘Senryaku Shifuto (Strategy Shift)’.

I introduced this book several times to you in this web-site, as well as her ‘blog’ URL which appears in my blogroll (at the right bottom of this page) for your reference.  I recommend that you visit her blog now and then because it is actually quite stimulating and inspiring.

Professor Ishikura has launched ‘Global Agenda Seminar’ (this web site is in Japanese) every once a month for about a year.  I was invited to help, and joined in its opening session as a speaker.

We did several preparatory discussions via e-mail.  There were about 50 or so participants.  ‘2/3’ of them were in their 20s or 30s and the ratio of male and female was ‘50=50’; which was very nice.  I decided to talk in English, and with a slight nervousness, went off to see the participants.

For details of the seminar, please visit the web-site of Professor Ishikura　( in Japanese).

Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi

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From Washington DC I took a flight to Dubai.  I was on the same flight 6 weeks ago, and flew to Dubai 3 weeks ago as well.  In total I flew to Dubai airport 3 times, once to visit Dubai and  twice to visit Abu Dhabi in the past 6 weeks.  Two of the return flights were from Dubai to Kansai Airport and another was to Singapore.

The purpose of visit is the same as my some previous ones; to support Khalifa University.  Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the former director of the National Institutes of Health joined our team starting from this meeting and his participation stimulated the discussion.  Dr. Zerhouni, originally from Algeria, moved to the United States after graduating from Medical School, worked at Johns Hopkins Univesity, then was appointed to the Directorship of NIH, the most distinguished and responsible position in medical research of US government.  I have had the privilege of knowing him for these years (in Japanese) and am quite impressed by his wonderful personality.

Khalifa University, which I have been helping, is one of important Projects of the government of Abu Dhabi. I have contacted Dr Zerhouni for his support since I thought that advice from a person at higher position, a person with distinguished and international reputation, who understands Arabic civilization and culture personally, would be very helpful.  It was a great joy when I received his immediate affirmative answer.

The meeting itself took place for only one day, but the discussion was very active and fruitful.  I firmly believe that participation of someone who is familiar with both Western values and Arabic values, who knows how to communicate with both sides is so very important and necessary for this kind of project.

IMG_1982
Photo; At the lobby of the Emirate Palace, with Dr Zerhouni. 

Recently, The U.S. Department of State announced the appointment of Science Envoy for Middle East, and Dr Zerhouni was among the three, with Dr. Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of ‘Science’ and Dr. Zuweil, a Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, originally from Egypt.  This is another significant step forward of US Science Diplomacy.

Such rich variety of human resource (Ref.1) without doubt serves as one of the strong core assets of a nation in this global era.  I met Dr. Zuweil several times in the past, and deepened relationship with Dr. Alberts during these 10 years, since he was the President of the National Academy of Science of USA, through many international scientific community works or events, often related to SCJ (Science Council of Japan).

Toyota Cup (FIFA Club World Cup 2009) was being held at Abu Dhabi during my visit.  As I watched in TV later in Tokyo, it was again Lionel Messi (Ref.1) that brought triumph to his team, as you all may know.

‘Cartels of the Mind: Japan’s Intellectual Closed Shop’ and ‘Jigyo Shiwake (sorting out operations)’ related to Science Research

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‘Cartels of the Mind: Japan’s Intellectual Closed Shop’, 1997, provides critical insights into the insular mind-set of intellectual establishments of Japanese society. The book was written by Dr. Ivan Hall, an American scholar widely considered as one of the leading ‘expert on Japan’ who studied about Japan (B.A. and M.A. at Princeton University, and Ph.D. at Harvard University) and have stayed in Japan for more than 20 years under various titles, including Professor (as well as correspondent, cultural diplomat, professor at Gakusyuin University and a few other universities).  Its Japanese translation (1998) carries a short and straight title, ‘Chi No Sakoku’ or ‘Closed Mind of the Intellectuals’.

The content of this book is as follows:

Introduction: “NORMAL COUNTRY” –Foreign Intellectuals Need Not Apply
1. LEGAL LANDING –The Attorney’s Narrow Beachhead
2. SEGREGATED SCRIBES –The Foreign Correspondents
3. ACADEMIC APARTHEID –The Peripheral Professoriategr
4. PASSING PRESENCES –Scientific Researchers and Foreign Students
5. MANIPULATED DIALOGUE –Cowing the Critics
Conclusion: WAKE-UP CALL –Let the Daylight In

Each fact explained in this book is true, and I concur and support his sharp-eyed points.  Please refer to an article of interview with Dr. Hall, or book reviews (Ref.1(amazon.co.jp, in Japanese),  2 (Amazon.com)),    He also gave a lecture in Japan three yeas ago.(Ref.1 )

The opinion of Dr. Hall is essentially the same as what I have been pointing out repeatedly (Ref. 1, 2, 3 in Japanese) (Ref.4, 5 in English) in this blog posting and elsewhere for a long time. The people with ‘high intellectual levels’ in Japan, university professors are ‘Sakoku (‘closed shop’) (Ref.1 in Japanese, 2 in English ) So naturally universities become deprived of stimuli, thus drawing a wrong vision of future to the students in whose hands our future relies.  A society embracing so many graduates from such universities will suffer from the enhanced spread of ‘Sakoku mind’.  Is this what we want for the future of Japan?  I urge professors of the Japanese universities to be alert and do something about this.

The message of this book resonates with the analysis and opinion of Karel Von Wolfren, a journalist and another ‘expert on Japan’, as expressed in a series of his books such as ‘The Enigma of Japanese Power’ or ‘A False Realities of a Politicized Society (Japanese title: ‘Japan-a system that do not make people happy) ’.

DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) that took over the administration recently went through ‘Jigyo Shiwake (sorting out programs)’, a very open and simple process of cutting budget off from variety of projects and this became a hot topic.  Doesn’t this remind us of ‘Cultural Revolution’ of China sometime ago?  Nobel laureates, Presidents of the universities, etc. from academia expressed deep concern and criticism about it, but people at large seemed to have evaluated this process positively as providing transparency in understanding the process of policy decision process.  There are, on the other hand, criticisms such as objectives not being clear enough, or the decisions being made in too short a time.  Regarding science and technology programs, there were also discussions about how the large-scale research, the Supercomputer project being a typical example, should be conducted.  What do you think?

I think that in a large-scale research we should include foreign specialists in the discussion right from the start of planning and open our large scale facilities to scientists of the world as part of the strategic collaboration of nurturing human resource (Ref.1) (both in Japanese). In many cases, I hear shallow excuses of secondary importance such as large scale facility projects that affect Japanese industry foundation must be run by Japanese only, or including foreigners is a risk to patent safety.

We need to consider more seriously about how the ideas that change the world (Ref.1) emerge and come into shape or who comes up with those great ideas.  In other words, we should do better on the ways we use our policy planning and funding by the public money.  In this context it was good that the new government made policy making process more open to the public.

Again and as always, I must say that scientific community is as ‘Sakoku minded’ as any other Japanese professional community.

‘Medicine and Art’ Exhibition Opens

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An exhibition‘Medicine and Art’ opened at Mori Art Museum. It is the fruit of nearly 2 years of planning, collaborating with Wellcome Trust  and will be exhibited until the end of next February.  Since I knew that Wellcome Trust is the largest foundation in the United Kingdom supporting medical research but is also making efforts to promote arts related to medicine, I was very happy to support this project – although there was not much that I could do to contribute.

Mr. and Mrs. Mori, the owner of Mori Art Museum, Mr. Nanjo, the Director of the Museum, and the museum staffs, His Excellency Warren, the Ambassador of UK to Japan, Mr. Kan Suzuki, Vice Minister of MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), (in Japanese) attended the opening ceremony and reception.  I also gave a speech to congratulate the opening.

Among the exhibitions were several valuable drawings of anatomy by Da Vinci.  The words were written in ‘mirror writing’.  Also at display was a sketch by Michelangelo – a rare piece from the collection of The Royal Collection.  Since Michelangelo was a sculptor, he had a habit of burning sketches away one after another so only about 200 pieces are left, the fact which is unbelievable.  The paintings at the ceiling and the Last Judgment of Sistine Chapel in Vatican, are widely known as his masterpiece.  I remember having an opportunity of seeing some 90 of the sketches by Michelangelo in an exhibition 3 years ago (in Japanese).

A variety of special programs including lectures are offered at ‘Medicine and Art’.  I recommend you to visit this special exhibit.

Mentor Award of ‘Nature’: The Crazy Ones

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Nature is, of course, the premier science magazine that anyone in this field knows.

The magazine founded‘Mentor Award’ 4 years ago.  I fully agree and support the concept of Dr. Philip Campbell,the Editor-in-Chief.

I am sure you are able to find the same messages as this award in many of my columns (Here are some examples from this year) (Ref.1).  Repeatedly, I have pointed out that in Japan where the society is ‘vertically hierarchial’ structured it is often hard for individuals to go out to the wide world spontaneously therefore making it difficult for new human resource or new ‘buds’ of ‘somebody’ to emerge.  The essence is the importance for the mentors to encourage young students and fellows to get out to a wide world and compete and try to becoming independent even when young..

It appears to me that in general, the importance of ‘Mentors’ is not widely recognized in nurturing next generation of scientists, and the achievements of scientists (and in a vertical society this often means the boss of the organization) are valued based on their scientific achievements.  I am not blaming this though ? it is wonderful as it is.

For senior scientists it is extremely important to encourage their graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and young scientists to become independent standing on their own feet and to pursue new frontiers.  How much the research advisors succeed in these things of nurturing is as important as succeeding in their own research.

This year’s Mentor Award was given to two Japanese scientists in two categories; ‘Lifetime Achievement’ and ‘Mid Career Achievement’.  The awarding ceremony took place at the British Embassy in Tokyo on December 1st that opened with speeches by Ambassador Warren and Dr. Philip Campbell, Editor in Chief of ‘Nature’ who came to Japan for this occasion.  It was a very nice gathering and participants were handed lovely pamphlets.

I would like to congratulate from the bottom of my heart Dr. Fumio Osawa, the winner of ‘Lifetime Achievement’ andDr. Hiroaki Kitano, the winner of ‘ Mid Career Achievement’ (Sony Computer Science Laboratories Ltd. ); Many of their former students and fellows also gathered to celebrate and we all enjoyed a wonderful time.

About 60 candidates were nominated for this award and each of them was highly qualified.  It was my great honor to be invited to join the jury committee of 6 members chaired by Dr. Akiyoshi Wada.

The biggest surprise was the results of this jury committee.  It was almost a wonder that there was scarcely any difference in the evaluation result of those 6 judges in scoring of the top candidates.  When the discussion began, I realized how each jury read carefully through the application materials and shared common values about the meaning of ‘Mentors’.

Toast to these ‘out of box ‘Mentors’’ who draw out ‘extraordinary possibilities’ from the young scientists of next generation!  I think this element is manifested in the philosophy described by these two award winners (Ref.1), too.(in Japanese)

By the way, I found in the nomination form of Dr Kitano, the following ‘famous phrases’ among some people, as his motto..  This is apparently his core philosophy.

‘The Crazy Ones’ ;  Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Dr. Kitano says though that he is not ‘crazy enough’ yet!

Actually, just recently, I tried to include an one minute video of ‘The Crazy Ones’ in my keynote lecture ‘Entrepreneur = Change Agent’ which I wrote about in my column ‘GEW-1’, but the conditions of the stage, lighting, and other factors were not good enough for this and I had to give up the idea.

Lively ‘Open Research Forum 2009’

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The day after returning from Dubai I went for a panel ‘Global Agenda and Japan’ (Ref.1) (in Japanese) in ‘G-SEC 3rd annual conference’, a part of the series of lectures and panels  (in Japanese) named ‘ORF 2009’ organized by Keio University.  Many programs were running simultaneously and there was a lively mood in the air reflecting the fact that a large number of the participants were young people.

The panel (video) started with a great keynote lecture by Mr. Yoichi Funabashi, Editor in Chief of the Asahi Newspaper.  Then, Dr. Heizo Takenaka hosted the panel of Mr. Funabashi and three of us who just returned fromDubai and Fujairah the day before; Drs. Tamura, Kondo and myself.  Dr. Motohisa Furukawa could not make it because his work at the government office was ‘Super’ heavy.

The people in this panel were all those who could see Japan clearly from ‘outside’ so the discussion was very active.  I wished there was more time ? we ran out of it too quickly.

Perhaps you may feel that I am basically talking about the same theme recently (global change, the ‘strength’ and ‘weak points’ of Japan, etc.).    However, the audience is different every time, so I keep on talking about these matters even if it sounds repetitious.

GEW-2:　The Main Event ? Global Entrepreneur

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An event which I might call the special program of this year’s GEW was held at GRIPS on 20th.

It took place at the timing of 3 weeks before the ‘COP15’ on Ｃlimate Ｃhange in Copenhagen, new administration of Japan having announced its epoch making target of ‘cutting 25% of CO2 emission by 2020’, and 1 week after President Obama’s visit to Japan.  The focus is perfectly clear if you just take a look at the program.

 

At first, Denmark Ambassador Mellbin to Japan opened the session with his remarkably wonderful speech ‘From Kyoto to Copenhagen ? the smart way!’  His speech manifested expectation to Japan and strong message.

After the panel hosted by Professor Seiichiro Yonekura on; ‘How to reduce CO2 emission 25%’, Dr. Gunter Pauli delivered, as always, another wonderful speech on totally new and nice industries return to the nature ecosystem, that is beyond our imagination with explanation of the theory and presentation of examples.

 

At lunchtime, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a message in video.  Following this was a dialogue on ‘Entrepreneurship’ between the new US Ambassador to Japan, John V. Roos and Ms. Aiko Doden of NHK.  After this, Deputy Prim Minister Naoto Kan talked to the audience through video.

 

Part of the content is reported in ‘The Japan Times’as well as on the website of US embassy in Japan at the‘news archives’ of Nov. 24.

 

Among the 3 sessions in the afternoonI thought that ‘The Foreign Entrepreneurs' Perspective on Japan’ was especially interesting because the audience was exposed to a variety of completely fresh and different views.  As ‘The Japan Times’ reports in its article, the views of foreigners who know Japan very well but think differently must have been a sensation to many of the Japanese who participated.  I have to say that most Japanese lack ability to perceive this kind of difference (Ref.1) when Japan viewed from outside, instinctively.  But on the other hand this ability is the basics for the ‘diversity’ and ‘heterogeneity’ which is so highly important for innovation in this global age.  Since I saw former Ozeki ‘Konishiki’ of Ozumo https://kiyoshikurokawa.com/en/wp-content/uploads/typepad/200738.pdf(in Japanese) in the audience, I made some comments in this context about my opinion ‘the Ozumo-nization of Universities (Ref.1) (in Japanese) ' (Ref. 2).

 

The closing speech was given by Norway Ambassador Walther to Japan by the title ‘A Rhapsody in Green’ which was again very attractive.  However, to my regret, I had to leave the venue in the midst of his speech to head for Haneda to take a flight to Dubai.

 

By the way, a part of the programs of 16th and 20th which I have introduced to you in my columns ‘GEW-1’ and ‘GEW-2’ is scheduled to be reported on Nikkei so I will link to them then.  Please look forward to it

 

 

Two Executive Sessions; Thoughts on Leadership, Innovation and Women Power

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Recently, I have experienced two executive sessions, one in London for top Global company of one major business sector on its global strategy; the company just underwent successfully a merger acquisition.

The member was extraordinary in that of its total 10 members from 10 countries (one woman), many have held very high positions for the government or administrative arms, eg, Minister, Supreme Court judge, Congress member, of their country and the region (eg, EU). They include, for example, Pat Cox, Chair of our panel, President of the EU Parliament (2002-04), and Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator for 12 years until this January. After some conversation with Mr Hagel, I firmly felt he is a very thoughtful and good politician gentleman. He is well known as the most outspoken critic of President Bush’s policy to Iran. I knew he assumed Chairman of the Atlantic Council, a powerful ‘Think-tank’ based in Washington DC, as I reported earlier this year. He told me that he was just invited by President Obama to Co-Chair the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, a very good news, indeed.

Pat Cox’s chairmanship of our session was outstanding, being very smooth and affirmative, and managing the entire meeting session with presentations by the corporate leadership followed by various questions and suggestions, taking notes even on seating and each members and corporate officers. I always feel privileged when I get to know peoples with such distinguished career through discussions and private conversation. I cold learn so much from them. Incidentally, a half of the corporate representation was women including its chair.

Upon return to Tokyo, I was in another executive session for one of global brand company of Japan whose sales in Japan accounts for about 25% of total annual revenue. The team headed by its CEO worked hard and developed issues for us to discuss. I enjoy the session very much with unusually lively questions and debates. This is because our members are pretty much out-of-box type individuals, for example, Natsuno-san (Ret.1) who invented iMode. It is amazing to see only one woman among total of about 15 members from the corporate side, not to mention none in its executive level.

The ideas of this company, in my view, are somehow derived from and targeted to men-thinking. Thus, one of my questions has been the fact that daily and major decisions for purchases are made by women as described in ‘The Real Emerging Market’ of my blog posting with a photo of the cover of Newsweek and in a more recent special report in Time (US version), Oct 26th, 2009, ‘What Women Want Now’ (Ref.1).  Mind you, the products may be targeted primarily to men, but the decisions to buy are made by women more often than one may imagine.

This gender issue is everywhere of Japanese society which needs a fix fast, which could serve as ‘Change Agent‘ of Japanese society and economy as I repeatedly insist in this website and recently in my interview in Japan Times.

Another thought occurred to me in these two sessions was the impression that somehow these high ranking officials in both companies may not have much of sense of what may be happening in this rapidly flattening world, ie, ‘Open and Demand-driven Innovation.’ This is becoming a very important core perception of every business sector in the global world.

How Japan can regain its vitality

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My interview ‘How Japan can regain its vitality’ (URL, PDF file) recently appeared in its October 18th, 2009 issue of Japan Times. The core messages are consistent with what I constantly preach which you find in many postings of this website, eg, change in leading political party, globalization, Japanese strength and weakness, innovation, university reform and lagging gender empowerment.

Media like Japan Times is another important means to reach out and share my view with many non-Japanese friends of Japan. Afterall, Japan seems still need of ‘Gai-atsu’ or ‘Black ships’ led by Commodore Perry for Change.

I hope you enjoy this interview.