“Taking Risks”: What do Young People Want to Do in the Coming Era?

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A radical symposium titled "Taking Risks" was organized by Professor Shuzo Fujimura of MOT, or the Graduate School of Innovation Management at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.  I thought that it would be difficult for young people to attend an event held during the day on a weekday, but was happy to see many graduate students there.

Speakers besides myself were Mr. Kazutaka Muraguchi, a venture capitalist at Nippon Technology Venture Partners, Mr. Kazuhiko Toyama who is former chief operating officer of the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan and author of "Kaisha wa atama kara kusaru (Companies Rot from the Top)," and Mr. Yukio Sakamoto, President of Elpida Memory.  Each of us is considered a "dissenter" in our own field.  I guess our speeches were pretty extreme.  Some Japanese blogs are describing what the symposium was like.  It was quite radical, but I think that’s just fine.

Even at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, I heard that 70 percent of graduate students want to work for large companies.  It was a bit sad that I couldn’t feel their desire to explore the world while they are young.  Is it that inward-looking man and outward-looking woman dichotomy again?

American youth seem to have a strong interest in making contributions to the world and society through programs like the "Peace Corps" or "Teasch for America"(Wikipedia).  These organizations are on the top 10 list of "Ideal Undergraduate Employers," where US undergraduates dream of working.  They are recognized as career paths that nurture leadership skills. It would be good to think about this in Japan too.

Unfortunately, the number of Japanese students studying in the US is also on the decline.

Alexandria Library, Global Health and Patient University

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Bibliotheca Alexandria is said to be the oldest library in the world (B.C. 300 to 400 era).  It was an open academy which gathered various acquaintances and scholars from across the world (of those days) and made them interact with each other (What an insight to recognize it’s true value!).  Having been reconstructed six years ago, it is now rapidly growing as digital library including wonderful activities.  Nowadays, young generation is making full use of it under the excellent leadership of Mr. Ismail Serageldin.

Lectures and panels were held at the United Nations University at Aoyama on October 4th in memory of the 1st anniversary of the set up of the library’s Japanese Web site.  Dr. Helal, Minister of Higher Education and Science of Egypt, Mr. Serageldin and the Ambassador His Excellency Abdelnasser were present for the ceremony.  Since I was acting as a director, I addressed the ceremony.  Dr. Takahashi, the first director had also participated in the panel.

In the afternoon, there was a follow up meeting of the Health Systems of Global Health, proposed by Japan in the Lake Toya G8 summit.  Excellent members gathered with Mr. Keizo Takemi as the head, and we will work to shape the system’s foundation before handing it over to Italy which will be acting as the host of G8 summit to be conducted next year.

In the midcourse, there was a session called "Patient University" (the link is in Japanese) organized by our NPO, Health Policy Institute, Japan, focusing on GE HealthCare and NGOs assisting the patients.  I also expressed my greetings and talked about "Why NGO has grown?"  Such a common process will support "civil activities."  Thank you all for your hard work.

It was a long Saturday.

‘SURVIVAL’, a new TV series on global health by BBC

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The British Embassy hosted a panel session and reception to introduce BBC program ‘SURVIVAL’  focusing on global health.  This is a set of eight (8) one hour documentaries on eight major global health issues, which include malaria, maternal health, child survival, HIV/tuberculosis, sleeping sickness.  The program will be on air in October thru November.  It is planned to produce a 50 minutes program edited from the set of these 8 series, which will become open to public access (guide to downloading and embeding documentary series).  The objective is to raise the public awareness on global health.  This is a collaborative project with Imperial College, Rockhopper and BBC supported by the Gates Foundation.

The evening began with a welcome opening speech by Ambassador Warren followed by 10-15 min each of 4 films.  I participated the panel moderated by Ms. Doden of NHK, a well known TV caster, with 3 women, each representing corporate (Ms. Chino of Itochu), NGO (Ms. Aoki of SHARE) and university (Prof. Ohnishi of Nagasaki University), and two ‘senior’ men (Mr. Tadashi Yamamoto of JCIE and myself) as panelists, seemingly an unusual 4:2 gender balance in Japan.  I enjoyed the film show and the panel very much.
(See photos of the event)

In the reception, two remarkable young man and woman showed up and told their own stories on Africa.  Power of Bicycle!

A man is Kohei Yamada, worked in Mali, Africa, as a member of JICA; he wrote a song ‘Love You’ in a local language a message to his friend who died of AIDS, which became number one hit in the chart.  In the reception he sang this song in local language with an African percussionist.  He continues his work on HIV/AIDS and Africa.  Visit his web site.

A woman is Mio Yamazaki, told her story with her slides of bicycling sub-Saharan Africa; while in College, she bicycled 6,000km around Japan, another 5,000km Africa.  What’s a girl she is!  She published a book on her African bicycle tour, organized NGO ‘Cow-Way’ for ‘social change by cycling’.

The youth power!  That’s what we need much more in Japan for CHANGE!

The evening was full of enthusiasm with a recognition of and sense of engagement to global health.  Thank you all for joining the evening and for the Ambassador Warren and the British Embassy to host this event.

A new business model, Intellectual Ventures

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The firm that’s recently been generating a lot of talk in the United States and Japan, Intellectual Ventures, has rolled out its new office here.  On September 30 it hosted a launch reception.  The founders of this new business model are Microsoft’s former chief technology officer, Nathan Myhrvold, Edward Jung and others.  They established the company several years ago.  It seems to be America’s strength that there are incredibly innovative people like this at the forefront, paving the way for new opportunities.  It’s what I may call a frontier mentality.  A Google search on Intellectual Ventures will give many results, including lots of interesting blogs and articles.  Some apparently say the firm is "patent trolling."  I think their business model is really interesting.

Working with university ventures I’ve noticed that scientists and engineers are unable to see where they stand in the big picture.  And for managers, it is often difficult to clearly see what is happening in their company.  That’s why many patents end up just sitting on shelves, and organizations are unable to make use of them.

It is extremely important to identify the patents that are sitting around and match them with the emerging needs of society and companies.  The core of Mr. Myhrvold’s new business is to do this and create "inventior capital," which means adding value to inventors and patents.

I attended the opening event for the Japan branch of Intellectual Ventures on the evening of September 30.  Mr. Myhrvold is a man of multiple genius.  He went to UCLA at age 14 and studied physics.  He loves dinosaurs and apparently has made many of his own findings.  It is very impressive that Bill Gates can recruit people like this.  I also had the opportunity to meet Mr. Jung the other day.  They are both very nice and passionate about education too.

Design and Innovation

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A day after my returning back from Tianjin, there was a lecture session hosted by Hakuhodo Innovation Lab （Director Awata. Link of the Lab is in Japanese）.

Lecturers were myself, Dr. Komiyama, President of the University of Tokyo, and Mr. Tim Brown, President of IDEO.  Mr. Brown and I were in the same panel at Davos conference this January, and I saw him at Tianjin also.  We each had one hour to speak, so there was an ample amount of time.  Dr. Komiyama, busy as always, arrived just in time to the conference hall, made his speech on "Japan as a front runner of global challenges (Kadai Senshinkoku, Japan)" and left immediately.  It’s a pity though, that only few people raised their hands to ask questions even on this good opportunity of listening to inspiring lectures.

As for myself, I started my speech by showing a red "iPod nano" which I borrowed on the spot and, as always, talked about how "story telling (monogatari)" is important as well as "making things (monozukuri)", how "concepts"and "designs" should have diversity and surprises, importance of being involved in a project from the start, what "Melting Pot vs Salad Bowl" in this global era means, etc.

Dsc00119Photo1 　Mr. Tim Brown and myself at the conference hallp>

Mr. Brown’s lecture was also very interesting.  He talked about design, process, and speed with many good specific examples, confirming and supplementing what I have said in my lecture.  Please refer to his HBR article of this year for more information.  Hakuhodo is also collaborating with IDEO.

Crans Montana, Swiss

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Crans Montana is a beautiful small town in a valley two hours drive from Geneva.  Here, I came on September 10th, from London to participate World Knowledge Dialogue.  This was its second, the first was in 2006 in the same town as you see in my earlier (sorry, but only in Japanese, but many pictures), and indeed, my third time to Swiss this year, Davos in January, and St. Gallen in May.

The meeting was for four days and this time I was honored to meet with Prof. Edward O Wilson of Harvard University, one of the most respected scholars of our time, who wrote many epoch-making, sometime controversial books such as ‘Sociobiology’, ‘On Human Nature’, ‘The Ants’ with the latter two received the Pulitzer award.  He is a cheerful and admirable person and we share a good time together over his thoughts including ‘fairy fly’.  By the way, you could see his lectures at Harvard on the web, too.

It was very good that quite a number from Japan including Prof. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, participated and our contributions were thought significant.

The details of the program can be seen thru its websites for 2006 (I appear at a panel) and for 2008.  And you see many pictures and if you find me, let me know.

This year, I appeared in Day 1 at the Opening with Dame Julia Higgins (we know each other well since her days as Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society), and as Chair of the entire Day 4, thus you could see my commentaries and interactions through the webcasts.  In particular, the Day 4 is tough, the number of participants are less, everyone getting tired, some have to leave before the end, etc, thus I tried to make the entire session more interesting but casual.  I thought it went well and stayed on time and in fact ended 9 minutes earlier than the schedule.  Enjoy the website and webcasts.

I really enjoyed the conference itself and meeting with many interesting people, old and new friends.  Nonetheless, the format required as we discussed, certain strategic goals, participatory processes, and some outreach deliverables and actions.

There is a great champion golf course here and the Omega European Masters was played one week earlier.  I managed to play a round of 18 holes starting 7am finishing 10am.  I enjoyed it very, very much.

In the afternoon of Day 4, we moved to Geneva, visited some historical sites.  One was University of Geneva campus where John Calvin founded in 1559; he was the one who converted the city to Catholic to Protestant community in mid-16th century, and we wondered in front of a large Reformation Wall of Calvin and other three (see at ‘Reformed Geneva’ at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin).

This visit gave me quite a moving feeling since in the Opening speech I mentioned on ‘Incunabula’ and commented Internet is the incunabula of today, that is to lead an unexpected consequence which may change the world. In fact, I said to the audience, because of incunabula of printed Bibles since Gutenberg of mid-15th century to year 1501, the religious revolution ensued almost 100 years later.  This message has been my recurring theme of some of my keynote speeches of ‘flattening and connected world’ as you may see in my blogs (refer 1 , 2 , 3 ) and elsewhere.

By a mere co-incidence, I was just standing there in front of such a consequence of major magnitude by John Calvin.

Again from “Asian Youth Exchange Program”, High Motivation and Power of Japanese Women

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Recently, I have talked about "L’Oreal and women in science", and "Asian Youth Exchange Program", which started in Okinawa.

In the column of "L’Oreal and women in science", I wrote how Japanese women players came out demonstratively different than Japanese men in the sports activities such as softball, baseball, soccer, Judo and wrestling in Beijing Olympics.

"Asian Youth Exchange program" is an excellent policy planned and newly started by the Former Prime Minister Mr. Abe and cabinet minister Ms. Takaichi as part of "Innovation 25" policy which I was also involved.  It would be nice if it expands and gets carried over nationwide.  The funds for this program do not necessarily have to be the public funds but can be collected through different schemes such as tax systems.  I hope that the schools, local communities and enterprises will make spontaneous contributions and participate actively.  That is  what I call "Society Innovation" and "Talent Innovation".

By the way, you can see various photos at http://flickr.com/.  Have fun! Thanks to Mr. Ivannanto, an international student from Indonesia who had participated from Asia Pacific University, for creating this site.

As I was searching the data of this "Asian Youth Exchange Program", I realized that out of the 30 participants from overseas, there were 15 men participants and 15 women participants.  Of the 45 persons who participated from Japan, there were 30 women and 15 men.  Oh!, I thought, and when I inquired about the number of applications to the secretariat, the number of applications from women was overwhelmingly more and as a result the female participants were having higher competitive rate. The points related to the qualification, considering the competency to some extent, are written on the application form but still the motivations towards the participation is fairly different.  Isn’t it?  Why is it so?

I am expressing my opinions in this blogs frequently but please think about it.

Brilliant Female Researchers with Red Roses

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As I had introduced before, the well-known cosmetics company, L’Oreal, presides over a program called "For Women in Science" (As this website is very pretty, browse it) in collaboration with the UNESCO and appeals its existence to the world.  This year the program has celebrated its 10th anniversary at Paris in the spring.  The prizewinners until now were invited and Congratulatory meeting was held.

3 years ago, Japan has also launched a program to award young female researchers living in Japan.  I attended the commending ceremony and congratulatory party last year.  Also this year, wonderful people were commended and their family members, teachers and fellow researchers attended the ceremony.  It was a very splendid gathering and I was glad to see it.

4 brilliant people were selected for this year. We shared a cheerful, pleasent time together.

A women’s magazine, Marie Claire, has also participated in this activity and presented red roses (Photo) to all the winners.  I met Dr. Noriko Osumi, whom I worked with 2 days ago in Okinawa and her mother who is also a famous scientist.

Lorealjapan200801Photo Ms. Bando and 4 winners

Ms. Bando, a chief of gender equality bureau of cabinet office, mentioning that percentage of female scientist in Japan is the lowest among OECD countries, encouraged the audience for further effort.  I was responsible to propose a toast and spoke on various topics like, though, Gender Development Index of woman in Japan is within top 10 in the world, Gender Empowerment Index of woman is as low as about 40th in 70 countries in the world.  This difference is due to the male oriented society which is not competency based.  There may be some hint in understanding the basic difference between male and female in Japan, in what we saw of (male) baseball and (female) softball at this year’s Beijing Olympic. In that sense soccer, wrestling and judo, etc. as well. Please think about it.  I think actually here lies the problems of Japanese society.

I would like to express my appreciation to all the winners, family members, fellow researchers, people involved in the selections and all related people for their hard work.

At any rate, we can see a strategy of a world class enterprises when such prizes are awarded.  Each winner, over a period of years, will act as an ambassador of L’Oreal and will fulfill wonderful duty of moving the mind of men and catching the hearts of women in the world and act as advertising tower of the sponsor enterprise.  I think there is no such a splendid and beautiful advertising media as this.  I expect Japanese enterprises to think more strongly about social contribution from this viewpoint.  This is what social responsibility (CSR) of the enterprises is all about.

Singapore, Okinawa and energy of young people

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After "Obon" (a vacation season in Japan relating to celebration of ancestors), I went to Singapore for the meeting of board of directors of A*STAR, from Aug. 20th to 22nd.  The venue was newly established Fusionopolis (The opening ceremony will be held in October).  Finally, an ambitious attempt of uniting biotechnology with science and engineering field has started.  On 21st, the day of meeting of board of directors, an awarding ceremony for contributors took place with high spirits in the evening. Minister of industry was also present as a Guest of Honor.  There was really motivation and vigor.  Many young people, both researchers and clerical workers, have also taken an active part.

Then I went to Okinawa on 24th.  Had participated in the "Asian Youth Exchange Program". The original idea is from our proposal, where about 80 youths (age 14 to 17) from various Asian countries and Japan (from Okinawa and mainland) spend three weeks together in Okinawa and interact with each other.  "Haisai Diary" of the program’s website was full of cheerful photographs and reports.  I think the basic spirit of this program can be read from my message also.

I participated in "Scientist Symposium" on that day.  Dr. Noriko Osumi who is doing brain research in Tohoku university, Dr. Tsuchiya, known for coral research is Director of Science Department in Ryukyu University (I am thankful for his kind assistance in The21st Pacific Sience Congress last year.  Now, he has become executive director of this scientific society), Dr. Ishiwatari who was involved in the development of "OlycetNet", at Sumitomo Chemicals, an epoch-making mosquito net effective for malaria, have participated in this meeting.  Dr. Shiomitsu of Ochanomizu University was the chairperson.  Students who have participated were energetic, seemed to be in good spirits which made me very happy.  Of course, the common language was "Broken English".

Some university students also helped.  They were foreign students of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, which is located in Oita.  Exchanges like this at the young age widens outlook, acknowledges differences, and raises friendships more than anything else.  I am excited about what their future brings after 10 years, 20 years.  It’s thrilling.  I would like to see more of such activities like exchange home stay on summer vacations etc. start voluntarily in schools across the country.

Dr. Osumi went to the airport immediately after finishing the panel.  She posted her blog in the evening of the same day, which is very fast.  Photographs as well as the writing were good.

I went to see "Eisa festival" celebrated on the whole Okinawa Island with Mr. Fukui, head of Okinawa General Bureau supervised by the Cabinet Office.  Especially, "Ryukyu-Country festival Taiko" was excellent(photo1-3).  After that, I was invited for dinner.

Okinawa08081photo 1

Okinawa08084photo 2

Okinawa08086photo 3

Thanks to all for your help and support.

To medical students from Asia: Cheers for young people and 3 speeches

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There is a gathering of medical students from Asia known as AMSC (Asian Medical Students Conference).  This conference is held annually, and I was invited for the last 3 years.  I enjoy this event every time.  I like to be a part of such conference of youth organizations since they are pillars of the future human resource.  This was the 29th year and the conference was held at Tokyo.  I talked in the closing ceremony.  I heared that about 400 students have participated.  The point of my speech was the tremendous change that had occurred in these 29 years and about the globalization era.  I also talked about on "3 speeches."

The 3 speeches were, the speech given by Steve Jobs at commencement ceremony of Stanford University in the year 2005 (I told the students that "I hope and look forward that this 1 week conference become a "dot" of your career."),  speech given by Bill Gates at commencement ceremony of Harvard University in 2007 (It was about recognition of and consciousness for "Inequality" in the world and society.) and the "Last Lecture" of Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University (About the childhood "Dream."  Even if you face many problems, do not forget that you all had a "Dream" to become doctors.  Refer 1, 2 ).

You can have a look at these speeches on YouTube.  Each one of them is a wonderful speech.  The "Last Lecture" of Professor Pausch became a book and Japanese translation was published just a few days ago.

It must have been a lot of work for staff students who organized this conference.  It was really a wonderful conference.