To H-LAB Again

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The other day, I wrote about H-LAB, which has been producing remarkable results.

This program only started in 2011 but it is impressive that already forty percent of high school students who　enrolled have chosen to study at a university abroad.

HLAB has come again this summer and I took part once more. After two days of rest in Tateshina, I returned to Tokyo and spoke for half an hour.

It makes me very happy that there is a student from Harvard who has participated for three years in a row, from 2011. She spoke in Latin this year at the graduation ceremony at Harvard. There is a male student who moved to San Diego from an impoverished village in Mexico with his mother and wants to contribute to the education system in his homeland. They are all remarkable.

Afterwards, we all went to the reception. Mr. Makihara of Mitsubishi Shoji who is a Harvard Alumni came to the reception. We are very grateful for his support for the program.

A few days later, I attended a session at GRIPS. The “Wise Leader” session was led by Mr. Hirotaka Takeuchi who established the Business School at Hitotsubashi University and is now a professor at Harvard Business School. It goes without saying but the world’s leading professors are incredible. The content of the course was pure, first-class entertainment. Professor Takeuchi has introduced many cases of Japanese companies at Harvard.

The next evening, I attended the reflection session held at the old inn in Hongo where the students were staying. Many people participated in the program and were able to meet and they all seemed very happy, as was I.

Watching the youth, I felt that Japan still has a bright future ahead.

I would like to send a heartfelt thank you to the people who organized the program.

From Okinawa -2

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On Saturday, August 10th, I visited Okinawa again. I attended the ten-year anniversary of the Muribushi Clinical Training Program (in Japanese), which was started by Dr. Seishiro Miyagi and is a pioneering program for dealing with the future of medicine clerkship. I had the honor of giving a speech at the celebration, as I did ten years ago when this program was first established.

After training in this program, many OB/OG alumni from the time of the Okinawa Prefectural Chubu Hospital have gone on to receive further training in the United States, showing that this program is suited for a global Japan and world.

In these past ten years, the required skills of doctors have changed in response to what is happening in the field. There are many outstanding clinicians who are active and appreciated on the global scale, as can be seen in the establishment of the ACP (American College of Physicians) Japan Chapter (1, 2) and the OB/OG of the New York Beth Israel hospital clinical training program.

In my speech, I mentioned the virtuous cycle that is created when people who have received clinical training in such programs pass on their expertise and wisdom to their juniors. It just happened that Dr. Harry Ward, who was a fellow at my time at UCLA, was visiting Okinawa, and I introduced him to everyone, thus creating another virtuous cycle.

On the afternoon of the 11th, Mr. Ichida of BirdLife International showed me around northern Okinawa. He took me to a secret place where butterflies can be observed and to see the Okinawa rail or ‘Yanbaru Kuina’ On this day, twenty-eight Okinawa rails were killed due crashes with cars on roads this year. I was told the number used to be only around ten per year….

On the 12th, I took part in a gathering at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in order to discuss plans for the future of this new research-based graduate university. We spent the entire day discussing many different issues.

I hope that this will aid the reform of research in Japan.

To Okinawa, Twice in One Week -1

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Other photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/101937154598536516246/Aug5Day04?authkey=Gv1sRgCOrRi5ry9tOHfw

I visited Okinawa twice in the week of August 4th.

On Monday August 5th, I took a day trip to Okinawa. I attended the program Asian Youth Development Program in Okinawa (AYDPO) that I have reported about in past postings. It is a program held in Okinawa in which some fifty students, between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, spend three weeks together. Around 10-15 university students also participated, as well as a few OB/OG.

The program started when I was special advisor to Prime Minister Abe as a project planned by the Cabinet in 2007. This will be the sixth time it has been held. Everyone is connected via Facebook and they are very active during this time of year. I recently met with an OB from Indonesia, who taught as a university student tutor in the first and second years of the program. We discussed his current project, which he is conducting in his home country.

I have been a part of this program since the very first year. This year, I gave a speech at the opening ceremony. I had many discussions with the youth, who will lead the future of Asia, and the session was very interesting and stimulating.

Among the Japanese youth, the ratio of female to male students has always been around 2:1 since the start of the program, but this year all of the participants from Okinawa were female. I encourage more male students to participate. Everyone had an enjoyable time and there were some OB/OGs joined this year’s program. The students from Asia had a female to male ration of 1:1, as recommended by their home countries.

I hope that this kind of program will start in many regions of Japan, in local schools, villages, through homestay programs, for example,  no matter how small it is in the beginning.

The future of Japan depends on the youth.

Two Panels; In support of Women Empowerment

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other photos:
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One of the problems with Japan, well recognized in the world, is the situation where there is less opportunity for women to shine when compared with other countries. The need for gender empowerment and gender　equality is sorely needed, and is a major social issue.

I have long been advocating gender equality, and have mentioned this topic numerous times (a quick search of my blog will tell you just how much) and thus have been invited to participate in panel discussions about this topic.

On the 4th of August, I attended an event organized by Ms. Sasaki (CEO of ewoman), the 18th International Conference for Women In Business, where I was on a dialogue with Ms.Yuri Okina (link in Japanese). The last time I met Ms. Okina was for the Keizai Doyukai Panel a few years ago. I shared this very stage two years ago with Ms. Yoko Ishikura (link in Japanese).

There were a lot of young women in the audience, and the program for the whole event was packed with interesting events. Started off by an opening speech by the organizer Ms. Sasaki, the event included talks by Kathy Matsui, two women Ministers, both are lawyers and children, Ms. Mori and Ms. Inada, a stirring address by the mayor of Yokohama city, Ms. Hayashi. These were followed by my dialogue with Ms. Okina. And there was more to come in the afternoon sessions as well.

Worth special mention is the talk by Japan’s fencing silver medalist at the Olympic Games, Mr. Ota (link to blog in Japanese). His points of view and his perceptions are truly world-class.

At the event, I sold around 50 copies of my book co-authored with Ms. Ishikura, ‘How to Build a World-Class Career’. What I was really happy though, was to see a visitor who had brought along their own copy of this book and asked for my autograph.

On the 8th of August, I went to Tohoku University in Sendai. This was to attend a symposium (link in Japanese) held as part of a series of events (link in Japanese) to commemorate the first ever female students accepted into then Imperial University, which happened here over 100 years ago; three women were accepted here.

Everyone on the program were very happy to join this event, particularly the two visitors from the U.S and the U.K, respectively, Dr. Colwell and Dr. Haynigen, but also Ms. Kubo, Ms. Tsujimura, Ms. Mukai, Ms. Kotani, the two Ms. Takahashis, Ms. Motomura, the two Ms. Kurodas, Ms. Harayama,  and Ms. Ueki, all were inspiring.
Additional information may be found on the Tohoku University page, because the event was organized by the efficient Ms. Noriko Osumi (link to her blog in Japanese).

Finally, there was a speech by the President of Tohoku University not exactly promising anything but providing hope that change is close by. The key issue is when the promises will be made into reality.

I was with Rita Colwell for the fourth time this year, and I was also with Ms. Motomura, with whom I had shared a panel discussion the previous day for the Nature Cafe.

I have been pretty busy this hot summer days, but it has been rewarding as well.

Nature Café: Can Japan Change?

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As I have mentioned before, the well-known scientific journal ‘Nature’ organizes an annual ‘Nature Café’ (Japanese).

This was the 12th such event, and was organized in collaboration with Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST). The panel for the Japan session was mainly composed of the ‘Crazy Ones’, scientists who are willing to think different. The title for the discussion session was ‘Will Japan Change? Universities and Research Facilities Faced with Change’.

The venue for the session was SONY CSL, the small research laboratory where geniuses and other ‘crazy’ people have been rcruited.

The panel was composed of the director of SONY CSL, Mr. Hiroaki Kitano (1); the leader of the initiative to bring about a new collaboration between the astronomy and the mathematics department of Tokyo University, Hitoshi Murayama (there are a lot of videos with him as well); a professor at OIST, Yoko Sugiyama Yazaki; and me. The moderator for the event was Yukiko Motomura (Japanese), from the Mainichi Shimbun.

I liked that the audience was composed mainly of students. Each of the panelists gave a brief but energetic 10 minute ‘talk with a twist’ before entering a panel discussion. We had a surprise during this discussion as Joi Ito (1), the head of MIT Media Lab, joined in.

For the details of the ‘Nature Café’, please check the OIST web site.

It was a  wonderful evening and the young people in the audience enjoyed it immensely.

I am glad it was a very stimulating session.

H-Lab: High school students to study in universities abroad and the impact of real experience

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H-Lab is a program that has been held in August of 2011(1) and 2012, which I and Impact Japan, with others, have supported from the start.

It is a one week long summer program for high school students that is made up of mostly undergraduate students from Harvard University as well as Japanese universities.

It aims to teach high school students the importance of liberal arts, as well as the fact that liberal arts is the foundation of the university education in the United States and Great Britain.

The second and third year high school students who participated in the program in 2011 and the third year high school students who participated in 2012 have begun to be accepted by universities from this spring and they are almost decided about which universities they will attend.

When considering these results, it seems that this summer program had a larger impact than imagined

The choices of the high school students can be summarized as the following:

Eleven out of twenty-two male students will go to a university abroad.
Twelve out of thirty-two female students will go to a university abroad.

Among overseas universities, there are nineteen students who are going to universities in the U.S., two in the U.K., one in Canada, and one in Australia. There are some students who were accepted to the universities that are on everybody’s minds, such as Harvard, Yale and Imperial. Some had a difficult time choosing because they were accepted by more than few universities.

Some students were also accepted to University of Tokyo and there are three students who chose to study abroad instead (although they may be enrolled in University of Tokyo).

By allowing students to go through real experiences rather than just thinking in their heads, and offering ‘peer mentoring’ by university students who are a bit older, the impact that this program has on students is giving them the opportunity to find their own motivation and choices.

Such students who choose to challenge themselves by studying abroad are likely to keep broadening their horizons. It is something to look forward to.

“Bula” from Fiji

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After participated Manaba, I departed Haneda Airport on July 6th for Nadi in Fiji, via Hong Kong, and then to the capital city of Suva.

I attended the Inter-Congress (1) of the Pacific Science Association.

Everywhere you go, you first say “Bula,” the greeting for hello.

This association was established in 1920 and I have been quite involved in its work since 2003. On this website, I have written about the activities in Okinawa, Tahiti (1, 2, 3) (including the hidden story of Yoshida Shoin), and in Kuala Lumpur after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011.

This time the congress was held at the University of the South Pacific and there were many students who were active as volunteers and it was a vibrant environment. I met with some Japanese professors who are members of the faculty here as well.

The next day, President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau gave a powerful speech at the opening ceremony. At the opening  ceremony, myself, Professor Nordin Hasan, Director of Asia Pacific Regional Office of ICSU gave the keynote speeches. Ambassador Eichi Oshima also attended the ceremony.

We were interviewed by television reporters and were on the evening news. The next day, it was widely reported in the newspapers as well.

Over the next two days, there were many activities organized around the sessions. I spent three hours sightseeing, had dinner with USP Vice-Chancellor and President Chandra, and was invited by Ambassador Oshima to lunch, where I spoke with members of the Embassy and Japanese people who work in Fiji. I also met with female UNDP officials who are working in Pakistan, Sudan and Fiji.

The official residence of the Japanese Ambassador to Fiji was acquired twenty years ago, is in a prime location in Suva, the capital city of Fiji, and has an incredible view.

Fiji was a British colony in the past and recently has been developing relations with India, China and South Korea. There are many Chinese fishing vessels that have come to do tuna hunting. Although the work of Japan is well known, there seems to be few Japanese people here.

This is also one of the challenges facing the Ambassador.

Manaba Seminar – My Keynote Speech and Panel Discussion with Dr. Iiyoshi

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Manaba is an initiative started by a company to provide a new platform to help support education, and is being used by more and more universities worldwide. It is indeed a very ambitious project.

On the 5th of July, a seminar mainly aimed at professors, teachers and staff at educational institutions, was held in Tokyo. It was attended by a many people.

The bulk of the presentations (link in Japanese) were case-studies of the initiatives taken by universities that are using Manaba, but I was asked to give keynote address, a one-hour long speech encapsulating the main theme, ‘Global Trends: Understanding What Drives Them’. This is exactly what I want to do, to convey the efforts of the many educational institutions in the field who are constantly need to adapt and widen the possibilities for students and to make them think about the career that they pursue within the greater scheme of things.

And I believe that the audience was composed of people involved in universities, in fields like education and administration offices: and all the questions raised during the Q&A centered around this central topic.

My keynote speech was titled ‘Uncertain Times: The Choices You Make’. Needless to say, my slides were built around visuals, with minimal explanations in English with large fonts.

My speech centered around my message which exhorts each person to get an overall feeling for globalization and to fulfill the responsibilities required of each of their professions and administrators.

My hour was over in no time, but I was confident that my message had got across, judging by the responses of the audience during the last panel discussion and the reception afterwards.

In the last panel discussion, I was with Dr. Iiyoshi (1), who repeated that education looked to instill a bit of insanity, while I also stressed that it was the ‘crazy ones’ (1) who change the world. We also had Mr. Sato, an unconventional member of MEXT , along with Mr. Fukuoka from METI. Dr. Iiyoshi threw his ‘punches’ of ‘madness’, while the two government officials were willing to step out of the boundaries of the ‘ordinary’, a characteristic of young bureaucrats. The audience also voiced their　opinions about their anxieties and concerns related to their work in education, showing their dedication and sincerity. I truly empathize with them.

Thinking out of the box, changing perceptions, being the nails that stand out, whatever you call it, the important thing is to go beyond boundaries. The future of Japan in an increasingly globalized world lies with the future generation. I wonder how many people in positions of higher responsibility understand this situation and act accordingly, dealing with this dilemma as a matter of ultimate importance.

I wonder how many people strive to harness their full potential and do their best to fulfill the calling of their duties. This includes the need to instinctively understand global trends, through proper information, and to put these trends into practice to help the nation.In a society such as Japan’s, where there exist terms such as ‘academic elite’ and ‘University Tokyo talk’ , this may be too much to ask for.

Even if this problem is recognized, too many are lulled into inaction by the sheer number of reasons why they think change cannot be brought about. This is the situation that we have here in Japan. It is of utmost importance to not only think but also to act at the same time, hard though it may seem.

Speech at the United Nations University Commencement

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The United Nations University is located in Aoyama in Tokyo. A graduate program has been established here in collaboration with a group of research institutes across the globe, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, and with links to other universities. The graduate school commencement was held on July 3.

Since being involved in the Science Council of Japan, I have been active in advocating strengthening the connections between the scientific community in Japan and the United Nations University. I have worked with the past two Rectors of the university, as well as the new Rector, David Malone, with whom I have a mutual friend in Canada and have been in contact with before he assumed office.

In these past ten years, there have been many conferences held at the university and I have enjoyed many opportunities to speak here.

The graduate school at the United Nations University was established in September of 2010. As it is a new graduate school, it is still quite small. This year, twelve people from twelve different countries graduated, representing the maximum diversity (there were also a few other students who graduated in the spring). I was very happy to have the privilege of being invited to give the Commencement Speech.

My speech can be accessed from the link here.

It was a wonderful graduation ceremony and everyone seemed happy. The ceremony began by a video message from President Malone, who had an urgent matter abroad, followed by a speech by the Senior Vice-Rector, Kazuhiko Takeuchi, my speech, the awarding of the degrees, speeches by three of the graduating students, and finished with the reception.

Is an indescribable and moving feeling to send off into the world young peoplewho will make a new start.

Some Recent Happenings

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I have not posted recently though in fact I have been part of several interesting things ever my early breakfast at the British Embassy after an early morning flight from Bangkok on the 31st of May, I have not updated this column.

Anyway, I would like to report that the HGPI and the JCIE jointly hosted the fifth and final installation of the symposium on development in Africa (website in Japanese, Facebook page) in the run-up to the TICAD5. For dinner, I headed to Yokohama with the board of directors for GHIT (Global Health and Innovation Technology), with whom I would be having a meeting the next day. I spent the night at Yokohama.

The GHIT is a rare initiative, combining private and public interests with the Gates Foundation, and has a 5 year program. I get the feeling that it is going to be hard to stand at the helm of this organization.

The next morning started with the meeting of the board of directors, followed by a council meeting and then a press conference, and then I was in Tokyo. I had been invited to talk at the beginning of the ‘Global Agenda Seminar’(blog in Japanese) by Yoko Ishikura, and pretty soon, I had to head back to Yokohama in order to attend the award ceremony for the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize.

I welcomed the two recipients, Dr Peter Piot and Alex Cortinho and introduced them to the Emperor and the Empress. I was kept busy by the presentation ceremony and the reception dinner, and was able to go back home only late at night.

So this is what I was doing after returning from Bangkok on the 31st of May and the 1st of June. Considering the fact that it was only two days, I think I managed to accomplish a lot.

On the 2nd of June, I attended the farewell party held in memory of Mineo Nakajima (newspaper article in Japanese and English, Wikipedia page in Japanese), the late founder of the now famous Akita International University. In the short span of 10 years, AIU has earned praise for its mission of educating world-class university students. He was a wonderful scholar, a true educator; we will truly, truly miss him. I join my hands in prayer for this teacher who left us so suddenly.