A Recommendation to Take a Leave of Absence From School ? Are Japanese Youth Insular Minded?

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Recently, I notice many articles and reports on insular mindset of Japanese youth in Japanese media.  Is this really so?
 
The other day, I attended a symposium, and here again, the topic was discussed.  I said that my view was a bit different.  The content of my lecture overlaps with my lecture at my Keio SFC class.  Mr. Koiwai at JST kindly summarized my speech well.  The title of my lecture is ‘Recommendation to Take a Leave of Absence from School ? What Are the Characteristics That Japan Seek in Its Human Resource?’  (in Japanese).

People have different views on this issue.  I am not surprised.  For instance, I agree with the view expressed in the article; “The Deceit in ‘Japanese Youth are Insular Minded’” (Ref.1, 2)(all in Japanese).

How are Japanese Universities  (Ref.1 both links in Japanese) (Ref.2, 3 in English) doing in this global age?

Are current employment systems in big industries (such as notifying students that they have been hired in the 3rd year in college) (cf. Pasona case)  good today?  It seems to me that too many institutions are unable to shift from conventional practice.

As I always say, I think the number of people who left Japan as an individual, free from institutions, is very limited amongst the generation of our current university students’ parents. The same, I suppose, can be said with the generation before them.  The majority of people who went abroad for business or for international study were, I assume, supported by their companies or government offices. 

It is so important to encourage and support youth to develop their career in global settings, to help them find things they truly want to do, and to assist in building human networks within this rapidly changing world.  It is our responsibility to help the young who have our future to see, feel, and think about the outside world.  They need to do this as independent individuals, even for just a short period of time.

As I have seen, I think ‘Recommendation to Take A Leave of Absence From School’   (Ref.1,2) might be the best advice.

Welcoming Mr. Akira Tsuchiya and Mr. Daisuke Kotegawa to My Keio SFC Class

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I assume that you are aware that I have a class at the Keio SFC campus  (Ref.1, 2) during the autumn semester of 2010. 

Mr. Akira Tsuchiya is a graduate of Keio SFC.  He also studied at the graduate schools at Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown, has been working for several years at the administrative offices of the World Economic Forum (popular as the Davos meeting), in Geneve and Japan.  I have known him for almost 10 years. We’ve worked together on various occasions.  Unfortunately, I was unable to attend his lecture due to my trip to Doha, but later, he kindly let me know how it went.  The lecture was well received by the students, too.  I assumed this since Mr. Tsuchiya is their senior. He works at a global institution and he talked about his experience first hand.  I would have liked you to see his lecture on video but unfortunately it is only for access within campus because many of the Powerpoint slides used were not intended for public viewing.

The lecturer of the week after was Mr. Daisuke Kotegawa. He is a top-scale, unique, international leader. He is the current Director at IMF, recently having returned from Washington DC, and resigning from the ministry of finance. (I searched and hit many sites on him in Google, but could not find the link just right to introduce to you…) It is hard to find a person like him these days.  One might call him a kokushi, a Japanese term for a patriot who devote one’s life for the good of the nation.  On a side note, he is competent in many languages, and is currently learning Chinese from a private tutor.  I think he is polishing his skills.

The lecture by Mr. Kotegawa was on international finance and was given in English.  He talked about the bubble bursting in Japan 20 years ago, the fail of Lehman in 2008, lessons to be learned from these events, future perspective of Japan and the world, and so on.  It was truly a top-scale talk, just like him.  What he said had a huge impact and a sense of reality because everything was based on his actual experience. He was one of the people in charge of these problems at the ministry of finance at the time the bubble burst, and he was at IMF at the time of Lehman issue in 2008.

It was a good learning for me, too, since I am also one of the many outsiders, just like the students.  Thank you very, very much to these two invited speakers.

A Student Movement to Promote ‘Let’s Study Internationally’, ‘Let’s Experience the World’

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Late last year I reported that the Japanese PhD’s who are actively working in the US and who have begun to grow impatient with their Japanese juniors have started to take action to encourage study abroad. 

Their activities were covered by Mainichi Shinbun, one of the major newspapers in Japan.  This is very encouraging.  After all, the most important thing is to let the most high school students, university students, their families, and the Japanese public know what is happening.  This is one of the very important and basic roles of media.

My message here is: ‘Youth, be ambitious!’.

Mr. Saisho’s New Year; From Dhaka

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Thus far I’ve posted many reports on Mr. Saisho of Waseda University. He is doing a wonderful job in Bangladesh (Ref.1,2).    Recently I’ve also noticed that Japanese media is reporting on his activities. On January 3rd, an article appeared on the 2nd, ‘People’, page of the Asahi Shinbun Newspaper morning edition.  It kicked off reports on him for the New Year.

I received an e-mail from Mr. Saisho that morning, just as I was reading the article, saying, ‘I was told that an article about me appeared on the ‘People’ column of Asahi Shinbun morning issue although I can’t confirm it because I am in Dhaka now…’

So, I wrote the whole content of the article in e-mail and sent to him.

Mr. Saisho wrote back to me; ‘Thanks for the whole article!  I really appreciate it.  Will go to see Dr. Yunus today and I will report this to him!’

I replied; ‘My Hello to Yunus-san.
We may meet in Davos later this month’

All these correspondence took place in just about 30 minutes. What a small world!

Design Thinking ? A New Movement of the New Age

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A Happy New Year!

I wish for a more active mood to emerge in Japan for the year of 2011. I strongly expect it to happen….

Over the past two to three years, I’ve noticed the phrase, ‘Design Thinking’ has spread gradually through the world.  How people interpret this word may differ according to each individual, but basically I think it stands for the essence of wisdom for how to address the very complicated issues of the world.

As I have mentioned several times in my blog, today, the word ‘Design’ is not confined to the dimension of objects or shapes only. It also refers to the act of presenting practical solutions to complex problems by taking into account various ideas from diverse viewpoints.  In other words, we should understand it as a process of ‘Design Thinking’.

I feel that this phenomenon is observed in many areas.  For instance; a scientific approach by the Open Systems Science of Dr. Mario Tokoro of Sony , Graduate School of Design at Harvard, the D School at Stanford, or the i.School  at the University of Tokyo

Design Thinking often uses the process of presenting figures to summarize and clarify issues.  The IdeasLab of the World Economic Forum may be one of such examples that are based on these concepts.  I recently had an opportunity to participate in meetings at WEF in Dubai; Global Redesign Summit (Ref.1) and Global Risk Response Network  (Ref.1). Nice visual demonstrations were prepared by Design, Innovation Council and the like, meant to clearly suggest the importance of showing and visualizing complex ideas and issues for better understanding.

Recently, designers have more opportunity to work in business sectors.  I think this is partly because of the trend I described above, combined with various technologies to present information in visual ways based on the rapid progress of digital technologies.  Examples of such designers would include Mr. Ken Okuyama (Ref.1 in Japanese), Mr. Issey Miyake (Ref.1 in Japanese), and Mr. Kashiwa Sato　(Ref.1 in Japanese).
　
Because they are all international designers, always thinking about the essences of the human mind, they naturally acquire visions to respond to today’s need to create ‘Open and Demand-driven Innovation’.

We have been organizing the Global Entrepreneurship Week （GEW） since 2009, and bearing in mind the trend described above, for 2010, we invited a group of youths to do a workshop under the theme ‘ Impact Japan : Design Thinking’ (Ref.1).  This triggered the foundation of our institution, Impact Japan.  Nikkei newspaper put an advertisement article on its December 29th morning issue about the Design Thinking activities that originated in GEW Japan.

I feel the wisdoms of the world working to adapt to the new age.  Now, how will Japan do this year?

A Table for Two’s Holiday Season Charity

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Have you ever heard of Table for Two （TFT) ?

It originated in Japan.  This idea was developed to make this world a better place.  It links the hunger people in the poor developing parts of the world with the overweight people of developed countries.  TFT is now spreading through the world and the name is gradually gaining recognition.

I have been supporting this project as one of its advisers since its inception.

TFT threw a Charity Party in Aoyama, Tokyo the evening of December 25th.  For many years, I was unable to attend this party but this year I did.  I thought it also a good opportunity to have a reunion with Dr. Kogure, the director.

Dr. Kogure seemed to be in good shape, but he of course has his shares of worries.  The party was packed with lively youth, a very different generation from mine.  Presentations, quiz game that competed between groups (I was in the Rwanda group), and other activities followed one after another to keep the guests entertained.

The party closed with the song ‘We are the World’ (Ref.1) First, a professional singer started, and then we all followed. 

The power of this song is truly amazing.

 

Mr. Saisho of the Dragon Cherry Blossoms and the ‘Dream Award 2010’ by Watami Co., Ltd.

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On December 21st, I posted a column titled ‘The Dragon Cherry Blossoms (in Japanese) of Dhaka – They Did it Again’, which I wrote on 20th.

The main character of this story, Mr. Saisho, passed the screening of the ‘Dream Award 2010’ (in Japanese) from so many candidates to remain among the 5 finalists, and on 21th, the day after I drafted the above column, the final speech competition took place at Hibiya Public Auditorium.  I heard about this from Mr. Saisho himself because I met him the day before, on 20th near Hibiya, where the event took place.
 
I was told by the organizer that the speech by the wonderful 5 finalists were all very moving, but surprisingly Mr. Saisho won both the ‘Best Watami Dream Award’ and ‘Special Watami Award’ (in Japanese).  Mr. Saisho’s presentation can be seen on the web (in Japanese) within the timeframe of  01:57:55-02:12:33 and the announcement of the winners during 02:19:15-02:25:30.

A transcript of the interview of Mr. Saisho (in Japanese) is on the web, too.

The Dragon Cherry Blossoms is an outstanding project in terms of its scope, the big gap between now and the goal, and the strong ability to take actions to carryout the plans.

The impact of this project is huge because they, together with the youths of the poor village in Bangladesh, actually proved in real life that a big dream can become true.

I sent an e-mail to Mr. Saisho right away to say ‘I am proud of you.  But let’s be careful not to be too flattered by those series of good things that keep happening recently.’  The next day, he sent me a reply: ‘Yes, I will keep telling myself that praise is the biggest trap!’.  Good!

He will leave for Dahka on December 26th.

I wrote an e-mail to him: ‘Have a nice holiday season in Dhaka. Take care’.

The Dragon Cherry Blossoms of Dhaka – They Did it Again!

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This is another entry about Mr. Saisho (in Japanese), a Waseda University student. He’s been on leave from school for two years working in Bangladesh. I’ve written about him several times here.  Mr. Saisho has been working on a great project that brings hope to a poor village in Bangladesh. The project uses e-education to assist and empower youth in preparing for entrance exams for top Bangladesh universities. Preparation for these exams is usually class-driven; Mr Saisho and his colleagues are helping to lesson obstacles for the poorer. 

Two students succeeded in the exam. The news  was reported on the local newspaper under a bold heading.  Japanese media has been covering this news as well.  Mr. Saisho and his friends started this project two yeas ago and later gave it an ambitious name: ‘Grameen Change Maker Program’.

What happened to the other students?  Well, I received a follow up e-mail from Mr. Saisho yesterday.  According to his message, two more students passed the exams.

 "Dr. Kurokawa,

Here is more good news.  Two male students passed the entrance exam to the Teachers College of Comilla University, the 5th best national university in Bangladesh!!!

Below is the summary to date.

Accepted to University of Dhaka, the No.1 National University:
Bhuran Uddian Helal (male)
1,276th of 36,000 applicants

Accepted to Jagannath University, the No.3 National University:
Jaren Akter (female)
2,000th of 70,000 applicants

Accepted to Comilla University (Teachers College), the No.5 National University:
Muhamad Hossian (male)
480th of 40,000 applicants

Accepted to Comilla University (Teachers College), the No.5 National University:
MD Jafor Ahmed (male)
270th of 70,000 applicants

Each student passed with high scores!

Here, people are praising the achievement by calling it a ‘miracle in Hamchar village’

Now, people are curious to know more about the Dragon Cherry Blossoms e-Education method ? to learn the secret of how the village high school students succeeded in passing the university entrance exams with such high scores.

Sincerely,
Atsuyoshi Saisho”

For all those elderly who look down upon our youth, what do you think of this? Youths today are not in as bad of a place as you think. They are actually reliable and know exactly what they are doing.

Just giving them a small nudge from behind, like encouraging them to take a leave of absence from school and go abroad, is enough to make them go and see the new broad world, to find issues, and to challenge the issues bravely.

I advise youths to not be afraid of failures.  Have ambition and courage to challenge high goals. Try, and when you fail, learn your lessons from your failure and try again.  This is the key.  In short, it is ‘No Failure, no success’.

It is this young population that we want and that we are always looking for.  Are they not the human asset – the human resource whom the society, companies, and Japan as a nation need?  They are what we would call the ‘nails that stick out (Deru Kui)’, people who are not restricted to the commonsense of the Japanese society.

This is the reason why I so strongly recommend taking leave of absence from school.   We should give the youth opportunities to be aware of their possibilities.  As I always say, Japan is only a part of the wide world.

For you, readers, I would like to remind you that there are so many ways of helping such youth.  I ask for your warm support.

Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum

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After finishing the panel at Tunis, I left the hotel in late afternoon.  Arriving at Doha, Qatar via Dubai at 6:30 am, I checked in at Sheraton again.  I was here this past June (Ref.1), too.  This time, it was right when Qatar won the 2022 World Cup Bid.

My travel was by the invitation of Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum which will be held for two days.  The Qatar Foundation  (Ref.1) is one of the major institutions of Qatar focused on development of good education. Her Highness herself is the devoted driver of its activities, some of which have already produced great results. For example,  the research laboratories of Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon University, Texas A&M University are all built on the huge premise of the Foundation.
 
Because this was their first Forum, the main purpose was to introduce the Qatar Foundation to the world.  The Foundation attracted many participants this year.  This country is very young, to begin with.  And the nation is also very dedicated to human resource development, with the initiatives of the Qatar University.  They are keen to education because they know that, although they are rapidly accumulating wealth as one of the major energy exporting nations of the world of gas and oil, the final resource this small island nation will be able to depend on for its future is the human resource.

Qatar is also a nation that protects and supports culture and art.  A good example of this is the Museum of Islamic Art, which I have spoken about before on this site.

The Forum opened at 9am with the speech of Her Highness, the Queen.  Between the programs, I enjoyed reading posters (especially those by the students).  I was also a jury member that presided over the presentations of Biomedical Science researches. Dr. Elias Zerhouni （former Director of NIH）, Dr. Peter Agre (a Nobel laureate of chemistry for his discovery of water channel) and Dr. Monsef Saloui（the head of GSK, RD）were also part of this jury. Elias and Moncef are my good friends, but I have not worked with Dr. Agre before. I did, however, know about his work, and had listened to several of his lectures. The forum was full of young energy.  I was particularly impressed by the existence of many active women.

In the evening, I visited Ambassador Moji at the Japan embassy in Qatar with President Tsuciya and several people of Tsuchiya Corporation (Mr. Nishida, a very good Arabic speaker whom I saw at the embassy in Abu Dhabi was there also.)  Then, we visited the residence of former Ambassador of Qatar to Japan, H.E. Reyad Ali Al-Ansari who recently returned to Qatar after 9 years of service in Japan and invited us for dinner.  It is nice to experience expansion of human networks like this.  H.E. Al-Ansari said that his son studied in the U.S. and is currently working in the oil business in Qatar.  However, he seemed to be not so approving of his daughter’s studying abroad.

We paid a brief visit to the president of administration of Her Highness the next day at the head office of Qatar Foundation. It was unfortunately brief because our schedule was packed in the afternoon with many sessions on science policy etc.  We need to have more Japanese researchers and youths participate in such occasions. It is important to promote the exchange of young people.

The result of the selection was announced at the evening reception.  From our group, the award was given to a study done on defective hearing that identified the responsible DNA and showed that the deficiency was caused by the malfunctioning of its hair cells.  The project was very nicely  researched and the researcher answered each question with confidence.  Her boss, the head of the administrative office at her hospital (who also happened to be a women), looked very happy.  This head was also a very gifted and able person whom I truly enjoyed talking for some time with.  I was seated at the same table as the professors of MIT, UCLA, and the Dean of the local Texas A&M research laboratory.  We quite enjoyed the conversation over dinner because we had so many common topics to talk about.  I had to leave during the dinner to catch the 22:50 airplane for Abu Dhabi, a forty minute flight.
 
Whenever I am exposed to the energy and motivation of young people, I always become eager to help.  I also look forward to seeing more exchanges carried out between Japan and Qatar.

To Tunis: Japan-Arab Economic Conference

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In the evening of December10th, I left Narita via Dubai to Tunis in order to attend the 2nd Japan-Arab Economic Conference held in Tunis on the 11th and 12th.  The arrival time at Tunis was shortly after noontime.

I felt a cool breeze as I left the airport, and I thought that Tunis was a nice place.  Since I had seen H.E. Hatano, former ambassador to UAE, in Dubai, I headed directly to the Carthage remains from the airport.  I enjoyed a nice tour with Mr. Ohashi, a long time expert of middle eastern business of Mitsui & Co. He kindly guided me around with a full explanation of the sites (he is quite informed about this area, and said that he recently stayed in Tunis for a week…)

Here, we encountered Mr. Ohata, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, and delegates.

After stopping by at several sight seeing spots, we arrived at Sidi Bou Said (Ref.1), our final destination.  It was a lovely old town with white walls and beautiful blue windows and doors.  We had tea at the so called oldest coffee shop in the world, relaxing, as the time went slowly by.  Tunis is in the Mediterranean Culture zone, both geographically and historically.  Time pass slowly here.  I must admit that a workaholic lifestyle, competing only for higher GDPs, has some problems.  Here, you can feel the long history of culture.

The reception was held at Ramada Hotel, the venue of the conference and our accommodation.  About 300 people came for this conference from Japan.  The head of the Japanese delegation was Mr. Okuda of Toyota, and I had the honor of seeing and greeting many leaders of Japanese business.  Mr. Maehara, Minister of Foreign Affairs, also participated this year.  I had an impression that many Japanese from business sector came to the reception.

The conference hall was packed the next day.  It must have been hard to keep on schedule since there were many different sorts of people who gave speeches.  It started with the Japanese Ministers Maehara and Ohata, and then the Ministers of Arabian countries and many important people gave speeches.  I imagine that it was hard work for the secretariat. There were a number of collaborative projects were signed and announced, giving hope for a series of of good outcomes in coming years.

I tried to illustrate Japanese activities to the participants by briefly explaining relationships of Japan and Arabs. In these illustrations I included an introduction of the STS Forum, the panels on education, human resource development, science, and technology.  After having a slightly late lunch, I packed my things and headed for the airport.  I arrived at Doha via Dubai early in the morning of 12th.

Somehow, this travel was quite a busy one.