Recently I have posted a report on ‘From G8 to G20’ meeting on Global Health- Chatham House、London.
I also reported that NHK television crew joined us to cover this meeting.
The NHK made two sets of 30 minutes English programs ‘Asian Voices: Global Health’ based on interviews with the main participants of this meeting.
Dr. Shigeru Omi, former WHO member appears as a guest commentator in ‘Part 1’ and I appear in ‘Part 2’, both hosted by Ms Aiko Doden, who speaks very nice English.
This program will be broadcasted on Cable TV at overseas, but in Japan and elsewhere will appear On-line for several times.
‘Part 1’ comes in 6 series starting from 11:10 am, August 7th (Sat) through 7:10 am, August 8th (Sun).
‘Part 2’ consists of 5 series starting from 11:10 am, August 14th (Sat) through early morning; 5:10 am, August 15th (Sun).
I was actually a little nervous when the interview was done without any rehearsals so I imagine that there must be several places here and there that make me blush if I see the video clips (though I haven’t seen it, yet). But after all, in the Global age, what matters in “English is ‘the content’, ‘to speak’ and not in the least ‘pronunciation’”.
On July 31st, I was invited to give a special lecture at Annual Meeting of Japan Society for Medical Education (in Japanese) at Annual Meeting of Japan Society for Medical Education. The title of my lecture was ‘Take Leave of Absence from School: Human Resource Development of Web2.0 Era’
Before my lecture Dr. Maxine Papadakis, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at UCSF delivered a special lecture. I happen to have worked with her to write a chapter of ‘Fluids and Electrolytes Disorder’ in the book by Professor Lawrence Tierney ‘Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment’ (revised every year), the most selling book on medicine in practice for these 10 years. She is also one of the Editors of the book. We managed to have a small chat between our lectures.
Dr. Sakae Iwasaki, chair of my lecture, introduced me and said ‘What does this title mean? I can’t wait to find it out’.
I am sure that many of the frequent visitors of my website will sense some idea from this title.
The ‘See-D’ which I introduced to you recently, was held at the Fukutake Hall of University of Tokyo on July 31st Saturday. About 200 people participated, mainly young students, including those who by coincidence came across the event and decided to join. Kopernick is one of the important supporters of this meeting..
This event is hosted by Ms. Riku and Mr. Tsuchiya (also members of MIT D-Lab, currently living in Boston), D-Lab Japan office, other organizations, and some students from Boston who are in Japan for their summer vacation. These people are the main driving force for planning and carrying out this conference.
It is very important that such projects/actions are created, spread and encouraged for action, particularly by young people.
At the See-D conference room, twitter and Ustream（Ref.1) were displayed on the screen in real time. Live program with East Timor through Skype enabled the audience to communicate by writing some comment via Post-It to moderating staff. The three people in East Timor responded in English and those comments were instantaneously summarized in Japanese and shown on the Screen; a kind and considerate service! The report of this event is posted on the web site of See-D Japan (in Japanese).
Those gathered are eager and enthusiastic in search for what they could do. Three panelists with overseas experiences through JICA programs shared their work and thoughts with us. One of them was Mr Ide who now works at Sumitomo Chemicals and its mosquito net or BetNet in Tanzania. I met him first time last March year in my flight to Dubai, sitting next to each other and we met a few time since then.
Anyway, everybody was so lively and high spirited. The conference fully utilized high-technologies, too. It was truly a motivating, good, happy conference. By the way, Mr. Miyoshi (in Japanese) whom I have introduced in this site many times, currently working in Bangladesh, also joined via twitter.
After this meeting, I moved to join ‘Global Health Summer Course' which we co-host with the University of Tokyo. It was almost 7 pm, but everybody was still working hard to make policy recommendations, presentations, having discussions. Thanks to all participants and staffs. Tomorrow, they will present their policy recommendations in the presence of several legislators.
Since this spring, I have been repeatedly sending out messages concerning the too insular mindset of Japanese youths (actually, the fact is, that older generation is basically insular minded…setting undesirable examples for young people to follow…) and the huge gap which seem to exist between the global world and current status of the Japanese society. This theme appears regularly in the blog of one of my friends, Dr. Yoko Ishikura.
Now I see several students responding to my message and taking actions. In fact I received e-mails from two senior students (undergraduate) who happened to have listened to one of my lectures. In short they wish to take leave of absence from school for one year to carry out their plans. As expected, they had to face some disagreements from their family, teachers and friends – not to speak of their own inner struggles.
One is a female student planning to go to Moscow where she lived for 2 years with her family as a junior high student (just after the end of the Soviet Union… It must have been a very difficult time…). She wishes to live in Moscow for 1 year and see how Russia and its people have changed. She also wants to study Russian. Another student is a male who, after giving it a lot of consideration, decided to go to Ghana to work with the local NGO. Both students have worked out and arranged everything by themselves. I think this is quite impressive accomplishment to these students..
So, I decided to introduce these two students to Vice Minister of education Mr. Nakagawa (Ref.1) (the links are in Japanese) (Top photo) As you may see from his background, he studied undergraduate years at Georgetown University in Washington DC, which is quite a unique background for a Japanese, so my expectation was that Mr. Nakagawa will instinctively understand the mind of these two students. I also felt that many officials at MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) had positive feelings for such movements of students.
We had a nice lively conversation with the Vice Minister and I am sure that this opportunity provided a happy experience for the two students.
The female student left for Moscow the next day, and the male student will leave for Ghana in the end of this August. What kind of career will they follow? What will their work be like in the future? Well, for the time being, what I can at least say is that they will without doubt become Japanese of the next generations who have acquired senses to feel Japan from outside and the global point of view (which is very much needed for the global age) and develop their own human networks connected and expanding to the world. It would be such a pleasure to see them grow.
Global Health is now a hot topic at the University of Tokyo. In this context, our Health Policy Institute and the University of Tokyo co-organized‘Global Health Policy Summer Program 2010’ (in Japanese. English version will be posted soon) with participation of about 30 very eager and movited students (including graduate students and those who are currently studying abroad). I joined this event on the opening day, July 26th, and enjoyed mainly interactive dialogues for 90 min. The session was carried out half in English and half in Japanese.
Everyone spoke up actively which I think resulted in good exchange of views. After my speech, Professor Kenji Shibuya, the host from the University of Tokyo, gave another session in English.
As always, I asked the participants to send me e-mails, which they responded, so I continue to hear and exchange views even after the event. Through these correspondences I realized how each student are thinking hard in spite of all sorts of difficulties and uncertainties that they feel because of their strong interest to this topic. I sincerely wish that their experience in this program will help each of them think about next steps, in whatever way possible, in the future. I look forward to seeing what sort of policy recommendations they will come up with.
Fly and soar, you future leaders of the Global Health!
Dr. Muhammad Yunus is known for starting a program to support poor women in Bangladesh to earn living through a system called Microfinance (Grameen Bank). Today, the method of Microfinance is spread throughout the world.
As you may know, Dr. Yunus visited Japan just recently. Media reported that President Yanai of UniQlo will collaborate with him. Many of you may also have seen the media coverage of other variety of activities Dr. Yunus was involved during his stay in Japan. Kyusyu University and Rikkyo University (the links are in Japanese) (Ref.1) also have been working with Dr. Yunus.
I had an opportunity to join dinner with Dr. Yunus and talk about many things. His words are always impressively passionate and clear. I understand that now he is helping the issue of poverty in the United States; his activities are quickly expanding to such fields as poverty, education, health care, job creation. We enjoyed listening to many of his thoughts including his very clear and persuasive view on ‘why women?’.
Dr. Yunus and I also talked about the project of the students of Waseda University which we helped get started. Two of the students took leave of absence from the University to begin a new Japanese project with the local Grameen bank. They also launched Grameen Change Maker Project (Ref.1) (the links are in Japanese) in Japan to encourage participation of more Japanese university students and youths. What they are doing is absolutely wonderful and full of young energy. I am very pleased to see this happening.
Visit their websites (Ref.1) (the links are in Japanese) and you will see how enthusiastic and passionate they are. I believe youths must be ‘full of enthusiasm’.
Just as Dr. Yunus and I were talking about them, an e-mail from these students, Mr. Miyoshi and Mr. Saisyo, came in from Dhaka. I quickly sent reply to them and said to Dr. Yunus that ‘I have copied my reply to you, too’. Such things can happen because we live in a very inter-connected world.
World is getting smaller and smaller. I recommend young people to go outside to see the world. ‘Let Us Take Leave of Absence from School’(Ref.1) is the key. This will provide you with a very good opportunity to broaden your view, look at your ‘self’, see Japan from outside and find your ‘self’. I ask universities (and government) for their support and encouragement, too. I say so because this is also the direction in the major universities of the world, which recognize such programs very important for nurturing the leaders of the global age.
See-D Contest will kick off soon by students with entrepreneurship in search for new ideas that utilize ‘appropriate technologies’ for the benefit of developing countries. I have introduced some activities of these students as you see in my blog postings (Ref.1).
The sub-title of this contest is ‘Open Symposium for Creating Innovative Ideas for the Developing Countries’.
The date of the contest is July 31st (Sat.). Students, engineers, companies interested in supporting and joining such activities, are cordially invited to participate. Please register through the web site of See-D Contest.
Asian Innovation Forum (AIF) organized by Mr. Nobuyuki Idei, the former President and CEO of Sony who leads Quantum Leaps), will open on September 28th and 29th in Tokyo. For a report on last year’s forum, please refer to my blog posting. You can register through their website.
The Forum started 4 years ago, and ever since then I have had the pleasure of working with Mr. Idei for this important event by the wonderful leader in business sector of Japan.
I hope and expect this year’s ‘AIF2010’ to serve as a platform for even more provocative discussions than last year. For we have seen no progress at all in the situation of Japan – rather it seems to be getting worse. Don’t you agree?
The Forum also has a Twitter account for you to follow.
Please come and join with us. I look forward to seeing you all at the Forum.
In the morning of 9th, after the dialogue session with Mr. Toyama, I left for Hanoi. This travel is to join the 10th anniversary of the Kidney Center which I helped its foundation with Dr Tang and Dr Ann whom I have introduced to you last year. This plan is also an outcome of the effort by the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) for these 20 years of focusing its activities to the programs for developing countries
In 1990 the ISN meeting was held in Tokyo. I have been leading the ISN activities as a committee and executive member and later as the President (1997-99) of the ISN, so I was naturally involved in COMGAN program in reaching developing countries since its very beginning, and have traveled to Asia and many other parts of the world. Through various activities such as COMGAN, ISN has succeeded in constructing the networks of people throughout the world for 15 years including kidney specialists in many developing countries of the world. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of ISN last month although I had to be excused because of other responsibilities elsewhere.
Through more than 20 years of work at Asian Pacific Congress of Nephrology (Ref.1) and other activities, I have expanded my networks with many kidney specialists, medical leaders and scientists in Asia Pacific including Dr Tang and his colleagues, visited Hanoi and Ho Chi Ming City (former Saigon) a few times, and about 15 years ago we started to make plans for Kidney Center. The hospitals and clinics then were in terrible conditions that one may hardly imagine.
The Kidney Center is located within the hospital of Ministry of Transportation. It is an outcome of what we would call today the ‘Public Private Partnership’ between the government of Vietnam and a few corporations of Japan. Japanese companies did not necessarily pursue profits, but brought about a big success in creating jobs and enhancing the growth of local businesses. I attended their 5th anniversary, and now we are celebrating the 10th. We had a great exciting ceremony with large number of participants.
The accommodation at Hanoi was Intercontinental Hotel. I highly recommend to try this nice elegant hotel which stands by the lake if you have a chance to visit here.
On 11th, I moved to Ho Chi Ming City. Here, everything is much more ‘developed’ compared to Hanoi and was filled with completely different energy. I enjoyed dinner with my friends here at Cham Charm. I do not hesitate to recommend this restaurant to you also.
At any rate, every city is filled with motorbikes. I even saw a whole family riding on one bike. So energetic!
The return flight from Ho Chi Ming City was in the midnight of 11th, so I was able to hear the news of the overall result of the election of the Upper of Japan. I regret having had to miss watching the World Cup final game…. I congratulate Spain for the victory.
Among the books that I recommend to young people are the books by Mr. Kazuhiko Toyama (Ref.1) (links are in Japanese), ‘Yubi ippon no syunen ga shyobu wo kimeru (A finger-tip of obsession decides the winner)’ and ‘Kaishya wa atama kara kusaru (A company will rot from the head)’. If you have not read these books yet, I can assure you that they are worth reading. Mr. Toyama has done a great job at Sangyo Saisei Kiko (Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan) and more recently was involved actively in the effort of revitalizing JAL (Japan Air Line)
Three years ago, Mr. Toyama and his colleagues established International Growth Platform and I was invited to its 3rd Anniversary on July 8th. At preliminary discussions we decided that we should make very provocative comments.
The program opened by a dialogue between Mr. Toyama and Professor Kunio Ito of Hitotsubashi University (in Japanese), followed by a keynote speech by Mr. Hasegawa (Ref.1,2) (links are in Japanese), President and CEO of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., and the last was a dialogue between Mr. Toyama and myself. Audience was about 200 people. I arrived at the venue late so I missed the dialogue session of Mr. Toyama and Professor Ito.
President Hasegawa is a very sharp and able business executive, always speaks up his real views without hesitation and ‘no no-sense’, demonstrates strong leadership in carrying out what he believes is right. He also earns high reputation at the Davos meeting as a top business leader. Mr. Toyama and I, standing on the stage throughout the session, exchanged challenging and very provocative views to endorse and enhance the messages delivered by Mr. Hasegawa – his (as always) sharp analysis and drastic points of view reflecting his deep concerns about the future of Japan.
I said, for example, that weeks before the World Cup games in South Africa I foresaw that the ‘key’ to Japan was to let Honda play as freely as he believes; that in the audience of that day, only several women (below 10) were present; that in Mr. Toyama’s company 80% of the 100 employees are ‘career’ and among them, ‘None’ employed as fresh university graduates or ‘zero’ (and this actually is pretty normal outside of Japan….); that components made in Japan were drastically less in iPad than in iPod. I also pointed out how Japanese lack ability to recognize the ‘strength’ or ‘weakness’ unique to them, how in general, poor in building global networks of connections on individual basis, or how I hate being told of ‘reasons for why something can not be done'. Our dialogue also included many specific examples as well as specific recommendations.
Frankly, I enjoy this kind of ‘events’. The reception that followed was filled with excitements, too (as I was told later). But actually, to be honest, the most important key is how each one of us can take actions from here….. I sincerely urge each one of you to start actions whatever you can in whatever position you may be.
