MIT Media Lab in Tokyo

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MIT Media Lab is well known throughout the world and in Japan as a quite “obstinate” existence in that it aims to “Build the Future”.  The existence of this Lab is well recognized by the world for this unique character.

It was last year that Mr. Joi Ito (Ref.1), a Japanese, but rather more popular as a “global citizen”, was appointed to be the director of the Media Lab, and this attracted people’s attentions in Japan through the coverage by various medias.

I, too, introduced this topic on my web site.  

On January 17th, the “MIT Media Lab@Tokyo 2012” was held in Tokyo.  Dr. Negroponte, the founder of the Media Lab in 1985, also joined in this event to tell us the history of how the Japanese companies supported Media Lab.  Dr. Negroponte is also well known for the project “One Laptop Per Child”　(Ref.1), an aid to Africa, and this time he showed me a new “Tablet” .

A prestigious university working on “outrageous, unprecedented” projects.  Such universities are, I think, the drive force for developing human capital that will transform the world.  Those universities are the producers of the “Out of the Box” talent, the “Change Makers”.

Dr. Ishii, the associate director, also joined with us in this event. 

All speakers very passionately delivered their speech and presented their demonstrations.  I participated in the dialogue with Joi.  Then, I went back to my work at the Congressional Investigation Committee on Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident, and returned again in the evening to join in the reception of the Media Lab which I enjoyed very much.

This whole event is uploaded on Ustream (Ref.1). 

The video starts with the Opening by Joi (the approximate time in the Ustream is “00:00:00–”), followed by the presentations of Dr. Hilgado “00:23:20–” Dr. Ishii “00:45:55–”, dialogue of Joi and myself “01:00:50–”, panel of Joi with “Out of the Box” people in major Japanese corporations “01:22:45–” and so on.  Take a look and enjoy.

Why don’t you go to the Media Lab?  Something inside you might change.  I also urge all Japanese companies to support this extraordinary Lab.

The Committee of Parliament to Investigate the Accident at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants -3

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I have posted two columns under this title since the New Year’s day.  Reports about this committee also appears in the English version of Japanese medias, so I received a number of messages and e-mails from my friends living abroad as well.

English reports appear on Yomiuri and Kyodo, for example.  I believe there are more, if you search for them….

I also intend to express my thoughts in English as much as possible.

Dr. Sunil Chako, a good friend of mine, recently contributed an article to the Huffingtonpost, a well known On-line English media.  I was very happy to read his article.

Your support is a great encouragement to us.

 

The Committee of Parliament to Investigate the Accident at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants -2

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As I reported on the New Year’s day, the “Committee of Parliament to Investigate the Accident at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants” (click here for videos) was launched officially on December 8th last year.  On this day, the nine committee members and I received the official notice of appointment at the Parliament from the Presidents of both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors. This ceremony was followed by a session where the ten committee members made comments and representatives from all political parties expressed their thoughts and expectations towards this committee.

This whole event was broadcasted live from the Parliament and now the audiovisual record of all the comments of the committee members as well as all the requests from the members of the congress are uploaded at the  "Shugiin TV"  for public viewing.  My comments as the chair of this committee appears at the start of this session, and also in the end after all representatives from every political party have presented their “requests” to our committee.  By the way, it happens that 70 years ago on this day, the 8th of December, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor to join in the World War II.   It was truly the beginning of the great tragedy of our nation.  I could not help touching upon this historical coincidence when I talked about the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident.

Mr. Yasuhisa Shiozaki, a representative of the Liberal Democratic Party who served as the Chief Cabinet Secretary, and one of the key persons to set up this committee, writes about this issue in his blog several times.  Mr. Shiozaki also wrote a record of the whole process of the making of this committee and published it as a book in mid December titled “ ‘The Committee of Parliament to Investigate the Accident of the Nuclear Power Plants’ – A Challenge From the Legislature (「国会原発事故調査委員会」立法府からの挑戦状)” (this book is published in Japanese only).

At any rate, we are now at the start of a very challenging year.

 

The Year 2012 Starts With a New Big Challenge

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A Happy New Year.

During the past month, i.e. since December 6th of last year, I have not written any new columns nor did send any messages via twitter.

The reason is, as you may already know, that I was suddenly appointed to chair the “Committee to investigate the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants”.  The relevant laws for creating a committee that is independent from the government and the parliament passed the Diet, as is described in media by words such as “organized by the Diet, totally independent”, or “the very first in the 60 some years’ history of our constitutional government”.  On December 8th, the nine committee members and I received the official notice of appointment at the Parliament from the Presidents of both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors.

If you search my name on the “news” sites in the web, you will find various reports (Ref.1) (both links are in Japanese) on this  issue.

What a big unexpected challenge I was appointed to!  I used to be one of the members of the “nongovernment Fukushima nuclear plant accident investigating committee”(in Japanese) chaired by Dr. Koichi Kitazawa (in Japanese), former Director of JST, but I resigned from this position for this new responsibility.

I will gradually explain to you, from time to time, the various challenges this committee face, but I think the most important and great challenge is how we – the nine members and I – share the mission of this committee and perform our investigations and analysis.  Every member is extremely busy with their own work, and on top of that, we have to recruit all of the administrative staffs and create rules on how to conduct this investigation as a whole.  So, I had to withhold from making any comments in public until the basic rules were defined within our own committee.  I hope you will understand the situation I had been in.

The “gravity of ‘the very first in the history of Japan’s constitutional government’” is not just about the historical impact to the system of our democracy, but it also refers to the countless difficult issues derived from the fact that this sort of investigation has “never taken place before”.  Therefore, I must say, the operation of this committee is by itself a huge challenge to all of us.

After the official launching of our committee, we traveled right away on December 18th (Sunday) to the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident (covering ourselves with heavy protective equipments…), Okuma town located near the nuclear power plant which now looked like a deserted ghost town, and places where decontamination was in progress. On the next day, the 19 th (Monday), we visited the temporary housings of the evacuees and another decontamination site.  (Ref.1) (both links are in Japanese)

The year of 2011 ended with an unexpected big surprise for me, and now the new year of 2012 started.

 

Let the People Trigger “The Third Opening of Japan” ? The Start of a New Movement

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I think many people feel that the credibility of Japan has fallen sharply after the event of “3.11 Fukushima”.  I also regret to say that we do not see any signs yet of trust in Japan recovering.  Why is this so?  The recent issues of TPP or Olympus could be examples of reasons for such mistrust.

On the other hand, we witnessed how the people at the “3.11” stricken area have manifested their wonderful energy.  The whole world saw the fundamental strength embedded in the genes of the Japanese people.  But this is only one side of the coin, and if seen from the other side, we might also see the weakness of the Japanese people in being rather too quiet or obedient.

However, the local victims of the 3.11 Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami are now taking actions towards recovery.  While the government sector is doing nothing much than reciting the mantra of “the third opening of Japan”, the series of concrete actions taken by the civilian section may, in the end, pave the way in the real word towards the true “third opening of Japan”

Recently my colleague and I wrote an opinion in  Japan Times.  Hope you will take a look at it.

 

 

 

 

CSIS-HGPI Conference at Fukushima

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CSIS is a famous Think Tank located in Washington D.C. which is well known among Japanese.  Our Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) has worked with CSIS on a number of joint projects beginning last year as I have previously talked about on this site. 

In the early days of this year, HGPI together with CSIS engaged in various activities including meetings with members of the Japanese Diet and some of the results of these activities were presented to the public in a report. 

In particular, CSIS rapidly responded in the wake of 3.11 by coming up with proposals for the rebuilding of Japan and they are also working together HGPI in the fields of health and medical care.  This site has reported (Ref.1) on these activities.

A gathering was held to announce this “Partnership for Recovery and a Stronger Future: Standing with Japan after 3-11” on November 3rd, 2011 in Washington D.C. followed by a similar gathering in Tokyo during the week of November 7th.  This report can be accessed via the web as well. 

A gathering was held in Fukushima on Friday, November 11th to report primarily on the joint activities with HGPI. (Please click here for the programs) The meeting was extremely productive with approximately 70 attendees, and I am extremely grateful to those who participated on a day when Fukushima was in a light drizzle.  

Among the participants were Michael Green, Stephen Morrison and Brian Biles from CSIS. While Seiji Maehara, Chairman of the Policy Research Committee, of the Democratic Party of Japan had to cancel at the last minute due to matters related to the Transpacific Strategic Economic Partnership, participants from the Japanese side included Mitsuru Sakurai (in Japanese), Acting Chairman of the Policy Research Committee of the Democratic Party of Japan (he is a former Senior Vice Minister of Finance and physician from Tohoku University), Masao Uchibori (in Japanese), Vice-Governor of the Fukushima Prefectural Government, Kazuhiko Toyama who owns transportation-related companies in Fukushima and Ichiro Tsuji (in Japanese) of Tohoku University. 

Dr. Seigo Izumo (in Japanese) who participated in this event resides in Boston, but he jumped in from an early juncture with radiation measurements and medical treatment policies.  Dr. Izumo is a Japanese doctor who was behind me in school.  After graduation from medical school, he went overseas and embarked on an illustrious career as a professor of internal medicine at Harvard with a specialization in cardiac medicine.  He is now working more on the business side and is engaged in work that allows him a more flexible schedule. 

The medical care related themes are focused around the three pillars of radiation, coping with psychological issues and reforming how medical care is provided, and a goal is to create an “Open Platform” that facilitates cooperation between the United States and Japan.  

When we returned to Tokyo, six of us, Michael Green, Stephen Morrison, Brian Biles, Seigo Izumo, Yoshiji Makino (in Japanese) (a freelance journalist who is known for his opinion pieces) and myself gathered for dinner.  Everyone was greatly pleased with the conference and we discussed what should be the next steps.  It was, all in all, an extremely fulfilling day. 

As a final bit of food for thought, Dr. Izumo carried a Geiger counter while we were walking about and actually recorded readings of over 10 uSv/hs!

 

Bilateral Exchange with Botswana

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I had the opportunity at the beginning of last year to visit the country of Botswana (Ref. 1, 2, 3) at the request of the Botswana government and meet with high-level government representatives of many different ministries.  I also had the opportunity to meet with Minister of Foreign Affairs who accepted a report on science, technology and innovation policies which I proposed at the time.  The Minister has accompanied the President on his recent visit to Japan.

During this current visit, Dr. Ponatshego H. Kedikilwe, a Minister with the Botswanan government received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun and a reception was held in his honor by the Botswana embassy.  The reception was held in a small, intimate space which was permeated with a friendly and celebratory atmosphere.

During the Minister’s stay in Japan, I was able to meet for around an hour with a number of individuals who are heads of different government bureaus and had accompanied the Minister to Japan. My proposal of the previous year had made its way through the Parliament, and they reported on its passage and we also talked about what the future holds. It is also important that cooperation be offered from a variety of perspectives including outside of the auspices of the government.  This is particularly true in the modern world we live in.

Japan has started to actively provide assistance and support to Africa.  In particular, the cooperation (Ref. 1, 2) of JICA, which is in charge of ODA, and JST, which is in charge of science and technology policies, over the past several years is encouraging.

The exchange of human resources through multiple different levels and venues is at the core of a strong and vital foreign policy in our global world of today.

 

The United Nations University ? Higher Education and Sustainable Development in Africa

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I assume that many of you readers have heard of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of UN.

It is an ambitious goal which the member nations of the UN promised to achieve by 2015.  However, the situation has changed drastically in these 10 years and now the world is shifting to a very different stage from the 2000’s, the time when the MDGs were planned by the UN.

Given this background, ”International Symposium on the Role of Higher Education for Sustainable Development in Africa” was held at the United Nations University in Aoyama, Tokyo, on October 13th and 14th.

I myself have been working on this theme with the world’s science community (ICSU, IAP, IAC, etc.) (in Japanese) personally and through various organizations such as the Science Council of Japan (in Japanese), the government of Japan, the United Nation’s University (in Japanese), and the World Bank.  Perhaps partly because they knew this, they invited me to give a Keynote lecture.  Unfortunately, I had to go to Abu Dhabi and Washington DC during those days as posted earlier, so with their permission, I decided to prepare a video message.

By coincidence, Dr Miriam Were, the laureate of the Hideyo Noguchi African Prize (Ref.1) was in Japan and planned to visit me on that same day of recording, so I asked her to join in the video.  It was a nice, unexpected, great “Surprise” to the audience of the UNU Symposium.  I thank Professor Masafumi Nagao, and staffs for their support in making this happen.

A report on this Symposium posted on the web site of the UNU (Ref.1) has commented on my video message, too.  I was very pleased and thankful to know this.

I plan to create a link to this video on my web site, so please look forward to viewing it.

A Speech at the Board Meeting of Project Hope, Washington DC

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After leaving Abu Dhabi, I came to Washington DC to give speech and express our appreciation to the board meeting of Project Hope, for their support and cooperation in the restructuring of Tohoku.

It was early in the morning when I arrived at Dulles airport, Washington DC, from Dubai. I checked in to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, prepared  myself quickly to join with Dr. Noritake of HGPI and Dr. Fred Garber of Project Hope (Ref.1) to visit Ambassador Fujisaki at the Embassy of Japan.  Collaboration with  Project Hope and our Impact Japan  - HGPE all started with one phone call from Ambassador Fujisaki at Washington DC to my blackberry, shortly after the “3.11” Tohoku disaster, suggesting that we work together.  

After seeing Ambassador Fujisaki, we went to the National Academy of Sciences, then to Global Knowledge Initiative, an organization which I am part of, located in the AAAS building of the National Academy of Sciences.  

Project Hope holds board meeting four times each year, and invites guest speakers to two of those meetings. I asked “What sort of people are invited for speech?”, since I knew that Project Hope was a global scale disaster relief health care team – one of the largest in the world. But when they said it was “James Jones  recently” , to be honest, I panicked a bit.  Mr Jones was the National Security Advisor to President Obama.  Condoleezza Rice came to speak, too, they said.

There were about 40 people in the room.  After having cocktails, we were seated at tables and enjoyed conversation until it was time for dessert,  when Dr John Howe introduced me as the guest speaker.  I talked for about 20 minutes on topics such as the Tohoku great disaster, activities with Project Hope and Ambassador Fujisaki, Operation Tomodachi, future plans, perspectives of Japan-US relationship, and so on.  By the way, this year is the 70th year from the “Pearl Harbor” in December, and is also the 100th anniversary of the planting of the famous cherry  trees in Washington DC. 

After the speech I received many questions and we were able to enjoy dialogues actively.  Mr Dr Gerber later told me that “It was a good speech.  We don’t usually have so many questions raised from the audience after speech at this board meeting…. I am so glad that you came….”

At about the same time of the day, a reception for the President of Korea, Mr Lee Mhung-Bak, who was visiting the United States then, was being held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel banquet room.  I saw many Korean people at the lobby gathering from early evening, their faces gleaming with happiness and pride, making long lines in excitement.  How wonderful.

I understand that President Obama welcomed President Lee with special treatment of State Visit (Ref.1). I envy this energy of Korea admitting that Korea has many of its own problems.

In contrast, Japan, the neighbor of Korea, has had six different Prime Ministers in 5 years.  It is hard for us to see what the government is up to, and I suspect it is even harder for the government to make any big decisions….  Our Lost Decade continued for more than 20 years now, long ahead of EU or US in this sense.

Just a week before, US Japan Council was held at Washington DC. The Keynote Remarks was delivered by the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, with many political leaders present, including Daniel Inouye, senior United States senator….  I wonder how the event went.

I started the next day early in the morning discussing our collaborative project with CSIS, the meeting we plan to organize in Fukushima in November and other issues to take care of.  After finishing these tasks, I headed to the airport.

This was a trip around the world – departing Narita on the evening of 8th (sat), staying one night each at luxury hotels in Abu Dhabi and Washington DC, spending 3 nights in airplane, arriving Narita on 13th (thur).

I slept well in the plane.

 

To Abu Dhabi for GAC, then to Washington DC

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In the evening of 10th, I departed Narita for Abu Dhabi on a direct flight by Etihad.  The objective of trip is to attend the Global Agenda Council organized by the World Economic Forum.  The conference, for your information, was held in Dubai annually for the past three years. I saw many of my Japanese friends also boarded on this flight to Abu Dhabi for this meeting.

After arriving at Abu Dhabi early in the morning I checked in to the YAS Hotel, the venue, which is also the scheduled venue for the Formula One Car Race (Ref.1, 2) in November.  The Car Race was being held at Suzuka, Japan from October 7 to 9, too.  Anyway, I was amazed to see the strikingly gorgeous facilities of this Hotel.

I attended the full two days of the conference at the building standing next to the Hotel.  I understand that this place is going to be used for the Formula 1 also.  As for the meeting, I was in the session of the “Japan Council” for the whole day as the sub-Chair. Thanks to the nice support of Mr. Takashi Mitachi of the Boston Consulting Group  and many others, we managed to facilitate good discussions.  The problem was that there was not much information available from Japan after the “3.11” Disaster (not to mention that six Prime ministers changed within these five years….)  thus offering issues for discussion was not easy, and we had to think hard in order to share views with each other.  However, I am thankful that we had nice constructive discussions with many people.

The reception was at the Royal Tower of the Race Track.  It had a nice view over the straight course of the car race.  Many political leaders including the Prime Minster of UAE were present, too.

After attending the full schedule of the 2nd day, I took a car to Dubai, and boarded on a midnight flight to Washington DC.

It was a very full, busy two days.