Youths Awake; A Project Started By Going Out to the World

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PHOTOS: Saisho-kun receiving a ‘Go’ sign from Dr. Yunus, female students of the program.

The youths whom I have been writing about for some time (Ref.1) have at last fully started their activities in Bangladesh.

A report on this also appeared on the recent Asahi Shinbun newspaper .

Students took leave of absence from Waseda university to visit the site, and while trying to appeal their activities in Japan, searched for the ways to solve the problem they focused, made plans, worked, tested, and at last launched the first Japanese social business in the ‘Grameen Bank’ – the ‘E Education Project’ led by Saisho-kun of Waseda University (Ref.1 in Japanese).  His friend at the Waseda University, Miyoshi-kun also took a leave of absence this year to focus on the next project in Bangladesh. 

The goal of this ‘E Education Project’ is;
1. Produce future leaders of Bangladesh from this village.
2. Provide education of the highest quality via ‘E learning’ to passionate students from low income families in the rural villeges, and have them get to University of Dahka, the top university of Bangladesh.

The ‘Story’ of Saisho-kun goes as below;
1. Atsuyoshi Saisho, the 20 years old youngest Grameen Project Coordinator used to be a drop-out student, the lowest in grades at high school.
2. His teacher asked his parents to see him/her at school and told them ‘Atsuyoshi is only good enough to go to the 3rd class University, and will take two years to even succeed that!’  On that day, he enrolled in the Toshin High School, a cram school.
3.  Saisho-kun mastered 3 years’ syllabus in 3 month using the DVD digital lectures, and succeeded in entering Waseda University.
4.  This experience faded as he worked at the ‘Grameen’, but one day he witnessed a serious shortage of teachers at a village primary school.
5.  ‘Isn’t it the Toshiｎ model that this country with shortage of 40,000 teachers need?’
6.  ‘An education model that anyone, anywhere, any time can have access to the lessons of the best teachers’.
7. Saisho-kun presented this vision to Dr. Yunus, the President of the Grameen Bank, and a strong go sign of ‘DO IT！DO IT！GO AHEAD!! ’ came back!
8.  He launched a social business co- operated by the Grameen and Hitotsubashi University Institute of Innovation Research (Professor Seiichiro Yonekura).

The Outline of this Project is;
Make digital contents of lessons by the best teachers at Dhaka, and distribute them to the village children through Grameen networks.

1. Program;
1.1. Contents to prepare for entrance exams of University of Dahka:
Intensive courses by the 3 best teachers in Bangladesh (Bangli, English, Social studies).
1.2. Contents on Leadership:
Leadership Programs by the young Bangladeshi social entrepreneur EJ Ahmed, one of the best students of Professor Hyetts of Harvard University.
1.3. Future Career Development Contents:
Weekly interviews via Skype internet phone service with students of University of Dahka
Class on future careers by the Professors of University of Dahka

2.  Period of Time and Goal;
2.1 Class will start from June 2010.
2.2 Class will continue through November, 2010 the month of entrance examｓ of University of Dahka (5 months).

3.  Target;
20 (including 7 female) 9th grade students from farm village of Ekhlaspur.

4. Future Visions;
4.1. In 2010, structure one success model.
4.2. From 2011, gradually spread this as social business via the network of 600 branch offices of Grameen existing throughout Bangladesh.
4.3. By 2015, provide education to 6,000 children.
4.4 After succeeding in Bangladesh, expand the model to ‘Asian nations with problem of shortage of teachers.’

5.  Story:
5.1. In farming villages, lack of ‘hope’ is the most serious problem for children.
5.2. ‘Role models’ that children would want to look up to do not exist in their neighborhood.  The goal is to present models that make them want to ‘do a cool job like this’ or understand that ‘such kind of future career exists’.
 
Saisｈo-kun wants to;
“Deliver children ‘chances for the future’”
This is his ultimate goal.

What do you say?  Isn’t it wonderful?  They are beaming with enthusiasm.  Let’s support them.  But moreover, please think what each one of you can do.  The world is broad so go out and see for yourself.  The world is waiting for you to join their work.  It is precisely for this purpose that I say ‘Let Us Take Leave of Absence from School’ (Ref.1). 

By the way, when they called for participants of the program more than 20 students applied for available 10 slots and among them were 7 female students (photo above) gathered in this country of Islam.

This is truly a great accomplishment!  People of the village said that it was ‘a revolution’.   I was told that the teacher of the local high school who brought the talented female students to this program said ‘They are the Hidden Treasures of our village.  But there is no way that we can get them to the University of Dahka.  Please save them with E education.’   The class will start in June.

To end this column, please listen to the passion and determination of Miyoshi-kun (in Japanese).  I believe that such desire, strong will of each people, when gathered, becomes the force and drive to make changes in Japan and the world.

Doha, Qatar -2: Global Redesign Summit and Madame Sadako Ogata, President of JICA

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The purpose of this visit to Doha is to attend the ‘Global Redesign Summit’.  Programs and other information are posted on the web, but at this meeting all documents and reports abide the ‘Chatham House Rule’, a style that do not disclose the identity of the speakers, and its exceptions are very limited.  Therefore, we need to obtain consent from the host of the conference and the speakers in order to reveal who said what, even in a blog like this.

The intention of the agenda of this Summit as I understand is to pick up issues from the discussions of the past ‘Global Agenda Councils’(Ref.1, 2), focus, have them further discussed at this Summit and carry the results perhaps to the next Davos Meeting in January using them as the basis of discussions at panels and other programs so that some kind of global actions may arise.

As usual, the programs were divided into several themes in which I found one interesting session titled ‘Oceans’, an unusual theme.  ‘Oceans’ has been one of my interest for a while, and since the content looked attractive, I decided to join.

I had an impression that participants were carefully chosen and invited (though many naturally could not come due to other obligations) for this Summit, with members of the ‘Global Agenda Council’ as the core.

Since I have been helping the work of the World Bank on Development (Ref.1) for 2 years as a ‘volunteer’, I joined mainly in the sessions related to ‘Development’.  Committee members presented each point in about 5 minutes to express their views from their own standpoints to set issues for the discussions that followed.  The number of participants was about 50 or at most, 100 in each session, so it was a comfortable size to exchange views and discuss.

In such meetings, you are given opportunities to listen to many experts that make very good points, hear different views, observe the way good discussions are conducted, and hear the views of many leaders of the fields.  Also, you learn how to express your view within a limited time frame, how to lead discussions, expand the scope, or to introduce new viewpoints.  I always learn a lot from this sort of events.
 
As I have reported to you in my past columns, President of JICA, Madame Sadako Ogata is a wonderful speaker and one of the true leaders of the world.  Each word of her comments is very clearly understood by other participants, appreciated – and by the way she was invited to appear in 4 panels including the closing Plenary Panel.   This extraordinary talent and insights that Madame Ogata embraces is quite visible and valued at the annual main Davos meeting, also.  Such an extraordinary character is found in a very few people even by the global standard.  The last panel 'A Framework for the Future' was conducted by a male host, two male panelists and 4 female panelists.  The president of Finland (female, was a minister of foreign affairs for 5 years, has been the president for 9 years, originally was an activists at NGO.) commented on this fact at her closing remarks.  Such structure of participants would be hard to imagine at comparable panels in Japan.

I was fortunate enough to spend quite a time with Dr. Sadako Ogata, and was impressed to know her broad networks of people including many (former) heads of the states of so many nations.  She has been in touch with them personally for 10-20 years.  This is quite extraordinary and therefore a proof how people appreciate and trust her.  She is truly the pride of Japan.  Ogata-san visited Kabul, Afghanistan, a few months ago, and will head for Egypt after this meeting; she is practically hopping around the world. She does not appear this Summit as President of JICA, but as an individual, thus she came here alone, no staff, even at her age and the position. What a remarkable and honorable lady she is.

Participants from Korea (staff members from the Blue House- I am acquainted with several young staff such as G20 Sherpa Ahn Ho-Young (Ref.1) and Professor of Political Science, Moon Chung-in ), China representatives from political arena and academics impressed us with their clear and relevant comments at a Plenary as well as their skilful handling of the questions and answers that followed.
 
I urge Japanese youths to participate more aggressively in such ‘opportunities’; to learn how to discuss and ask questions at panels and follow good examples.  Try, fail, learn, and grow.  Gradually you will get used to being in such ‘places’.  By all means, take every opportunity to be at such events.  Failing to do so will result in even more low presence of the Japanese.  Besides, it is also an excellent chance for your global network building.

 

Doha, Qatar -1: Museum of Islamic Art and Qatar Foundation

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From Narita via Kansai Airport by Qatar Airline I arrived atDoha, the capital of Qatar early in the morning of　29th.  The purpose of my visit is to participate in the ‘Global Redesign Summit’

After taking a short rest at the hotel, I headed to the Museum of Islamic Art (資料１，２）I have learned that many pieces of art objects in exhibition were purchased for this museum and the total cost amounted up to 300 million yen.

The Museum was designed byleoh Ming Pei, broadly known as one of the masters of architecture; the museum opened in 2008.  He is 93 years old now, meaning that he was nearly 90 at the time he accepted this work, which is quite extraordinary.  He visited many places to learn about the culture of Islam.

The museum exhibits various arts from various ages in Islamic nations and region so you will never get bored by the exhibition.  Islamic patterns, as you know, are very sophisticated and geometric.  I wonder how they make those patterns.  Such delicate complex crafts make you humbly aware of the great potentials of human talents but at the same time makes you fear the possibility of great harms in the future that can be done by the very same humans.

Next morning, I visited the Qatar Foundation(Ref.1) and exchanged views with the Vice President of Research and Science for one hour, and visited Cornell University ‘Qatar campus’ 　(Ref.1)　located within the premise.  Quite a number of young scientists from all over the world were conducting research in this great facility (opened in 2004).

I was looking forward to directly seeing this place because I was pretty aware of the fact that Qatar was very devoted to enhancing education and research through this foundation.  Merely less than half of the plans were accomplished, but I had a gut feeling that this visit was very worthwhile.

It made me very proud to know that the overall design of this campus was done by Mr. Arata Isozaki (Ref.1).  He also designed several architectures including this Cornell Qatar campus (the hall is round shaped which allows much better acoustincs? as you can see in the top photos).

 

Geniuses and Super-Talents of the SONY Computer Science Laboratory

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I went to the ‘Open House 2010’ of ‘SONY Computer Science Laboratory (CSL)’  known as ‘Sony’s magic lab ? a place where geniuses and super-talents pop up’.

After the presentations of very interesting fijndings by both Sakurada-san and Rekimoto-san, Kitano-san and Tokoro-san joined to host a panel with these two.  Being requested to make comments, I asked what they thought about recent reports of ‘Craig Venter having succeeded in making artificial life in laboratory’ in relation to their (Sakurada san’s and Rekimoto san’s) research themes.  After all what Venter accomplished is truly ‘extraordinary’ and ‘outrageous’.

Next was unique presentations by young researchers.  Hasegawa-san at Tomato (London) proposing ‘Process Design’, Tobita san in Comic Computing, and Owada san known for ‘Toirel, Moe (Toilet, Sprout); are all very ‘strange’, ‘Otaku-fu (somewhat Nerd or geek)’ but definitely have some big energy.  At a panel after their presentations, Kenichiro Mogi-san tried hard in various ways to provoke them, but these three wouldn’t be provoked so easily, which was in a way surprising.

In the end, Kansai Yamamoto-san sitting at the front row of the room boosted all by saying “Maybe the key is to keep on going, being ‘strange’…..”  and I very much agree.

Kitano san, the Director himself, is quite a character who was awarded the ‘Mentor Award’ https://kiyoshikurokawa.com/en/2009/12/mentor-award-of-nature-the-crazy-ones.html of the Nature magazine by his motto ‘The Crazy Ones’ though he never have worked in Japanese Universities.

I think that you must be a ‘misfit’, ‘out of box’, to develop a new field, new idea, produce outcomes big enough to change old dogma or to pursue something with energy strong enough to change the society.  It has always been so in history.

This is the entrepreneur mind, the father of innovation, and the idea or value lying at the base of the activities of GEW (Ref.1), TEDxTokyo, and D-Lab.

SONY CSL‘Demonstration’ was scheduled 2 days after, but to my regret I have to miss it.

I spent a great, satisfying half day at the Open House 2010 of SONY CSL.

Japan, UK, US, Korea ? Cancer Clinical Trials International Symposium

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On May 25th, in a very pleasant weather, Japan, UK, US and Korea held an international symposium on cancer clinical trials at the British Embassy. At the opening, British Ambassador H.E. Warren, American Ambassador H.E. Roos (see May 27th article of ‘News from the Embassy’, the web site of the American Embassy in Japan), and Minister Hwang, Soon-Taik of Korean Embassy gave speech.  I made remarks as the Chairman of Health Policy Institute of Japan followed by Dr. Agnes Chan  who closed the ceremony as the Goodwill Ambassador of Japan Cancer Society.

Regarding clinical trials, trilateral conference (ICH: International Conference on Harnomization） continued for 20 years. In these years Japan tried to respond to the constant requests by US and Europe to speed up its work, and until just recently the problem of ‘Drug Lag’ was also being called to attention within Japan.
 
Nowadays, world affairs are changing rapidly with increasing participation of Asia and fast growing markets as the background.  FDA of the United States has been sending their staff to China and India for many years to provide training and education so as to make common bases for clinical trials or the common system of approval of new drugs in these emerging markets. This is precisely what I call a strategic action and thinking based on good visions.  Europe is also speeding its participation, and all are working restlessly to become the ‘core of Asia’.

Korea’s rapid change was again clear from their presentation at this conference.   UK, US, and Korea sent their specialists and Japanese participants included President of PMDA and Ministry of Health.  I understand that Japanese government has launched a growth strategy, ‘Life Innovation’, and I am curious to know what sort of strategic policies they would craft.

The programs, participants, references, and reports of the symposium and action plans recommendation to our government and other stakeholders will be uploaded on the web site of ‘Health Policy Institute, Japan’, so I will report to you once they are available.

The ‘7 Samurais?’ at the Asia Vision 21

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I have recently posted a report on this web site about the ‘Asia Vision21’  which was held in Singapore under the auspices of Harvard University and National University of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy.


Number of ｐarticipants from Japan was seven (7), including a member of House of Representative Yoshimasa Hayashi of Liberal Democratic Party (former Minister of Defense, etc.), Ambassador to the UNESCO, H.E. Yamamoto, former Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs and current President and CEO of JBIC, Mr. Watanabe.  Everyone spoke up actively on various issues and I was told that hosts from Harvard welcomed it saying that the presence of Japanese participants were quite high this time.  I was so glad to hear it.


In relation to this event, I had an opportunity to meetMr. Jun Kurihara (photo), a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government who has rather unusual career (though it is not unusual at all outside of Japan…)  He was also appointed to a Non-resident Research Director at Canon Institute for Global Studies  last year.  Mr. Kurihara is quite an ‘Out of Box’ type researcher, an earnest learner, and is involved in various activities independently. He writes reports ‘Cambridge Gazett’ at Canon Institute for Global Studies , and is also delivering Newsletters by the same name (Ref.1,2) (in Japanese)


Asia Vision21Mr.Kurihara and myself


I was impressed by the rich content of the reports and newsletters which apparently indicates his deep insights and width of research he goes through.


Such networks of Kurihara-san’s based on local activities as an individual could not have been build unless he/she succeeds in gaining personal trust between the people he/she encounters.  They are truly the individual’s personal ability and achievements which has nothing to do with his/her social status and institutions he belongs


Here, I will post a link to his report commenting on the report of ‘Asia Vision 21’ （Ref.1, 2） (in Japanese). I was flattered to know that he thought my comments interesting.  He also comments on activities of others.


I sincerely wish to see more people with respectable positions emerge who are able to get more and more actively involved in heated discussions in global arena.



 

‘JUSTICE’, a series of lectures by Professor Michael Sandel

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You may have noted that a lecture series on ‘JUSTICE’ by Professor Michael Sandel  of Harvard University has been on-aired at NHK at its Educational Channel every Sunday evening 6-7pm, and aired again some late hours on BS channel. I have also mentioned on this program in my recent blog posting.

This lecture series is apparently very popular at Harvard University attracting sometime 1,000 students and the University has released this series for the first time ‘On-line’. If you have viewed some on this NHK programs, you see and feel as you are in the auditorium.

I enjoy this series and try to learn how to manage lectures like this.

Several amazing things on this series.  First, Professor Sandel is the author of several books on this matter, thus I immediately purchased his book ‘JUSTICE’ electronically via Kindle, which is much faster than purchasing a copy from Amazon.  A major progress on book reading. Thus, I could follow some details of arguments, reinforcing his lecture.

Second is his style of lectures; start with students interactive involvement, and always building questions on the issue with students.

Third, although the theme and the content deal very difficult and critical issues of our daily life, each session lasts only 30 minutes. The skills of management of lecture is superb and I wonder how I could be that effective and maintain that richness and excitements. I must try it.

Forth is his obvious depth of knowledge and ability to link it to contemporary issues and conflicts.

And Fifth is the ability to remember the name of students who reply his questions. Such style must have some good memories to such students on this course and encourage asking questions.

Fortunately, you can see this lecture series on the web thus everyone can enjoy, think and be inspired. In contract to NHK which provides its Japanese translation version as well as original English version, the web ‘On-line’ version provides only original English version. I suggest more and more students watch On-line, and view and listen it in English.

Further, Japanese students should see this lecture series, and sense a class and the lectures of Harvard University. In global world, lectures of world top universities and professors would be a good reference to see the world students exposed, quality of professors, and the content and style of lectures, and the ambience of the class.

Faculty and educators can learn a lot to reflect on yourself and your classes   and students can see the differences. By promoting such open education like this, digital-age could enhance the quality of higher education and change the way education may become of  (Ref.1)  in coming decades in the world.

I love it.

2010 TEDxTokyo; A Very Exciting Day

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Click here for Photos.

On May 15th, TEDxTokyo 2010, the 2nd event following the TEDxTokyo in 2009 which I introduced to you last year opened at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Rinkai Fukutoshin (Water Front City), Tokyo.

Beautiful month of May sunshine, fresh sea breeze, stylish venue, nice entrepreneurial action-oriented people…..

This is an event aiming to nurture ‘Shinsyu no Kisyo (entrepreneurship)’ and promote vibrant movements to bring up ‘Deru Kui (Nails that Stick Out)’ (Ref.1, 2)   through a variety of activities with TEDxTokyo as one of the ‘Main’ event.  The TED main headquarter, the host, and many people worked hard together to organize various related events and programs for these couple of years.

The activities of TED is spreading rapidly throughout the world and focusing more on youth in recent years.

Details of the programs, speakers and wonderful performers are at TEDxTokyo2010, but the point is that this is a global On-line Live event and is expanding worldwide in an enormous speed via various media such as blog, twitter, YouTube.

The great ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro (YouTube here), Ms. Kanae Doi of the Human Right Watch and many, many more people shared lots of excitements, moving experiences, laughter, tears, and ‘thrills’.  It was definitely a very refreshing, good day – even better than the wonderful weather we had.

And, of course, we must not forget that this event was made possible by the wonderful works of Todd, Patrick and other organizers, about 100 volunteers, as well as the help and support from many partners and people involved.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this truly wonderful one day event.

By the way, one ‘Telsa’ (Red), the hot topic, was brought here for test rides (Cool !), but to my great disappointment, I have totally forgotten about it!  Hummmmmm…

Lecture at the Bank of Japan: ‘Stagnant Japan Economy and its Way-out’

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On May 14th, I was at the Bank of Japan to give a lecture.  It was a bit surprising that I was invited, but I was given 2 hours.  Unfortunately, Mr. Shirakawa, the Governor, could not join due to some unexpected duty, but there were about 50 people including Deputy Governor Nishimura. They all must be smart and brilliant people (I am sure), but I regret to say that all of them were men (actually there were 2 women sitting at the side….)

The theme given to me was ‘Japan’s Stagnant Economy; How We Find the Wayout’.  I brought my outline, charts, references, and several copies of ‘Sekai kyu kyaria no tsukurikata (How to build a global career)’ which I co-authored with Professor Yoko Ishikura, and ‘Inovation Shiko-Ho (How to Make an Innovative Mind)’ as a gift.

As you may know, Harvard University recently has made ‘On-line’ a series of lectures by Professor Michael Sandel on ‘Justice’ to the public for the first time in its history; it is because of its tremendous popularity among the students. The lecture captures the listener’s mind right from the start- it’s such a series of wonderful lecture- and the series are being broadcasted on the NHK Education TV channel every Sunday evening (and also late at night…).

So, I started my seminar at the Bank of Japan in a similar style, first asking questions.  Perhaps, I surprised the audience?  After all, it is ‘Bank’ and of course its atmosphere would make such kind of experiment a bit difficult… So, especially young people might have been somewhat startled.  I do understand that it is not easy to speak up in front of all those people.

There was some kind of ambience in the air especially discouraging open and interactive discussion and exchange.  But this ambience precisely is the reason, the cause of the ‘oppressing and discouraging young people to speak out’ feelings that prevail in our (Japanese) society today.  I, of course, pointed this out, too, as a very reason of stagnant economy of Japan.

Japanese society is unique in its mind-set and inherent value perhaps in the last 400 years- taking for granted their male-centered hierarchial organizations, seniority based promotion, social hierarchy that starts with the rank of university entrance exams-scores of the university you were admitted to ? and this uniqueness is very much the basic cause of our nation’s inability in adjusting to the rapid changes of this flattening global world- in one word, lack of flexibility.  To take advantage of the nation’s ‘strength’, our lack of ability to recognize our ‘weakness’ or to take actions – these themes also run throughout my blog postings as one of my ‘core messages’.

I would say that the typical examples that dramatically represented such themes were the ‘Toyota Problems’  and competition of the nuclear power plant bid at the United Arab Emirates won by Korean team. 

Giving a lecture at such prestigious place is a valuable opportunity.  I was honored just to be invited.  I would be very happy to have another opportunity for challenge.

A New Program of Canada

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On May 3rd, the Canadian government announced the launch of the new 5 year ‘Global Challenges Canada’ program. 

While this program collaborates with the ‘Grand Challenge Explorations’ program of the Gates Foundation, its major objective is to have Canadian researchers (though not limited) contribute to the improvement of poverty, health, public health, health care of the developing countries that participate in this program.

The program is limited to 5 years but it is an approach to construct a ‘Win-Win’ relationship with the developing countries through new form of scientific technology diplomacy. With and through the outcomes of this program, Canada is apparently trying to strengthen its presence in international agenda.

I am supporting this program as a member of the scientific advisory board,  but in Japan also, I am happy to report that cooperation with the World Bank will possibly be enhanced, Japan’s ongoing aids to African countries were recognized and approved, JICA and JST are continuing its collaborations in a number of projects.

Promoting multi dimensional effort toward MDG and other goals to fulfill the different needs of the developing countries ? from the poorest to the fairly developed ? together with many ongoing bilateral cooperation or multi nation organizations such as the World Bank is very helpful for the good of human security and the realization of MDG.

Also, it will be important than ever before to collaborate with other nations, and exchange information.

There are still many, many things that Japan can do to help solve the problems of the world.

Think for yourself what each one of you can do to contribute. The point is how you see “the world from Japan and Japan from the world”.