professional – Page 22 – Kiyoshi Kurokawa.com

The Gairdner Award

Posted on 2009/11/062014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

The day of the award begins with a series of excellent lectures by 2009 Gairdner laureates, rich content of outstanding science with passion for science of those laureates who contributed and those who supported their work; each has his/her own beautiful stories to tell. Lucy Shapiro’s story was outstanding, of a bacterial 3 dimensional dynamic molecular mystery of her life work including collaborations of her husband, a physicist. I know her personally, and her one son is a urologist who worked recently for 3 years at US Naval Hospital in Okinawa, and her daughter-in-law is a marine officer just returned from Afghanistan. What a family she has!

Dr Mori’s story was also moving in that he left Japan from his tenured position because he felt what he was supposed to do then was something wrong and boring; he decided to venture to US; through a lot of struggles, but found a right career he loved as he told us. He was very grateful for his parents who are not wealthy, but supported him to go through university and let him go to US. He of course brought with him his parents, family, and several staff researchers, and it was good to congratulate his entire family.

Dr Yamanaka focused on how he came over through these years after 2 years of clinical training, graduate study in research in Japan, and moved to California for completely new research project. There, he encountered seemingly a totally failure, but hanged on to pursue what may be happening. From unexpected findings with full of struggles, he came back to Nara with three graduate students, then Kyoto, where he finally made his landmark discovery with a few graduate students and technicians in the last few years

Dr Sackett’s historical story of major errors made by excellent clinicians being observers, which includes William Osler. He told me personally, he was also surprised by his findings on Dr Osler.

All lectures reveal core personality of each laureate. The day was ended with unquestionably thoughts-provoking guest, Sydney Brenner, who talked about ‘Humanity Gene’ with his usual sense of humor, but a serious message.

Photo 1：Honorable Ambassador Nishida and Mrs.Nishida
Photo 2: From left Dr. Pierre Chartrand, Vice-President, CIHR., Dr Peter Singer (Ref. １、２）

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In the evening, the award ceremony was held at the Royal Ontario Museum. Proud Ambassador Nishida was on the stage to accompany the ceremony of two Japanese laureates.

After return to the hotel, I had drinks in our hotel bar with Dr Yamanaka and his staff and Dr Mori just dropped by.

It was a very good few days in Toronto for me and for all Japanese science community. This year also celebrates Japan-Canada’s 80th year of Diplomatic Relation. As you may recall, earlier this year Emperor and Empress of Japan visited Canada (Ref.１）.

I will leave for San Diego early tomorrow morning.

From Toronto -2, Gairdner Foundation Global Health Symposium

Posted on 2009/11/042014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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One major new initiative of the Gairdner Award at the occasion of its 50th anniversary is the launch of Global Health Award, an important issue and challenge for our global age, which thus is quite timely. The inaugural laureate is Dr. Nubia Munoz for her global epidemiological study to identify papilloma virus as the cause of cervical cancer and effects of its vaccine.

Thus, in the afternoon of October 28th, Gairdner Global Health Symposium was held at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and Dr Munoz as our honorable guest. I moderated the first session (of two) with Drs Jeffrey Koplan of Emory University, Tachi Yamada, of Gates Foundation, Mark Walport of Wellcome Trust, and Peter Singer (Ref.1), of University of Toronto, as panelists, a powerful quartet of Global Health. It was fun to moderate this powerful session; I felt enthusiasm of the full audience.

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Photo 1-4: At the reception, photo 1; Dr Oliver Smithie (humorous speech typical of him); photo 2; Dr David Sackett (left), of McMaster, well known to us for clinical epidemiology and EBM, of Gairdner Wightman award, and John Dirks (President of the Gairdner Foundation); photo 3; Dr and Mrs Ogawa, Dr Yamanaka and me; and photo 4; Drs Ogawa, Mori and me

The reception of the evening was held at MaRS of the University of Toronto. It was a very enjoyable evening with friends and many past Gairdner laureates and this year’s laureates. Three Japanese laureates are there, Drs Seiji Ogawa, Shinya Yanamaka, and Kazutoshi Mori .

Photo5: with Dr Blackburn

Among many guests was Dr Elizabeth Blackburn, this year’s Nobel laureate in medicine and physiology for her discovery of telomerase; one of three co-recipients with her is one of her former graduate student, Dr Carol Greider. Dr Blackburn is also a recipient of the Gairdner and of the L’Oreal Woman in Science Award at its 10th anniversary, which I served as a proud member of the Jury.

What a wonderful and stimulating day it was, indeed, my honor and privilege.

Ottawa, on Global Health, and Toronto, on Innovation

Posted on 2009/10/312014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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Canada will host G8 Summit next year (could be the last G8 and first G20). Naturally, as part of effort to make Global Health as a major agenda for the Summit, various efforts, negotiation, processes must have been taking place among various sectors of Canada.

CCGHR hosted one of such meetings (October 25th). The meeting is more research oriented, with about 150 member attendance with 25% being members abroad and I was invited to give a keynote. It was full of enthusiasm and I joined a couple of workshops, its board meeting as a guest, and a private session for Canadian perspective for G8 agenda setting. It was a very interesting and learning day getting to know many new friends and colleagues.

Ottawa in late October is reasonably cold, but weather was nice. I met a Japanese scholar, a woman, well educated undergraduate at McMaster and at MS and PhD in Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill; she lived only several years when she was very young, now studies as a post-doctoral fellow in South Africa participating a joint project with UK on Mental Health and Poverty Project in Africa. A challenging mission!

Next day, I flew to Toronto as my re-visit (Ref.1) to join a few activities. Munk Center of the University of Toronto was kind to host a dinner in honor of me at Massey College. Next day, a panel was held at Munk Center on ‘Innovation, Globalization and the University’; after my brief keynote, the panel session was quite lively and constructive. It seems everyone agree that leading universities must become an open ground to nurture, connect, and prepare future leaders in more and more interconnected world. We must realize that problems of the developing and underdeveloped countries and the regions are not theirs, but ours as well in interconnected global world. There, I met another women medical doctor radiologist from Tokyo Woman’s Medical College, just began her study on Medical Education Research as resident junior fellow at Massey College. Such is a valuable opportunity to widen her vision and scope for her career. University of Toronto is a great institution which is characterized by heterogeneity, diversity and a wide spectrum of programs and courses.

Two Executive Sessions; Thoughts on Leadership, Innovation and Women Power

Posted on 2009/10/262014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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Recently, I have experienced two executive sessions, one in London for top Global company of one major business sector on its global strategy; the company just underwent successfully a merger acquisition.

The member was extraordinary in that of its total 10 members from 10 countries (one woman), many have held very high positions for the government or administrative arms, eg, Minister, Supreme Court judge, Congress member, of their country and the region (eg, EU). They include, for example, Pat Cox, Chair of our panel, President of the EU Parliament (2002-04), and Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator for 12 years until this January. After some conversation with Mr Hagel, I firmly felt he is a very thoughtful and good politician gentleman. He is well known as the most outspoken critic of President Bush’s policy to Iran. I knew he assumed Chairman of the Atlantic Council, a powerful ‘Think-tank’ based in Washington DC, as I reported earlier this year. He told me that he was just invited by President Obama to Co-Chair the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, a very good news, indeed.

Pat Cox’s chairmanship of our session was outstanding, being very smooth and affirmative, and managing the entire meeting session with presentations by the corporate leadership followed by various questions and suggestions, taking notes even on seating and each members and corporate officers. I always feel privileged when I get to know peoples with such distinguished career through discussions and private conversation. I cold learn so much from them. Incidentally, a half of the corporate representation was women including its chair.

Upon return to Tokyo, I was in another executive session for one of global brand company of Japan whose sales in Japan accounts for about 25% of total annual revenue. The team headed by its CEO worked hard and developed issues for us to discuss. I enjoy the session very much with unusually lively questions and debates. This is because our members are pretty much out-of-box type individuals, for example, Natsuno-san (Ret.1) who invented iMode. It is amazing to see only one woman among total of about 15 members from the corporate side, not to mention none in its executive level.

The ideas of this company, in my view, are somehow derived from and targeted to men-thinking. Thus, one of my questions has been the fact that daily and major decisions for purchases are made by women as described in ‘The Real Emerging Market’ of my blog posting with a photo of the cover of Newsweek and in a more recent special report in Time (US version), Oct 26th, 2009, ‘What Women Want Now’ (Ref.1). Mind you, the products may be targeted primarily to men, but the decisions to buy are made by women more often than one may imagine.

This gender issue is everywhere of Japanese society which needs a fix fast, which could serve as ‘Change Agent‘ of Japanese society and economy as I repeatedly insist in this website and recently in my interview in Japan Times.

Another thought occurred to me in these two sessions was the impression that somehow these high ranking officials in both companies may not have much of sense of what may be happening in this rapidly flattening world, ie, ‘Open and Demand-driven Innovation.’ This is becoming a very important core perception of every business sector in the global world.

How Japan can regain its vitality

Posted on 2009/10/182014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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My interview ‘How Japan can regain its vitality’ (URL, PDF file) recently appeared in its October 18th, 2009 issue of Japan Times. The core messages are consistent with what I constantly preach which you find in many postings of this website, eg, change in leading political party, globalization, Japanese strength and weakness, innovation, university reform and lagging gender empowerment.

Media like Japan Times is another important means to reach out and share my view with many non-Japanese friends of Japan. Afterall, Japan seems still need of ‘Gai-atsu’ or ‘Black ships’ led by Commodore Perry for Change.

I hope you enjoy this interview.

Concerns about ‘Japan as seen from outside’

Posted on 2009/10/142014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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As frequent visitors to my blog will already have noticed I am one of those who have had concerns about the future of Japan for some time. Until just several years ago, an odd optimism on economy of Japan that sounds somewhat like an ‘excuse’ was spreading widely in Japanese society along with expression such as ‘upwards economy since Izanagi Keiki’ (Izanagi keiki refers to an economic boom that lasted from 1966 to 1970). I was sending out warnings then, too. For instance, please see my interview in Toyo Keizai January, 2008 issue.

I assume that there are many those who do not want to or will not buy my opinion, but just recall, at the time of ‘Lehman’ shock, there was an atmosphere in Japan of ‘Japan will be all right’ at least in the beginning. However, generally speaking, I think basically Japanese enterprises- especially managements – are weak. Of course new industries emerge but I hear many instances of major companies obstracting the growth of new businesses by entrepreneurs while they are still young and small. Big enterprises are naturally slow in adjusting to changes, which is a common story. Also, I feel that a large number of Japanese people are not good at intuitively sensing the value of ‘Diversities and Differences’ that exists in this global world simply because they do not have much first hand experience.

This truly is the crucial stage for Japanese politics, economy, industries, and universities in the face of, as correctly put by Asia Innovation Forum;The Earth’s limits, Asia’s growth. The ‘leaders’, unable to catch the essence of global age having climbed up the ladder in many decades-old system, think that situation in Japan is ‘so-so’ and tend to lie back in their comfortable chair failing to take any drastic actions. Some people compare them to ‘frogs in lukewarm water’. Oh, but Japan has so many ‘strength’ that it can utilize and I would urge all of you to take advantage of this strength. ‘Entrepreneurial spirit’ is the key word. We must recognize our ‘weakness’, focus not only to domestics but broaden our views to international affairs and collaborate with partners around the world in taking actions. Speed matters.

Japanese who have long worked abroad as an independent ‘individual’ understand and feel intuitively what I have just said. I call this an ability to ‘see Japan from ‘outside’’. What they see is very different from ‘Japan in the world’ as seen by most Japanese because most Japanese have been used basically to‘see world from Japan.’.
In the past two weeks, I had a visit from two Japanese scholars/researchers. One is Professor Hisashi Kobayashi of Princeton University. I assume you all have heard of him. He was so concerned abut the too-domestic-focused ideas and actions of Japan that he decided to come to see me. I shared his view 100% so we discussed very much on what to do or what could be done. I believe that readers of my blog would understand how I am making efforts to make changes, but even universities, the ‘campus of intellects’ that should be standing highly by itself, are seeing things in a narrow inward way. Especially at the ‘leading’ universities, the young students naturally would think that the standard there is ‘first class’, and this general perception in Japan is causing significant damages.misleading students.

The second guest wasDr. Ryo Kubota.　He has been working in the field of biomedical research in USA for 10 years and founded a Biotech Venture. Dr. Kubota stopped by at my office during his stay at Tokyo to express his deep concern about how Japanese research and venture businesses were being conducted. He was apparently alarmed by what was happening in Japan.

I think that the concerns of these two people represent‘Patriotism’. Experience such as theirs’ will hardly nurture narrowly-minded ‘Nationalism’.

In addition to these two Japanese guests from abroad, I had opportunities to welcome visitors from the top managements of SITRA (Ref.1), a public investment fund of Finland and two biotechnology related investment funds of US in sequence. Everybody had same topics, concerns and points.

It is so important to have more people, in their young age as much as possible (because you can afford to make mistakes…. You can learn from the mistakes and become wiser…) to go abroad to the wide world and to know what is happening there, to see Japan from ‘outside’, to have first hand experience and to become more capable of sensing instuitively how Japan would look like from ‘outside’. ‘A frog in a well does not know the great sea’ – just as the proverb goes. ‘Knowing’ the great sea through actual experience is crucial to everybody especially in this global era. The two Japanese visitors from overseas were so worried about the current status, thus the future of Japan precisely because they have had this actual experiences.

Well, even so, Japan holds yet the 2nd or 3rd place in the world economically. In addition, we have so many strength that others would envy. I urge you all to go out and fly. Don’t become secluded.

Dr. William Saito (Ref.1) is a Japanese American that I have been working with for these two years and he also shares the same view with me. His evaluation is actually very severe, clearly recognizing the systematic weakness of Japan perhaps partly because of his experiences and success in a venture business in the United States. We are struggling to bring about some changes… sowing seeds, crafting exciting mechanisms…

STS Forum, Science and Technology Ministers’ Meeting, Session with Young Scientists

Posted on 2009/10/102014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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STS Forum （Science and Technology in Society Forum） was held in Kyoto. I have been involved in this Forum since its start. It is a daring attempt to bring together people in politics, business, science and other fields from all over the world to discuss about issues we all share in common.

My role was to give a keynote lecture at the Science and Technology Ministers’ Meeting (Photos 1-4) with Dr. Philip Campbell, Chief Editor of ‘Nature’. Ministers from 24 countries (9 from Africa) participated The meeting was chaired by Mr. Keisuke Tsumura, Science and Technology Vice-Minister and a young and bright legislator iand one of future leaders of the Democratic Party of Japan. After our keynote lectures, ministers at the audience talked actively about the policies and issues of their home countries.

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Photos 1-4 With participants

On the 2nd day, I co-chaired the session of ‘Proposals from Young Scientists’with my old friend Prof ohamed Hassan, Executive Director of TWAS and other places. It was a long session of 2 hours or so, where 8 young scientists introduced themselves and split to 4 tables of 8-10 guests and had 1 hour discussion. In the end, each table presented summary and recommendations based on what they discussed. The summary of the session is available, too. Some people teased me and said that I belonged to the young people.

Photo 5: With Young Scientists at the Forum. Front row, at the center is myself, Mr. Ono of JSPS, the sponsor institution of this Forum, and Professor Hassan.

Mr. Ellis Rubinstein, President and CEO of NYAS told me that he would participate at some point of the meeting, but he was unable to make it because of some other responsibility. For NYAS, I serve as an advisory council member of ‘Scientists Without Borders’ .

Paris, UNESCO-L’Oreal Award, and “Soft Power”

Posted on 2009/10/022014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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Photo 1: In front of Saint-Germain-des-Pres Church

Paris in autumn is lovely. I was there on September 28th . L’Oreal Award selection committee is scheduled to meet on 29th to select and honor female scientists that performed wonderful achievements. I have written on this several times in my blog (Ref.1) before.

In the evening of 28th, the day of my arrival, I had dinner with Dr. Mimura and his wife. Dr. Mimura finished his clerkship in America and has recently assumed a position at American Hospital of Paris. I have been corresponding with this hospital for more than 10 years now. By the way, Dr. Mimura and I are friends but so are our families. Especially my family and I have a long history of friendship with Dr. Mimura’s wife Nacchan (who is also a medical doctor) and her family.

After dinner, the three of us went for a walk to St Germain de Pres near my hotel. The photo at the top is Saint-Germain-des-Pres Church (Vicor Hugo was active in the restoration of this church, I hear.) Paris in autumn is beautiful.

Photo 2: With Drs. Mimura at a Cafe in St German de Pres

At the selection committee of 29th , we selected 5 wonderful winners. Although the discussion was heated during selection, in the end we came to unanimous decision. I will write on this again after the winners are announced officially. Activities such as this L’Oreal Award have a great IR impact that appeals to the world. This is a true soft power.

Photos 3, 4: Snap shots from the selection committe

In the evening, like 2 years before, L’Oreal invited us to a concert. (Photo 5). Last time I had to leave for the airport during intermission, but this time I was able to listen to the end. I came across Mr. Akiba of UNESCO embassy at the concert. We had a cocktail together at intermission, went for dinner in the concert hall after the program, and departed some time after 12pm.

The artists of that evening were; Piano、Daniel Barenboim, Conductor, Christoph Eschenbach, with Orchestre de Paris. Several Japanese were playing also.

The program was：　
Berlioz; Benvenuto Cellini, ouverture, op. 23; Carnaval romain, ouverture, op 9
Chopin ; Concerto pour piano n. 2 en fa minerur, op. 21 ; 　n. 1 en mi mineur, op. 11

Barenboim was wonderful. I felt his character being reflected in his music.

Photo 5; Barenboim (center) and Eshenbach (left end)

It was an evening full of lovely, rich experience. I think what I experienced that night was truly what we call a “soft power”. Tradition and sophistication were there, and yet the building of the concert hall was not overwhelmingly magnificent. In comparison, I thought about a system of a country somewhere, that in the name of “soft power” builds a ‘box’ for animations, big ‘National’ or ‘Local’ ‘boxes’ of art museums and theaters of various names just to increase debt on its people. But then, we do not have enough “softs” to fill in. So, we invite famous artists from overseas and charge senselessly high fees. I tell you, I heard from a specialist of European music that reputation among musicians of performing in Japan is “lucrative".

Let’s expect our new administration to stop carrying out such weird policies (we had enough of them), and start a “change” to policies that fit our time. Several shady stories are coming into light already, like relations between airport and special account, strange tricks hidden in dam constructions and other civil engineering. We have so many stories that make us ashamed, in fact, too many.

On a television broadcast of a press conference, I noticed that the newly appointed ministers were answering to the questions of correspondents in their own words, not holding on to memos prepared by bureaucrats. You may not have noticed it, but I think many people felt this as a fresh scene. I have told you my thoughts on this issue before (in the 2nd paragraph….) What do you think?

Asia Innovation Forum; Eyes to see Japan from “outside”

Posted on 2009/09/162014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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As I introduced to you in my recent column, the “Asia Innovation Forum” opened at Roppongi Hills for two days on September 14th and 15th under the initiative of Mr. Idei, the former CEO of SONY. By looking at the program you may see that “Group 20” worked very hard to make this happen and I am proud with the result. I was also delighted to see so many people coming. We used Twitter and web cast to achieve more effect.

From the beginning we planned this year’s forum mainly for Japanese so there were only a few non-Japanese participants. I was unfortunately unable to attend the start of the first day due to other obligations, but the sessions seemed to have run pretty well. The speakers were all very qualified as well as good debaters with so much to say that the moderators had hard time trying to spare enough length of time for each of them. The moderators all did wonderful job.

I managed to attend whole day on the 2nd day. I saw Mr. Ken Okuyama (Ref.1) after a long time at lunch. He has a wonderful talent to speak of big views and to take actions. President Fukutake of Benesse Co. gave an attractive speech on the world famous “Naoshima” island. A warm, gentle style of Dr. Yonekura in moderating the succeeding panel was also nice. The last panel by “Group 20” ran a bit short of time unfortunately. Dr. Sadako Ogata delivered a closing remark. There was also a session by people aiming to be social entrepreneurs. It was a remarkable close-up.

We used “Twitter” for something new and Webcast was also available. Thanks to staffs for their hard work.

The “Group20” might appear strangely different for traditional Japanese business people. Its members are comprised of young leaders that possess high ability to challenge the global age, a completely different type compared to traditional “elites”. On the other hand, however, I saw a weakness in their words because their views were only from the standpoint of home country ? not being able to look at the world affairs apart from Japanese point of view. I have the impression that they are not really being able to see or feel Japan “from international point of view”. But this is precisely the point how people of the world see Japan. Maybe it is because these young Japanese people have no experience of living abroad for a long period as an individual, free from Japanese organizations or companies. If you are working for a Japanese company, no matter how long you have lived abroad it is nothing but a “long business trip” because you would be acting in accordance to the instructions of the management. You would not be free from Japanese society or culture of Japanese business. I saw this problem being expressed in many questions raised by non-Japaneses who participated in the panels. It is important to understand your “strength” and “weakness”. You are all our precious human asset with whom we entrust the future of Japan.

My closing comment was structured around this “lack of overseas experience” in Japanese young people. I also pointed out that talents of women are being wasted which was another big problem. The latter issue was discussed in an article next day in “Newsweek International” (Sept.21 edition) featuring “the Female Factor” (see the picture at the top) titled “The Real Emerging Market”. Such discussion is not only my view (you will find this theme repeatedly in my blog), but also a world trend. Thinking of Japan as a different, special country is a terrible mistake. So I made the tone of my comment stronger than usual. Let me remind you that the theme of this year “The Earth’s Limits. Asia’s Growth and Japan’s Role” was selected because people expect a lot from Japan. There are so many things that we can and must do. Action is everthing.

Summer Davos-2 Japanese women shine

Posted on 2009/09/152014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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I would like to write about my impression on this year’s Summer Davos. In short, China, not only because it was the host country, demonstrated great energy, presence, and commitment of government through speeches by Premier Wen Jiabao and the Mayor of Tianjin and so on. The details of this meeting are reported at the website (webcast １, ２ , photos ). Dr. Ishikura also writes many columns in her blog （Sept.12, 15, 16）. These reports are very lively and informative so please take a look.

Many people participated from Japan and I was happy about it. There were many interesting sessions taking places in parallel in more than one venue, personal net workings to do and consultations to attend…so I was quite busy. At the reception on the 2nd day, I enjoyed encounters with many old and new friends.

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Photos 1-4: 3 scenes from the receiption, President of the China Daily and his staffs, Prof. Moon of Yonsei University (left end).

At the IdeasLab session Keio University and the University of Tokyo participated. This was also good. Dr. Yoko Ishikura took lead of these sessions. I did not fully listen or discuss in these sessions but Drs. Murai, Natsuno, etc. at Keio University gave a nice exciting presentation on IT field, focusing on Internet and cell phones. Especially, the high-tech cell phone presented by Dr. Natsuno surprised the audience. But why is it that the Japanese people do not try to develop a targeted market for such first class technology? Why don’t we make effort to present it? This issue is discussed also at “Cho (literally meaning ‘surpass’) Galapagos study group” where I participate with Drs. Natsuno and Murai and we are planning to announce policy recommendations shortly. The University of Tokyo gave presentation on sustainable human society, with focus on ecology, particularly ‘water’ problems. This was also a very interesting session led by Dr. Hashimoto, a specialist on photocatalyst and Dr. Oki doing research on global balance of water resource but unfortunately the time was not enough.. Details of these sessions are available on the web (Ref.1 2), so if you have time visit the sites and enjoy.

Photo 5: Panel on Global Competitiveness report

The World Economic Forum, organizer of Davos meeting also announces “The Global Competitiveness report” every year. Dr. Ishikura participated from Japan to help analyze, evaluate and make reports. For the year of 2009-2010, Japan scored 8th among 133countries (8/133). Not bad – but this does not entitle us to sit back and relax. There are yet so many things that can be done. Lift your spirits high and keep on working. Find out what you are good at or unique, and make it better, utilize it, see the world trend, broaden your horizon and go out to take action.

Nick Gowing, a famous anchor of BBC, hosted the panel on this report .The panelists were vice minister of Vietnam (75/133), minister of trade of Costa Rica 855/133), vice minister of Mauritius (57/133) and Dr. Ishikura. Dr. Ishikura first explained the report and then comments and remarks by each panelists followed, ending with a question from Nik (isn’t it a bit impolite?) to minister of Zimbabwe (132/133) who was in the audience. The minister responded by explaining his thoughts on the issues, plans, and promises to the world and then Nik turned to Ms. Ishikura for a comment. Her comment was good, actually.

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Photos 6-9: Panel hosted by Ms. Kuniya (6.7) and Ms. Doden (8,9)

On the last day, we had a heated panel on global economy “Asia’s New Role in Managing the Global Economy” . Ms. Hiroko Kuniya, host of a popular interview program “Today’s Close Up” at NHK, did a good job handling discussions on difficult issues such as the role of IMF with five outstanding panelists. One of the last panels just before the wrap-up session of all panels was “China, Japan and South Korea; Shifting the Power Equation Together?” hosted by Ms. Aiko Doden who is also a reporter of NHK. They must have had only a little time to discuss in advance with the panelists, but they both did very well. I believe the panels will be broadcasted in Japan shortly.

These three Japanese ladies that I introduced to you are very good English speakers, but not just that. They are also wonderful hosts; handling the flow of discussions smoothly by stepping aside, but not missing the chance to draw good comments from the panelists at a good timing, not afraid to challenge them if necessary. It is a hard work, calling for a very different type of skills than the panelists. I guess they learn how to do this by seeing good examples, experiencing, and getting feedbacks. In anything we do, we improve by studying, seeing examples of the world, copying good examples, trying, experiencing, getting feedbacks, and by reviewing.. This kind of skill is what we might call “Tacit Knowing”- an ability that cannot be learned from manuals or user’s guide.

This year many Japanese came to participate and were active but I have an impression that Japanese women’s work as host, taking charge of the flow of panels, was particularly noticeable and therefore shining. In all of the 4 sessions which I wrote about, including IdeasLab, Japanese women served as hosts but the panelists and speakers of the presentations were all men. Were these women even more prominent because of this? It might be so because their role was to cast a spotlight to each of these men, one after another, and they were all in established positions. Am I being a bit prejudiced? Anyway, it is good for Japanese to attract attentions.

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Photos 10-11: At dinner together

In the evening of the final day, I had a nice dinner with Ms.Kuniya, Ms. Doden and other Japanese people, about 12 people altogether. (Photo 11). I fully enjoyed this opportunity and appreciated it. By the way, the attendants were half men and half women.