Kiyoshi Kurokawa's blog （en）

'SURVIVAL', a new TV series on global health by BBC

The British Embassy hosted a panel session and reception to introduce BBC program 'SURVIVAL'  focusing on global health.  This is a set of eight (8) one hour documentaries on eight major global health issues, which include malaria, maternal health, child survival, HIV/tuberculosis, sleeping sickness.  The program will be on air in October thru November.  It is planned to produce a 50 minutes program edited from the set of these 8 series, which will become open to public access (guide to downloading and embeding documentary series).  The objective is to raise the public awareness on global health.  This is a collaborative project with Imperial College, Rockhopper and BBC supported by the Gates Foundation.

The evening began with a welcome opening speech by Ambassador Warren followed by 10-15 min each of 4 films.  I participated the panel moderated by Ms. Doden of NHK, a well known TV caster, with 3 women, each representing corporate (Ms. Chino of Itochu), NGO (Ms. Aoki of SHARE) and university (Prof. Ohnishi of Nagasaki University), and two 'senior' men (Mr. Tadashi Yamamoto of JCIE and myself) as panelists, seemingly an unusual 4:2 gender balance in Japan.  I enjoyed the film show and the panel very much.
(See photos of the event)

In the reception, two remarkable young man and woman showed up and told their own stories on Africa.  Power of Bicycle!

A man is Kohei Yamada, worked in Mali, Africa, as a member of JICA; he wrote a song 'Love You' in a local language a message to his friend who died of AIDS, which became number one hit in the chart.  In the reception he sang this song in local language with an African percussionist.  He continues his work on HIV/AIDS and Africa.  Visit his web site.

A woman is Mio Yamazaki, told her story with her slides of bicycling sub-Saharan Africa; while in College, she bicycled 6,000km around Japan, another 5,000km Africa.  What's a girl she is!  She published a book on her African bicycle tour, organized NGO 'Cow-Way' for 'social change by cycling'.

The youth power!  That's what we need much more in Japan for CHANGE!

The evening was full of enthusiasm with a recognition of and sense of engagement to global health.  Thank you all for joining the evening and for the Ambassador Warren and the British Embassy to host this event.

From Tianjin, kungfu master and international star Jet Li takes action

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I'm a Jet Li fan and often watch his movies on planes and television (I must admit that I haven't been to a theater for almost ten years now).

His films move at brisk, quick-cut pace and are filled with hard-hitting excitement.  It's hard to describe, but they're so much fun to watch.  Lately he's also been starring in many mainland Chinese pictures like "the Monkey King" which I've seen on tv.

The martial arts star has set up an NGO called "One Foundation" and is addressing problems in China and the world.

He is energetically persuading many individuals and businesses around the world to join in and get involved in charity projects to help victims of the recent Sichuan earthquake, alleviate poverty and economic disparity, and solve problems in education. He wants everyone to participate and expand it into a big movement.

In Tianjin I met One Foundation staff members.  They're young, but passionate and bursting with energy.  When I parted with them I told them, "Say hello to my master." I am very impressed how the foundation is thinking very big.

It's the same idea that I have repeatedly emphasized on this blog.  In this world of globalization, each person can take action based on individual ability and mutual trust.  And because this new world is connected and flattening, each action will have the power to enable and empower others (See page 5 of my opening keynote at the G8 Environment Ministers' meeting).

Jet Li is participating in this New Champions conference too.  On September 28th, there was an interview session with him.  I found time and sat in.  At first I was a bit surprised to see that he is much smaller in person than on screen.  But his passion and ambitions are big.  He took all kinds of questions and energetically answered them one after another.  He repeatedly emphasized that "transparency and governance" are key in his projects and operations.  He said that even if he makes mistakes he wants to take one small action at a time for the world.  It was a wonderful session that communicated his great depth of feelings.  He wants to get everyone to think about what they can do and join hands to make a difference.

If everybody does a little bit, it can solve global problems of the world.

The New Champions, From Tianjin

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The second New Champions conference was held in Tianjin.  It's a new annual meeting organized by the World Economic Forum, known as the Davos conference.  It started last year in Dalian.  The event mainly brings together young leaders of new emerging companies in the world.  I was very pleased that many young entrepreneurs from Japan were taking part.  Out of the nearly 1,500 participants from around the world, about 60 were from Japan.

At 6 am on September 26th, I boarded a shinkansen bullet train to Nagoya.  There's a direct flight to Tianjin from Nagoya International Airport.  How convenient, I made it to the conference in time for 2 pm, at the risk management workshop moderated by INSEAD's Dr. Soumitra Dutta.  Apparently a high-speed train service between Beijing and Tianjin started ahead of the Olympics last month, but flying directly to Tianjin seems to be a more reliable and quicker way.

The venue of the international conference is of excellent quality.  China's vibrancy is similar to the atmosphere in Japan 40 years ago.  Hosting the Tokyo Olympics back then inspired the construction of new infrastructure like the shinkansen bullet train and the Tomei expressway.  Of course, the speed and scale of building are of a different magnitude in today's world of globalization.

Many of the Japanese participants were also at last year's conference.  Mr. John Ehara from Unison Capital hosted a "Japan Sushi Dinner."  It was a smash hit.  Japanese-cuisine really has a worldwide appeal.  A dinner like this is a company's intangible asset because people will surely talk to friends about the experience.  Word of mouth will eventually spread around the world and boost the company's credibility, resulting in new opportunities.  Mr. Ehara remained very low-key throughout the event.  I'm very grateful for his efforts.  It became such a wonderful gift to our country too.

Photo1  Dr. Dutta from INSEAD(middle), Dr. Probst of WEF

Photo2  Yokohama Mayor Nakada

In the afternoon of September 27th, I served as a member of a panel session.  It was quite an interesting experience.  Because I naturally tend to speak fast, I always consciously try to slow down.  But this time I found myself talking even faster than usual.  That's because each panelist was given only 2 to 3 minutes for an introductory comment.  We also needed to end the session on time since Premier Wen Jiabao was to make his appearance afterwards.  It was a difficult task to highlight my differences with other panelists and make sure that the audience understood the key points.  I need more practice.

Premier Wen Jiabao flew in to Tianjin directly from New York where he was attending the UN general assembly.  He delivered a powerful speech and answered questions very well.  He provided clear answers on some difficult questions involving the earthquake, food safety, and environmental problems.

A gala dinner was held in the evening.  I was a little disappointed that the music and dancing was mostly Western, and not Chinese.

Photo3, 4  images from the gala dinner

Crans Montana, Swiss

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Crans Montana is a beautiful small town in a valley two hours drive from Geneva.  Here, I came on September 10th, from London to participate World Knowledge Dialogue.  This was its second, the first was in 2006 in the same town as you see in my earlier (sorry, but only in Japanese, but many pictures), and indeed, my third time to Swiss this year, Davos in January, and St. Gallen in May.

The meeting was for four days and this time I was honored to meet with Prof. Edward O Wilson of Harvard University, one of the most respected scholars of our time, who wrote many epoch-making, sometime controversial books such as 'Sociobiology', 'On Human Nature', 'The Ants' with the latter two received the Pulitzer award.  He is a cheerful and admirable person and we share a good time together over his thoughts including 'fairy fly'.  By the way, you could see his lectures at Harvard on the web, too.

It was very good that quite a number from Japan including Prof. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, participated and our contributions were thought significant.

The details of the program can be seen thru its websites for 2006 (I appear at a panel) and for 2008.  And you see many pictures and if you find me, let me know.

This year, I appeared in Day 1 at the Opening with Dame Julia Higgins (we know each other well since her days as Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society), and as Chair of the entire Day 4, thus you could see my commentaries and interactions through the webcasts.  In particular, the Day 4 is tough, the number of participants are less, everyone getting tired, some have to leave before the end, etc, thus I tried to make the entire session more interesting but casual.  I thought it went well and stayed on time and in fact ended 9 minutes earlier than the schedule.  Enjoy the website and webcasts.

I really enjoyed the conference itself and meeting with many interesting people, old and new friends.  Nonetheless, the format required as we discussed, certain strategic goals, participatory processes, and some outreach deliverables and actions.

There is a great champion golf course here and the Omega European Masters was played one week earlier.  I managed to play a round of 18 holes starting 7am finishing 10am.  I enjoyed it very, very much.

In the afternoon of Day 4, we moved to Geneva, visited some historical sites.  One was University of Geneva campus where John Calvin founded in 1559; he was the one who converted the city to Catholic to Protestant community in mid-16th century, and we wondered in front of a large Reformation Wall of Calvin and other three (see at 'Reformed Geneva' at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin).

This visit gave me quite a moving feeling since in the Opening speech I mentioned on 'Incunabula' and commented Internet is the incunabula of today, that is to lead an unexpected consequence which may change the world. In fact, I said to the audience, because of incunabula of printed Bibles since Gutenberg of mid-15th century to year 1501, the religious revolution ensued almost 100 years later.  This message has been my recurring theme of some of my keynote speeches of 'flattening and connected world' as you may see in my blogs (refer 1 , 2 , 3 ) and elsewhere.

By a mere co-incidence, I was just standing there in front of such a consequence of major magnitude by John Calvin.

To London, for the GLOBE planning committee

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2 weeks ago, I received a FAX from Mr. Morley, the Minister of Environment of Mr. Blair's regime, whom I have introduced before.  He wanted me to participate in the planning meeting of GLOBE, to be held in London on September 8.

I therefore reached London on the 8th morning via Paris, went to the hotel, changed in just 30 minutes and left for the meeting.  I was a bit late and joined the conference at 10:20.  The meeting was held in the Thatcher Room of Portcullis House, House of Commons which is a part of British parliament.  After the announcement of resignation by the Prime Minister, the representative of Japan and Member of the House, Mr. Yoshio Yatsu decided not to participate in the meeting.

Photo 1  Photograph of participants, Mr. Morley, Member of the house in white shirt (in the center), to his right Mr. Gardiner, Member of the house. Some participants returned to their countries in the half way.

Photo 2  The venue of meeting, a new building immediate right to Big Ben (It is not seen here)

Photo 3  Mr. Tokumaru from the Ministry of the Environment

It is necessary to investigate the policies as well as approach to the "Land utilization, Forest conservation, Biodiversity, Ecosystem" which is actually very difficult.  As Mr. Barry Gardiner, a member of the House of Great Britain, was in-charge and delivered a speech in the beginning followed by a series of serious discussions by about 15 participants.  I think it will be a significant step if we find out the way to focus the policy from domestic to global. It may take a while, but it is very good if such discussions go ahead in a meaningful form in years to come. It is a global and very important subject but does not move forward easily.

Photo 4  At  the reception, Mr. Gardiner, Member of the House, Mr. Nishigahiro, Minister to Great Britain.

The reception was organized at "The Goring Hotel", a small but sophisticated hotel which is common in London.

After staying for 24 hours in London, next morning, I am leaving for Swiss.  I will send next column from there.

Again from “Asian Youth Exchange Program”, High Motivation and Power of Japanese Women

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Recently, I have talked about "L'Oreal and women in science", and "Asian Youth Exchange Program", which started in Okinawa.

In the column of "L’Oreal and women in science", I wrote how Japanese women players came out demonstratively different than Japanese men in the sports activities such as softball, baseball, soccer, Judo and wrestling in Beijing Olympics.

"Asian Youth Exchange program" is an excellent policy planned and newly started by the Former Prime Minister Mr. Abe and cabinet minister Ms. Takaichi as part of "Innovation 25" policy which I was also involved.  It would be nice if it expands and gets carried over nationwide.  The funds for this program do not necessarily have to be the public funds but can be collected through different schemes such as tax systems.  I hope that the schools, local communities and enterprises will make spontaneous contributions and participate actively.  That is  what I call "Society Innovation" and "Talent Innovation".

By the way, you can see various photos at http://flickr.com/.  Have fun! Thanks to Mr. Ivannanto, an international student from Indonesia who had participated from Asia Pacific University, for creating this site.

As I was searching the data of this "Asian Youth Exchange Program", I realized that out of the 30 participants from overseas, there were 15 men participants and 15 women participants.  Of the 45 persons who participated from Japan, there were 30 women and 15 men.  Oh!, I thought, and when I inquired about the number of applications to the secretariat, the number of applications from women was overwhelmingly more and as a result the female participants were having higher competitive rate. The points related to the qualification, considering the competency to some extent, are written on the application form but still the motivations towards the participation is fairly different.  Isn't it?  Why is it so?

I am expressing my opinions in this blogs frequently but please think about it.

Creative Capitalism

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As you may note, I have been invited this year to a few, but very special occasions to speak on global issues and the fundamental changes underlying such social movements toward 'One Inclusive Society' (Reference 1 , 2 , 3 ).

One of a major focus In these speeches is changing faces of capitalism, thus CSR or 'corporate social responsibility' and I quoted Mr. Bill Gates for his phrase 'Creative Capitalism'.  You may wonder what he means by the words.

In a recent issues of TIME magazine, it features a special interview of Mr. Bill Gates 'How to Fix Capitalism' where he discuss his concept of creative capitalism as he sees the status of the world reflecting the past century.  It is a very interesting personal, yet powerful argument for business leaders, consistent I believe with what I tried to convey in my speeches.

I would appreciate your giving some thoughts on such a concept and activity reflecting your business or whatever you do and plan to do.

Mr. Bill Gates will be in Tokyo in November.

Brilliant Female Researchers with Red Roses

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As I had introduced before, the well-known cosmetics company, L'Oreal, presides over a program called "For Women in Science" (As this website is very pretty, browse it) in collaboration with the UNESCO and appeals its existence to the world.  This year the program has celebrated its 10th anniversary at Paris in the spring.  The prizewinners until now were invited and Congratulatory meeting was held.

3 years ago, Japan has also launched a program to award young female researchers living in Japan.  I attended the commending ceremony and congratulatory party last year.  Also this year, wonderful people were commended and their family members, teachers and fellow researchers attended the ceremony.  It was a very splendid gathering and I was glad to see it.

4 brilliant people were selected for this year. We shared a cheerful, pleasent time together.

A women's magazine, Marie Claire, has also participated in this activity and presented red roses (Photo) to all the winners.  I met Dr. Noriko Osumi, whom I worked with 2 days ago in Okinawa and her mother who is also a famous scientist.

Photo Ms. Bando and 4 winners

Ms. Bando, a chief of gender equality bureau of cabinet office, mentioning that percentage of female scientist in Japan is the lowest among OECD countries, encouraged the audience for further effort.  I was responsible to propose a toast and spoke on various topics like, though, Gender Development Index of woman in Japan is within top 10 in the world, Gender Empowerment Index of woman is as low as about 40th in 70 countries in the world.  This difference is due to the male oriented society which is not competency based.  There may be some hint is understanding the basic difference between male and female in Japan in what we saw of (male) baseball and (female) softball at this year's Beijing Olympic, in that sense soccer, wrestling and judo, etc. as well. Please think about it.  I think actually here lies the problems of Japanese society.

I would like to express my appreciation to all the winners, family members, fellow researchers, people involved in the selections and all related people for their hard work.

At any rate, we can see a strategy of a world class enterprises when such prizes are awarded.  Each winner, over a period of years, will act as an ambassador of L'Oreal and will fulfill wonderful duty of moving the mind of men and catching the hearts of women in the world and act as advertising tower of the sponsor enterprise.  I think there is no such a splendid and beautiful advertising media as this.  I expect Japanese enterprises to think more strongly about social contribution from this viewpoint.  This is what social responsibility (CSR) of the enterprises is all about.

Executive personnel management- simple questions from an outsider?

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I was interviewed by Nihon Keizai Shinbun for a column called "Airspace violation".  It is an interview report and aims to have a person present open questions about things other than his/her profession.   Although I had several themes in my mind, I decided to talk about personnel management of enterprises.  The article appeared in the morning edition page 5 on Aug. 4th, 2008, under the heading of " 'Tenures' are not appropriate for executives.  Decide according to their performance and actual results." The article is as follows. Gist of my remarks are in the quotation marks.

■ We understand that you have doubts about "Tenure" of business executives?
"I hear that there are many enterprises which have customs or byelaws that set presidents' tenure as 2 terms of 4 years or 3 terms of 6 years.  But does it make any sense?  I hardly think that the governance of Japanese enterprises so far was good enough just because they have a tenure system. "

■Current trend is to shorten the tenure of top managements of large industries. Along the trend, many enterprises are shortening the term of office of CEO from 2 conventional years to 1 year.
"If manager's term of office is set short, he/she won't consider the business on long term scales.  Suppose some problem occurs during the tenure.  I suspect that it will not be solved by he/her but will be transferred to their successor."  "Same things happen in governments as well as universities, the field where I come from.  As government officials are replaced one after another the problems go on passing to the successors.  Since tenure of deans and president of university is short, talent training cannot be planned from long term perspectives."

■On the other hand, there are adverse effects if the tenure is prolonged and also criticisms about "problems caused by aged people".
"For 'problems caused by aged people', you can simply set young presidents in their 40s.  Then even after serving for 10 years, his/her age will still be below 60.  There are some cases, like Sharp or Hotel Okura, which had presidents in their 40s.  However, in large industries in Japan, the number of young managers is still very small.  What is required of a leader is; vision, ability of conveying the vision to the other people, intellectual and physical strength, and strong faith.  Age is irrelevant.  Younger talents should be selected."  "Nevertheless, it doesn't mean that 'long term control' is always no good.  There are many founders of corporations in Japan, like Mr. Akio Morita of Sony, who demonstrated wonderful management skills for a long period of time.  There may be many employed managers who can achieve excellent results in their long term tenure."

■Problem is not the short or long length of tenure?
"The point is not to set tenure but to build a mechanism so that the ability and achievement of a manager is evaluated objectively and in case any problem arises, the mechanism must work to have him removed immediately.  But how many Japanese enterprises actually have such structure functioning? If a company can not have a person to retire till completion of his customary tenure we must say that governance does not exist."

■One more word, please.
Once you become a professor, you will be safe till retirement.  This is also strange.

■A word from the interviewer.
How should we select and evaluate the heads of management?  It is a very important issue connecting to the base of enterprise governance.  There are cases where external reporters or external directors participate in selection of the succeeding director but such advanced examples are yet very few.  How do Japanese managers answer to those simple questions about executives raised by Dr. Kurokawa? (Editing committee, Yoshiyuki Miyata）

I expect there will be various opinions, points regarding the contents of this article.  Although I spoke for a long time they had to summarize it in a little space.  Anyway, pushing theory of your own is useless in this era of global economy, especially if it is the world's second great economic nation.  It is a matter of credibility of a business, a nation.  In this information age, governance with transparency is the basis of company’s worth. Not limited to enterprise, everything is transparent from the world even if you tried to hide.  And here lies the challenges of "Flat age".

Some of the arguments about this article have appeared at Nikkei Net PLUS.  You are able to read them by registration (free).  What do you think?

Medical students from Asia: Cheers for young people and 3 speeches

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There is a gathering of medical students from Asia known as AMSC (Asian Medical Students Conference).  This conference is held annually, and I was invited for the last 3 years.  I enjoy this event every time.  I like to be a part of such conference of youth organizations since they are pillars of the future human resource.  This was the 29th year and the conference was held at Tokyo.  I talked in the closing ceremony.  I heared that about 400 students have participated.  The point of my speech was the tremendous change that had occurred in these 29 years and about the globalization era.  I also talked about on "3 speeches."

The 3 speeches were, the speech given by Steve Jobs at commencement ceremony of Stanford University in the year 2005 (I told the students that "I hope and look forward that this 1 week conference become a "dot" of your career."),  speech given by Bill Gates at commencement ceremony of Harvard University in 2007 (It was about recognition of and consciousness for "Inequality" in the world and society.) and the "Last Lecture" of Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University (About the childhood "Dream."  Even if you face many problems, do not forget that you all had a "Dream" to become doctors.  Refer 1, 2 ).

You can have a look at these speeches on YouTube.  Each one of them is a wonderful speech.  The "Last Lecture" of Professor Pausch became a book and Japanese translation was published just a few days ago.

It must have been a lot of work for staff students who organized this conference.  It was really a wonderful conference.

"GLOBE Tokyo G8+5 Legislators Forum," a movement initiated by politicians throughout the world

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"GLOBE Tokyo G8+5 Legislators Forum" was held in Tokyo on June 28th and 29th.  Japan was represented by Mr. Yatsu, the former Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan.  Mr. Morley, the Minister of Environment of Mr. Blair's regime, presided the 1st session on day 1 (I saw him at the G8 Environment Ministers meeting also), which started off with the greetings by Mr. Fukuda followed by key note speeches by Mr. Blair, the former Prime Minister of England, and Mr. Abe, the former Prime Minister of Japan.  Everybody spoke very well.

Photo1　Greetings by Mr. Fukuda with Mr. Blair and Mr. Abe

Photo2　Key note speech by Mr. Blair

Photo3　Mr. Abe

Though this forum was founded in 1989, since after the Earth Summit held in Rio in 1992 it constituted mainly of the nonpartisan congress members of all the countries.  Framework for "G8 Gleneagles Climate Change Dialogue" was formed during the Gleneagles Summit held in 2005.

Video messages from the U.S. senators, Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Snowe were also played.  A common theme that their messages held was that "With the new U.S. President, the Parliament, the large-size U.S. corporations, more than 500 U.S. Mayors and U.S. State Governors participating, America will make a historic transformation towards 'Cap and Trade' and formation of a 'Low-carbon Society'."  Japan, it seems, is the only country adopting a wait-and-watch policy.  It is vital that politics, the government, the corporations as well as the citizens be well-prepared.

Discussions during the forum were highly dynamic.

I had a speech on day 2 (photo4), though it was a bit difficult for me since the session was on forests and biodiversity.  I heard the request for a lecture a week before, and considering the fact that my speech was to be interpreted simultaneously in 9 languages so I decided to use the lecture that I had delivered at Kobe as a basic document, prepared a manuscript by including the above mentioned themes and circulated its copies among the interpreters as well the participants (the manuscript contained many errors since I was unable to proofread it sufficiently) before I spoke.

Photo4　My speech on Day 2

Japanese businesses go to Africa

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This year, I had many opportunities to write columns on Africa in my blog (ref. 1 ・ 2 ）.  Japanese mass media also brings up topics about Africa often this year partly because we had TICAD4 and G8 summit.  I have written in my column "Cape Town," but the "Nikkei Business," a business magazine in Japan also writes about how Japanese companies are active in this area.  Please take a look, since my comment is in it at the end. (※A free registration is necessary in order to read the whole article on NBOnline.)

It is exciting to see Japanese businesses going abroad.  I appreciate their effort very much.

MBA students in pharma-business from Philadelphia

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Philadelphia is my American home-town where I started my professional career in US at the University of Pennsylvania.

The University of Science in Philadelphia is unique and it offers various programs focusing on pharmaceutical and pharmacy sciences and businesses: it also offers courses for MBA program in this area.  The MBA program offers students a summer course to visit Japan and this year it includes a visit to GRIPS where I am a member of faculty.  I hosted a seminar taking an interactive dialogue style posing a wide range of subjects relevant to these future professionals in healthcare and global health issues.

Photos  Group photo and the session at GRIPS

As I did for Harvard students of School of Public Health, I began asking them how many know and watched on the web of the commencement speeches of Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005 and of Bill Gates at Harvard in 2006.  The background of about 10 students was quite diverse, which made the session a very interesting and rich.  I enjoyed very much the exchange.

Heat-Pump, a highly effective energy efficient 'cool' technology

Heat-pump extracts heat from ambient air and deliver several-filds more energy, to generate heating/cooling, thus serves one of core technologies of energy efficiency and savings.  Indeed, the majority of currently available products utilizing this technology are made by Japanese companies, but their efforts for global visibility and marketing have not been vigorous enough to capture, to a significant magnitude, the global marketplace where the technology is most and badly needed.

We recently campaigned on behalf of the Tokyo Electric Company for its heat-pump products, with two prominent academics, Professor Komiyama, President of the University of Tokyo and Professor Kato, among other prominent posts, Dean of Keio University, President of Chiba College of Commerce.  One of such activities which appeared in Nikkei, a major newspaper among the Japanese business establishment, as noted in this website in Japanese.  This advertisement in English has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal and in its Asian version per attached.

Tony Blair and his team reports their outcomes

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On June 27th (Friday), the report "Breaking the Climate Deadlock" prepared by the team that Mr. Tony Blair represents, was presented in Tokyo.  Mr. Blair is the first person who put "climate change" in agenda at G8 summit, and also has launched "Gleneagles Process" to tackle this problem.  As a leader of the world he continues worldwide lively activities even after retiring from his post as a Prime Minister.  I have written about it before, and his purpose this time, I assume, is to announce the results of these activities and to promote them in the G8 summit.

Photo 1　Mr. Tony Blair

Photo 2　With Mr. Blair and His Excellency Ngubane, Ambassador of South Africa

Photo 3　With former prime minister Mr. Abe

On June 28th and 29th, GLOBE International, an activity of legislators of the states in G8+5 will be held.  I understand that Mr. Blair is going to give a keynote speech there also.

On the evening of 27th, a reception was organized at British Embassy in Tokyo in which many members of parliament from England were also present.  After that, I moved to Roppongi Hills to be a part of the panel with 100 young people and Mr. Miliband, Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Mr. Miliband is a 42 years old, up-coming star who is expanding the public relation activities by posting information on his personal Blog.  The panel was focused mainly on these topics, but unfortunately, the duration was too short i.e. just an hour.  I would like more of various programs like this to be organized.  You can view the sight of the panel in his Blog.

Photo 4　Mr. Miliband and Moderator, Ms. Edahiro on the panel

Seattle, USA

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I am now in Seattle, participating in Pacific Health Summit which is held annually in June since last 4 years.  I have attended the first conference four years ago, but could not make it to the 2nd and 3rd conference due to some other schedule.

This year's theme was "Nutrition" and I participated in a panel on "Soaring Food Prices, MDG (Millennium Development Goals)."  The host was Peter Singer from Toronto University, one of my old friends.  The problem of nutrition and food is a global challenge.  As the FAO conference held in Rome 2 weeks ago was not so successful, it may not be easy, but the topic is expected to be in the agenda of Toyako Summit to be held in July.

Photo 1  Dr. Kondo of HPI and Dr. Sunil Chacko

Photo 2 At the panel with Dr. Peter Singer on my right, Dr. Marc Van Ameringen, Director General of GAIN on my left(we were together in the Conference held in February.)

Recently, I am immersed in TICAD as well as G8 Summit, greenhouse, energy, poverty, development and issues in Africa, etc.   It's nice, I see same people (refer 1 and 2 ) on one hand and also get acquainted with new people on the other hand.  The world is "flat" now and issues have become global.  I feel that challenges that Japan and each one of us will face in the future will be very big.  I also met Dr. Margeret Chan, Director General of WHO whom I haven't seen since last year.  She is also exercising great leadership skills.

Seattle is a very beautiful city with beautiful waterfronts and woods.  The weather was fine and I enjoyed my stay very much.  I even went to see the game of Mariners using my free time.  This year their condition was not so good.  Audience was small (almost 1/4th of the capacity of stadium), and Ichiro had 2 strikeouts.  It was a boring match since the team lacked the "winning" spirit.  But applause for Ichiro was greatest in his home ground and I think he will appear in the "All Star Game" this year too (last year he was the MVP).  What a pity that Jojima was not a part of starting member!  As expected, the replacement of the manager was announced on the next day.

Photo 3  Mariner's Game

Photo 4  Ichiro at bat

G8 Science Ministers' Meeting in Okinawa

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On June 15th, Science and Technology Ministers' meeting was held for the first time in G8 summit history, in Okinawa.  The host was Minister, Mr. Kishida.

The informal G8+5 Science Advisors' Conference was held on June 13th and 14th and the main topic was "Brain Circulation."  This is the extended version of Erasmus program of EU.  There is awareness that for the challenges of coming global era, it is necessary to develop mutual understanding between the young people who are the pillars of the country's future.

Photo 1  Dr. Nina Fedoroff, science adviser of U.S. Department of State

Photo 2　Dr. Wan, Minister of Science and Technology, China

Everyone is aware that short-term mutual exchange program of 1 year or so is necessary in the universities, graduate schools or at even younger ages.  This is especially an important issue for Japan.  I have repeatedly mentioned in the blog, that I think the biggest problem is that Universities in Japan are isolated even in this era, and young people are not aiming for overseas opportunities.  Also the number of Japanese student studying abroad is decreasing.

On 14th, after a presentation related to clean energy by Dr. Steveｎ Chu from The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST)  in the evening, there was a reception ceremony by Mr. Nakaima, a governor of Okinawa, and arrival of Minister Mr. Kishida.

Photo 3　With Minister Mr. Kishida and Dr. Baughman (OIST)

Photo 4　Show in reception

Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize

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The inaugural ceremony of "Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize" was held in the evening of May 28th, the first day of TICAD 4, in the presence of Emperor and Empress.

Dr. Greenwood and Dr. Were, the winners of the award, are great people who have embodied the spirit of Hideyo Noguchi.  They are both very modest and friendly.  Such a great work performed by husbands and wives, supporting and helping each other in Africa for a period of more than 30 years is very respectable.  As a selection committee chairman, I am happy from the bottom of my heart that we are able to present to the world with great pride this excellent selection result.

Photograph 1

The head of states and chief of government of more than 40 countries from Africa have participated in this celemony and it was really a refreshing and pleasant reception that reflected the personality of both of them.

Photograph 2

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Former Prime Minister Mr. Koizumi, as a founder of this award, greeted everyone and said, "It seems that, today the spirit of Dr. Noguchi has come down over all the people in this assembly hall."  We came to know afterwards that this was an improvisation and was not in the original draft.  It's a good expression, isn't it?  There really was that sort of an atmosphere in the entire assembly hall.

Next day in the afternoon, Dr. Greenwood and Dr. Were both gave speech at the United Nations University at Aoyama.  Ms. Doden of NHK led panel of three (myself and the two) which was also good.  After that, they went to visit Inawashiro, the birthplace of Hideyo Noguchi.  There was a grand welcome in Inawashiro.  Details are written in the Blog of Mr. Kanke, Mayor of Aizu Wakamatsu city (29th May, 30th May).  I imagine that they learned something new about Hideyo Noguchi at the actual place of his upbringing.  The winners and their family enjoyed the visit, I hear.  For a moment, I felt much closer to Africa again.

Our Article in Nikkei Shinbun on Global Health Summit

We organized in February, "Global Health Summit; TICAD, G8 and beyond" with World Bank and other leading agencies on Global Health.  The program could be seen through our website.  To disseminate our core messages, we published them as an article in Nikkei Shinbun, leading press widely read by business sector of Japan.

I hope you will enjoy and support our messages.  Now appears in English.

　Japan Should Demonstrate Leadership in Global Health
　（JAPAN ECHO.　June 2008 pp51-53.）

Week of Africa: A day with Jeffrey Sachs, Bono and Tony Blair.

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The public relations of "Table For Two" activity which I am also involved was held in Diet Member's office welcoming Dr. Jeffrey Sachs.

It is a wonderful thing that social entrepreneurial activity like this originated in Japan and is spreading to the world into a movement that works on problems of scarcity of food on one side of the world and overeating on the other.  I encourage you to participate.

I went to Keio University in the afternoon.  Various events are being held on its 150th anniversary this year.  There was a presentation of a degree of "Doctor of Law" to Mr. Bono of Rock band U2 (Photograph 1 to 3) followed by commemorative speech.  The award presentation ceremony was held at the auditorium, a prestigious place for Keio University, which was built by the initiative of Yukichi Fukuzawa, the founder of Keio.  I was invited to this ceremony by Mr. Bono.  Ever since our meeting in the Davos Forum this year I am helping him along with Dr. Sadako Ogata and others.

Photo1 Mr. Bono, at the presentation of 'Doctor of Law', and Dr. Anzai, the President of Keio University.

Photo2 With Mr. Bono.

Photo3 Jeffrey Sachs also participated.

The speech was a series of lectures on Shibusawa Ei'ichi memorial lectureship of Keio University that promotes the movements of "Civil Society."

Then, I went to a meeting with the staffs of Mr. Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of UK, whom I have reported to you in my past column.

These are all related to Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) that will start in Yokohama this week and Toyako G8 Summit in July (Reference 1 TICAD, 2 Toyako Summit). Attention and expectations for Japan are very high.

Opening Keynote at the G8 Environment Ministers' meeting

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I was invited to deliver Opening Keynote to the G8 Environment Ministers' meeting in Kobe, May 24th.  What an honor and privilege!  But, then a headache.  I was told simultaneous translation to Japanese, English, French, Chinese and Spanish.  Thus, I decided to prepare my speech in English and deliver it in English.

When you listen to any speech through simultaneous translation, simply it is difficult and frustrating because translation is always, by its very process, a bit behind the actual speech, sometimes few words are obviously missing, thus you are not sure to what extent the translation is correct.  But of course unless you understand many languages almost perfectly, this process is unavoidable in international meetings.

Thus, I prepared my entire speech after a few editing and reading myself, I sent my text to translators assuring in a memo that I will read the text so that you just follow in the language you are supposed to translate.  No power-point slides, of course.

Photo 1 and 2　　ambience of the conference site

I felt really good after I finished my speech, when UK Minister Honorable Hilary Benn came to me at the podium and told me it was very well thought-out, constructed, and well delivered, and he was very impressed. Wow! such comments by a British political leader, a real native English speaker.  We chatted for a few minutes at the podium.

Thank you, Honorable Minister Kamoshita giving me this honor and privilege.  But three days must have been very hard for you all.

I left Kobe immediately and back to Tokyo to see Dr. Pachauri , Chair of IPCC, you know who he is.  We met in New Delhi this February.

G8 Dialogue at United Nations University

United Nations University(UNU) with its Institute for Advanced Studies(IAS) hosts a series of lectures "G8 Dialogue" in support of the role of Japan, that hosts 4th TICAD(Tokyo International Conference on African Development) in later this month in Yokohama and G8 Summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, early July.

I was invited to talk on Global Health and its excerpt is attached for your interest.  The lecture can be viewed on the web.

　Global Health: What is Necessary to Make it Possible?（PDF）

From St. Gallen

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Mt. Santis （2503m）located in south of St. Gallen

As you can see in my earlier column, I participated last year, and also this year at the St. Gallen Symposium.  It is a project started by the students of St. Gallen 38 years ago, and even today the planning and administration is performed by the students.  Isn't it wonderful?  About 200 students around the world and 400 persons (mostly from Europe) from various fields such as business, participateed.  For the first time in its history, 20 students are participating from Japan this year and they were selected from nearly 500% of competitive ratio.  They are not just Japanese students, 50% of them are international students.  The selection was performed by reviewing English thesis.

This year's topic is "Global Capitalism - Local Values."  It is a very timely theme, isn't it?  The opening session started with the wonderful opening addresses of President Pascal Couchepin of Swiss and President Dr. Heinz Fischer of Austria.

Besides the regular members, this year, Mr. Yoshimasa Hayashi, a Diet member, participated in plenary of day one and Dr. Yoko Ishikura of Hitotsubashi University participated as a faculty and took lead in the workshop on the same day.

Photo1 Lord Griffiths (on the right), Martin Wolf of Financial Times (on the left).

Photo2 with the students participating from Japan.  Mr. Suzuki (Credit Swiss Japan president, 3rd from the left) and Dr. Ishikura (right end).

Photo3 with Mr. Suzuki, Mr.Hara, my staff member (left end), Mr. Philipp Kuhn-Regnier of St. Gallen (right end).

I attended the workshop on the second day.  Last year, when I participated in the first Plenary Panel, the speech and message I delivered to the students were very good (said Lord Griffiths of England), so this year they planned that I should act as a commentator, hosted by Mr. Peter Day of BBC, and comment to a South American student honored in the essay contest, Rhodes Scholar Mr. Cillier (will pursue studies in Oxford University from September), and Mr. Klaassen, student of St. Gallen who wrote contradicting opinions to the views of the former two.  The topic is "Global Capitalism and Local Cultures of Innovation."  It was fantastic.  Please look on the conference site.

Photo4 with Mr. Hara and Mr. Philip.

Photo5 with Mr. Y.C. Deveshwar, a wonderful Social entrepreneur and Entrepreneur.

Photo6 with Mr. Owada, Ambassador Abe, Mr. Akashi, Energetic student Ms. Imai.

Photo7 with Mr. Cillier, Mr. Klaassen, Mr. Bay of the Panel.

The reception was held in the evening of 14th.  On 15th, we went a dinner at Der Gupf, the same restaurant I came last year (this restaurant is known for its wine collection and wine cellar). It is a place that offers a view of Lake Bodensee and I was able to take a look at the surrounding scenery for the first time, since weather was good this year.

Photo8 with Dr. Ishikura in Gupf.

Photo9 with Mr. and Ms. Owada, Mr. Akashi, Ambassador Abe.

Global Financial Crisis. Lessons from Japan?

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It is said more often than not, Japan is not clearly visible, particularly in last decade or so, in global scene be it domestic issues, and internationally and globally relevant issues.  Sometimes, messages may appear from government officials in some critical issues defending their own position when questioned by the foreign press, but such messages could be one-sided.  It is very important that more voices have to be expressed from independent parties and individuals, particularly opinions that may be against, but maybe more rational, prevailing views reported in Japan.  Such voices will provide better and balanced understanding of Japan.

In a recent Financial Times, one of the most widely read newspaper throughout the world, Professsor Sadatoshi Ito of Tokyo University, also a member of Economic and Fiscal Policy of the Government, contributed an article on recent global financial crisis triggered by the US subprime-loan and commented on arguments by some Japanese leadership that lessons could be learned by US from Japan on what Japan had taken over a decade 90's until recently to respond to burst of bubble economy.

Professor Ito clearly makes a point commenting the more rational and fast responses by US private sector and the government, demonstrating clear resilience of the nation.

Leaders and members of every sectors of the society of Japan follows the act of Professor Ito to express their own opinions to the world as appropriate otherwise Japan remains insular, irrelevant and incomprehensible to the rapidly globalizing world affairs as you see many places in this website.

Japan Is An Island

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A recent report on Newsweek,"This Nation Is An Island”, delivers as its core message how insular Japanese mind-set has been and remain to stay every sector of Japanese society. The message resonate well with previous reports by some of major foreign journals (examples include 2008/02, 2007/12) as well as some of recent books by several Japanese authors some of which were referenced in my recent book in Japanese "Innovation shiko-ho" or "Think of Innovation."

I share this view and you can see many places in this blog.

This report strong argues that Japan remains in essence as always over centuries and continues to be closed, off-limit to foreigners and Sakoku and withdrawn from the rest of the world even this era of flattening globalized world. It is too sad to see Japan not to engage in the global world since there are great talents with vast opportunities for Japan to be a participant and a player of the world action and in pursuit of new world order for our common good.

Mind you, Japan is still number two economy of the world. We need more entrepreneurs who think locally (local values and uniqueness) but act globally. Have you seen recently a business people who remind us Morita-san of SONY of 1960s? Technology alone is not enough. It is an entire business enterprise that enables to capture the hearts of many people of the world.

Thoughts at Lake Toya

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A little while ago, "Informal talk on global warming issue" was held at The Windsor Hotel at Toyako on Friday, April 5th, where G8 summit will be held in this July.  The Prime Minister, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry and Minister of the Environment participated.  The chairperson was Mr. Okuda from Toyota.  I arrived late at night on the previous day.  Next day the weather was nice.  The view of Toya Lake from the hotel was excellent.

What would be the number of hotels around the Toya Lake and how about its quality?  How many people would be present including the attendants and the press people?  Recently, in international meetings like G8, not only the people related to the government but also people related to NGOs participate in large numbers.  Though the participation patterns are different, it is not like guerrilla style.  If such a large number of participants are expected, will Sapporo be used for lodging?  It may be somewhat inconvenient isn't it?  Not only G8, but heads of other countries including G5 will also participate.  The President of the People’s Republic of China, Hu Jintao, who is visiting Japan now will of course participate.  Moreover, there will be a large number of people in secret service etc..

Is the security of the meeting place and surroundings good?  The approach to the hotel is only one though ・・・.  Of course both police and self defense forces are working together hard and repeating simulation, but since the head of many countries will be participating, it’s easy to assume each country is collaborating with Japan on one side and on the other hand they work out their own security separately.  It is unthinkable to rely complete security and safety of the chief of the state completely on the host country.

Meeting with Mr. Bill Gates

I flew to Jakarta in the morning of May 7th to participate “The Government Leaders Forum –Asia” organized by Microsoft, and delivered Keynote speech in the panel ‘IT and Healthcare.’  Perhaps there are some 20 Japanese participants who included Vice President of Keio University, one of IT-gurus of Japan, Prof. Jun Murai, and Mayor of Hiroshima City, Mr. Akiba.

This series of Conference began in USA, in Europe, and now the forth year in Asia.  Plenary speakers were included Indonesian Minister, Dr. Surin (we met three times in the last 2 months), Director General of ASEAN and two senior executives of Microsoft. Then followed by three panels in Day 1.  In Day 2, speeches of President of Indonesia and Mr. Bill Gates will be delivered, but I had to leave Jakarta in the evening of Day 1, so that I will miss the program of Day 2.  Thus, I was out of Japan for only 44 hours.

After my panel session, I had a private meeting with Mr. Gates for about 30 minutes discussing several issues of our common interest that included Global Health Summit we hosted this February, G8 Summits and other global issues and IT in education and healthcare (photo: his staff and assistants were understandably very nervous).  He is very smart and sharp and quietly looking into documents I handed out to him.  Mr. Oigawa, senior executive of Microsoft Japan told me that he has not seen Mr. Gates so relaxed and pleased in a meeting.

Higher Education in the Global era-Hitotsubashi Business School

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As reported before, the first half of the Golden Week passed restlessly as always.

On the 6th, the Ambassador of Finland and I participated in Prof. Yoko Ishikura's class on "competitiveness" held at Hitotsubashi University business school.  In the beginning, Prof. Ishikura raised the key important issues and then we discussed the issues.  The students were raising their hands and expressing their views enthusiastically.  They were expressing their own variant opinions and it was really a constructive and good time.

All lectures here are in English and around 70% of students are from overseas.  The faculties can view typical businesses in the world through the internet, by using "Harvard Business School" as a hub and the evaluations of the faculties are also done in common way.  Given such open evaluation, it would be hard for the faculties but they can be motivated by referring to the lectures conducted by many faculties all over the world.  Though challenging for the faculties they have no reasons to complain.  It's true, this is the scary part in the internet era, but it is also a pleasure to compete with global standards.  Are there any such universities elsewhere?  If not this way, universities in Japan cannot gather brilliant youngsters from all over the world since information is shared by everybody in this "flat" era.  University faculties, I beg you all earnestly to work hard.

After the class, we spent time on lounge, en