Kiyoshi Kurokawa's blog （en）

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?

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.

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.

L’Oreal-UNESCO 10th Award “For Women in Science” - from Paris

I flew from Narita to Paris in the evening of March 5th to attend a memorable 10th anniversary event of L’Oreal?UNESCO “For Women in Science” Award.  There was also the year 2008 Award presenting ceremony.  Laureates in the past 10 years count up to over 50 and if we include International Fellowship and National Fellowship, nearly 500 women scientists have been awarded and supported in the past 10 years.  This is a wonderful contribution to the society.  Almost 40 Laureates participated to celebrate the 10th anniversary event.

After arriving in the morning of 6th, I had some rest. In the afternoon, there was an event at UNESCO headquarters.  First, there was an introduction of L’Oreal-UNESCO Charter for “For Women in Science” and its 10 Commitments followed by signing of the 40 Laureates.  Please refer to this site for detail of the 10 commitments. This is with full of good intention.  I hope that my blog readers will also practice it.  I was invited to take part of the event since I served as a member of the jury for 2008.  It was a 1 week event, but I could only attend the award presenting ceremony.

After this introduction, there was the award presenting ceremony of this year’s Laureates. Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, Directeur-General of UNESCO and Sir. Lindsay Owen-Jones, Chairman of L’Oreal and the L’Oreal Foundation both gave a welcome speech in fluent French.  Dr. Gunter Blobel of the Rockefeller University, who received the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, was the 2008 Chair of the L’Oreal-UNESCO Awards jury.  Laureates were introduced one by one.  To introduce each, a short, well edited movie of each of the Laureates was shown which was filmed by visiting them, and a very clear introduction by Dr. Blobel about their scientific achievements followed by a speech from the Laureate.  All of the 5 Laureates were introduced in this manner. Then Mr. Matsuura and Sir. Lindsay presented the award, it was quite an impressive stage.

Laureates representing the Asia Pacific region include Dr. Tsuneko Okazaki(2000), and Ms. Fumiko Yonezawa(2005-she was absent for this anniversary event and we missed her) from Japan. Also, Dr. Fang-Hua Li(2003) from China, Dr. Nancy Ip(2004) whom I’ve known very well from Hong Kong, China, and this year’s Laureate was Dr. Narry Kim from Korea.

Photo1 With Dr. Tsuneko Okazaki

Photo2 With Dr. Nancy Ip

In selecting the candidates, juries focus on the creativity and the quality of their achievements based primarily on their publications and professional achievements, but the most important factor is “whether it is an achievement as an independent scientist.” This year’s award winner, Dr. Kim is 37 years old, studying MicroRNA and is Assistant Professor at the Seoul National University.  With her outstanding achievements, all of the juries unanimously chose her out of many outstanding candidates from Asia Pacific. I wanted to know how she could have made such an eminent achievement as an independent researcher, so a week after the selection committee, I took advantage of scheduled visit to Seoul to meet her.

Photo3 With Dr. Blobel and Mr. Matsuura

She earned her master’s degree at the Seoul National University, PhD. at Oxford University and Post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.  When she returned to Korea as Assistant Professor at the Seoul National University, as she told me, her Professor strongly supported her providing her a part of his research budget for a few years until she became independent, allowed her to use whatever equipments necessary in his laboratory, and had 2-3 graduate students from his program to work with her.  But when coming to writing the research paper, the professor declined to be a co-author, saying that it was her own work.  She said that in that process, she was able to become independent in pursuing her research and was very grateful for the support she received from the professor.  This professor must have really wanted her to become an independent researcher to pursue her career; it is wonderful, but may not be ‘norm’ in Seoul National and I wonder why.  One day, I would like to meet this professor in person to ask this question.  In Japan, young people are not encouraged to become independently early, nor going through an open process of competing, so it is hard to see from the outside who are showing great potentials with creativity as a newly rising future stars. It is often the case, you have to become a professor to be able to compare as an individual scientist with peers to see a potentially promising scientist.  This is not a way of nurturing creativity. As we say, spare the rod and spoil the child.

Photo4 Ms. Narry Kim

Upon the award accepting speech, she said that she once considered giving up research career because she had to take care of two children.  She appealed that it is important for the society to support women scientists, particularly mothers, like the day-care center. I totally agree.  I met her child, too. I hope that in Japan too, we can expand the opportunity for younger talented people and women, and give them chance to enhance their ability to be independent in their field of study.  You don’t necessarily have to become a professor to be an independent researcher, becoming a professor must be just a result of academic achievements.  It is important for professors to support nurturing the younger generation’s talents and potentials and to give them opportunities to become independent early in their career to become someone different. Our future is indeed on the shoulders of the younger people.

The hotel was Sofitel, located near the Japanese Embassy, Concorde Plaza and St. Honore.  The location was magnificent, but too bad that I did not have much time to spare. In the afternoon of the following day, I had to return to Japan.  At the airport, a cinema screen size photo of each of the Laureates were exhibited everywhere; Nicely done.

Economist Conference: Japan’s strength and weakness

On March 5th, 8.00AM, I attended the first “Conference of global warming issues” at the Prime Minister’s Office.  It may be a little too late to kick off at this timing, but as we can see from the Prime Minister’s speech in Davos, he is beginning to take a step forward.  It’s a good thing.  But the Diet is facing full of issues such as the budget committee, funding for road, gasoline tax, nomination of BOJ governor etc.

The world’s most read economic media, “The Economist” featured “JAPAIN” (not “JAPAN”)　in their recent edition.  It reports that despite Japan being the 2nd largest economic power in the world, there is little political leadership even under this critical situation.  Today there was a conference hosted by “The Economist” and I attended the afternoon panel.  I joined part of the session before lunch where Minister Yoshimi Watanabe and Matsui-san from Matsui Securities Co. Ltd., both known as polemists were talking about “Agony of socialist nation, Japan.”  In the afternoon, a Vice Minister (of course a politician) showed up.  Vice Minister is a role to support the Minister, but that Vice Minister, he seems a good man, was just reading a draft written by a bureaucrat.  This is strange.  It’s not consistent with democracy.  Is this a joke?  That’s why they are called “reader,” not “leader.”  More than half of the audience was not Japanese, thus this situation was a little awkward.  I understand that it is difficult to distinguish the “R” and “L” pronunciation for Japanese, but it is a little too ironic.  Anyway, the relationship between Japan’s bureaucrats and Ministers are completely incomprehensible for the world.

During lunch, there was a lecture from Tetsundo Iwakuni, member of DPJ. I took part in the first panel in the afternoon.  Please refer to Yoko Ishikura’s blog for details.  There were 4 panelists and each did a 10 minute presentation.  To wrap up, I talked about 4 things.  (1) First, I started by saying “We ‘eated’ lunch next room and enjoyed a lecture by Iwakuni-san.”  “We eated lunch” is grammatically wrong, but no one got on it nor anyone laughed at it.  It makes sense in English.  Of course it is correct to say that it’s not “We eated,” but “We ate,” but “eated” is enough to pass on the meaning.  It’s a good thing to pay attention to grammar, but I just want to point out that this is one example of “starting to talk in English.”  This is the common language “broken English” in this global era.

One of the panelists, an executive from Nokia delivered an interesting speech.  He said that everyday a million cell phones are sold worldwide.  So I said (2) the share of the global cell phone market is 38% by Nokia, 14% by Motorola, 12% by Samsung, 9% by SONY-Erickson and the 10 or so Japanese cell phone companies combined all together only have 5% of share.  Some may say that the service providers like DoCoMo is too dominant, and I agree to this point.  But the quality of Japanese made components are good and 65% of the world’s cell phone components are actually “made in Japan.”  We have to precisely understand Japan’s strength and weakness to do business in the global arena.  Next (3), I pointed out the problem of Japanese cell phone industry, engineers, management and the organization itself appealing to Apple that they want to handle iPhone.  What’s more important is to look at the customers “in the world.”  Remember, back in 1997 Apple’s cash flow was only durable for 5 weeks and was rumored to be bankrupt or be merged by some other company.  Do Japanese companies have to be put in a situation like this to understand?  It’s also a problem that Japanese companies tend to run in to the government officials for help.  I would say first “Mind your own business in marketplace.”

There are unbelievably childish scandals going on by the management among big companies, bureaucracy and well-established companies.  But come to think of why these incidents occur.  It is really disgraceful that the top management doesn’t take responsibility to resign, or in some cases resign from President but remain as a board member.  It is only natural of the cold response from the society and younger generation questioning “dignity of Hin-kaku in Japanese” of people in higher positions.  Everywhere in the society, the top are corrupted.  They should owe responsible to the society. What is economic growth in such a society?!

Lastly (4), I took out my iPod and explained that the design of this shiny back side of the gadget and prototype was made in Japan, production was done by a Taiwanese company, and its factory was in China and some of the components used inside are made in Japan.  But these are all component manufacturers.  Apple doesn’t do the actual manufacturing.  They just designed the whole system and created the concept but get 50% margin out of a product.  My message was that “manufacturing” is important but what is more important is why you make it, what you make and how you seize the customer’s heart.  The instruction manual for iPod is extremely simple.  You can see it on the internet.  Compared to that, the instruction manual for Japan’s cell phone and other electrical appliances are unimaginably difficult to understand.  I assume that the engineers are writing it, but it is simply not user friendly (interesting books are written to this by Dr. Koreo Kinoshita in Japanese).  One reference related to this is “iPhone shock” (Nikkei BP, 2007, in Japanese) written by Nobuyuki Hayashi.

Japan’s strength and weakness.  We have outstanding technical capabilities but lack imagination and energy to step out to the world.  After all, it’s the management that is weak.  It is unbelievable in this world of information that a President of a company says without hesitation that he will stay in realm for “2 years for 2 period” to follow their arbitrary internal rules.  This is the basics of corporate governance of market economy.  I can’t imagine that Nissan said to Mr. Ghosn about their internal rule of “2 years for 2 period” when inviting him as president.  Let’s face the world and stop being obsessed by Japan’s original common sense.

What we need in Japan right now is a “Mr. Morita at SONY” in the 60’s.  Some may argue that time has changed, or he was special, or other reasons that we can’t do.  Those are the ones who are not fit to be the leader of an organization.

From New Delhi part 2

My 2nd and 3rd day in New Delhi was mainly visiting Honda and local business leaders. First visit was Honda (Honda Siel Cars India). I met with President & CEO Mr. Takedagawa and Vice President & President of the Manufacturing Facility, Mr. Matsuzaki. Mr. Takedagawa shared his experience about the tough times, the current business situation and future plans. Mr. Matsuzaki established a manufacturing facility in America in 1982 and stayed in the U.S. for about 15 years. After America, he worked in various parts of Asia and set up this manufacturing facility in India. The facility was very clean and the employees were very polite. This must have been a painstaking effort.

Photo1 My visit to Honda Siel Cars

Photo2 In front of their entrance

After Honda, I visited the local office of Dentsu Inc. and the New Delhi campus of ITT. In the evening, we had dinner at the Japanese Embassy with Ambassador Domichi, Dr. Sunami of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and First Secretary, Mr. Seto. Ambassador Domichi was assigned this post from the Japanese Embassy of Iran and Mr. Seto is the person who helped organize the SCA (Science Council of Asia) 2 years ago in India.

Photo3 At the New Delhi campus of IIT

Photo4　At the Japanese Embassy from left: Dr. Sunami, Ambassador Domichi, myself and First Secretary Mr. Seto

The following day I visited the local office of Mitsui & Co, Ltd, Mr. Munjal of the Hero Group, Mr. V. Krishnamurthy, Chairman of National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council and one of the leaders of Indian business (Photo5), and the Confederation of Indian Industry (an organization similar to the Japan Business Federation?!). The main topic was about business. India is especially keen to have technological alliance with Japanese companies, but the Japanese way of business is slow and they insist on getting the majority share. No wonder the Koreans and Chinese outdo us. I also heard that the European and American businesses are becoming more active in the Indian market.

Photo5 With Dr. Sunami and Mr. Krishnamurthy

During the meeting with Mr. Munjal at the Hero Group, I was told that the JV negotiation with Daimler has been launched and that he just received a letter from the French President Mr. Sakrozy yesterday. In the past two years, I have met the Indian Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Minister of Technology and Science, they are all unique and intelligent in their field of business and science technology. Of course there maybe some “challenges” special to India, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to let it go. There are various ways to do business relevant to the local business tradition and strength. In that respect, Mr. Suzuki, Chairman & CEO of Suzuki Motor Corporation is admirable as a business leader. Suzuki has become somewhat a local brand. You have to be the first comer and work up a sweat to get the fruit. Understanding local customs and incentives to the local staff may also be important. All my best wishes for the people involved in business in India! I hope that our economy flourishes together with growth of India and Asia. I remind you all that Japan is the only OECD member country that has not grown their GDP in the past decade…Wonder why?

From New Delhi part 1

After successfully ending the 3-day Global Health Conference on February 17th, flew to New Delhi the following morning. Upon arrival at New Delhi Airport on time at 17:30, I went directly to the city of Noida in the suburbs. The objective of my visit was to attend the commendation ceremony of YES（Young Engineers and Scientists） by The Honda Foundation. This is to recognize the top 5 outstanding students atIndian Institute of Technology（IIT）, now well known to the world as one of leading technology institutions. It is a wonderful project. That is Honda, or so to say the spirit of Mr. Soichiro Honda. There was one other guest aside from myself who just appeared at the last moment of the commendation ceremony, and that was Dr. R K Pachauri. I have known him very well through the SCA (Science Council of Asia) and other conferences that we have attended in the past few years. Even 3 years ago in Bangkok, we did the keynote speech together at the AGS-Global Alliance for Sustainability conference. Last year in 2007, as IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Mr. Al Gore, we can say that Dr. Pachauri became globally known as being the Chairman of IPCC. But he was already widely reputed as the leader of global warming issues among scientists.

Photo1　At the commendation ceremony. From left Mr. Takedagawa, President & CEO of Honda Siel Cars India Ltd., myself, Dr. Pachauri(**）, Mr. Ban from The Honda Foundation

Photo2　From left Dr. Pachauri, one of the awarded students and myself

**Dr. R K Pachauri arrived from America the day before and is wearing a hat to cover his blotch on his head.

After the commendation ceremony, Dr. Pachauri and myself each gave 20 minutes’ speech to congratulate and encourage the award winning students. I touched upon Mr. Soichiro Honda’s sprit and wished the students to inherit his spirit to contribute and play an important role in the global agenda we all face. I will introduce my speech on another occasion. People from The Honda Foundation, executives and members from local Honda and the families of the award winners were also present and they all looked very happy. Also, Mr. Brijmohan Lall Munjal, the Chairman of Hero Honda Motors Ltd. was attending this ceremony. Hero Honda is a joint venture with Honda since 1982 doing production and sales of motorcycles. Mr. Lall’s son, Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal is leading the Hero Group and we both serve as a member of the President Council of the University of Tokyo.

Photo3　this is me giving speech

Photo4　With the award winners and staff （5th from left is Mr. Brijmohan Lall Munjal, Chairman of the Hero group）

At night I had a drink with Dr. Sunami of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and Ban-san and Ishihara-san of The Honda Foundation. Meeting bright young people, it was a pleasant and wonderful evening.

from Davos, Part4 (The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008)

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Attached here (photo 1), you’ll see the view from my hotel window this morning. The sharp edged mountain in the middle at the far back is Tinzenhorn, looking rather similar to Matterhorn.

photo 1

Here I am at the last day of the annual meeting. The Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda arrived this morning to join the prominent others such as William Gates, Microsoft Corporation, USA; Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997-2007), Bono the famous musician, and so forth. Fukuda’s plenary speech began at 1130 am in the main hall, co-hosted by professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, and Tony Blair. 

Myself sat in the very front row, together with Bono and his team. Our Prime Minister appeared understandably nervous, which made him talk a little faster than he had probably planned (photo 2). I was listening the simultaneous interpretation, one in English – as is often the case, the interpreter appeared to be relying on the translated document in hand with some lapsed delivery rather than being simultaneous. The content of the speech was quality I thought though it had the room to be refined as a politician’s speech.

Both Tony Blair and Klaus Schwab asked several questions at him (photo 3). It was broadcasted on NHK so my friends emailed. I wonder what you have made of today’s event – any reflections?

photo 2

photo 3

Prior to the speech made by our Prime Minister, the main hall held a plenary seminar on the world economy, fully packed. The panel included Laurence Sommers, the former Treasury Secretary during the Clinton era, who is an extremely talented economist though also known for jeopardising his career as the President at Harvard University through failing to accord his public comment to the gender-equal matter. Anyhow, the economic outlook projected was bleak. The theme of this seminar spilled onto the session with our Prime Minister whereby he was asked a question on the world economic trend. It was felt that his response could have better embraced the mood of the speaker panel though I must say the support team was perhaps already operating at the capacity more than expected. I must acknowledge that facilitating the Japanese Prime Minister to join the forum is already a remarkable achievement; the last was with then the Prime Minister Mori several years ago. I’d like to pay respect and send my warm regards both to the Prime Minister Fukuda and the support team, and in fact also wish all the best for affirmed efforts around the TICAD and G8 in coming May and July respectively, ultimately for all people concerned including the general public in Japan.

After the forum, our Prime Minister joined a luncheon with the various business leaders. Having dealt with interviews for CNN, and so forth, he was quickly on his return home.   

photo 4: with Mr Okuda of Toyota

photo 5: from left – Mr Ujiie of Nomura Holdings, Mr & Ms Shibata of NGK Insulators, Mr Okuda, myself, and Mr Takenaka

photo 6: me working hard at the conference!

My evening began at the ‘Tokyo reception’ at a hotel. The Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara was unable to join thus the Vice Governor Naoki Inose replaced his place as the host. Then, the official Forum closing evening began with the concert, featuring the world reknowned violinist Ms Akiko Suwanai – Bruch’s ‘Concert No. 1’, - the second piece was Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’. It was the first time for me to hear this latter piece right through to the end. Suwanai san, it was truly wonderful.

It confirms my view that it tends to be women rather than men who tend to be ones radiant at the world stage among the Japanese. At an individual or personal level, the presence of Japanese female tends to be more defined compared to what Japanese male in general is able to exercise. At the back of my mind here is the strong tendency of Japanese men to acquire the viable self through organisational affiliations. As always indeed, the radiant Japanese face of the Davos Forum was our honourable Madame Sadako Ogata. Soiree followed the concert – this year, it featured Turkey with Turkish cuisine, which we enjoy very much.

photo 7: Mr Idei, formerly of SONY, Mr & Ms Takeuchi of Hitotsubashi University Business School, Professor Schwab

photo 8: Mr Idei、Mr & Ms Takeuchi, Professor John Maeda of MIT

Professor Maeda holds a place at MIT, and is a prominent professor at MIT’s famous Media Lab, though he is apparently venturing out to take up a presidency at Rhode Island School of Design from June. I do like that spirit. We much need a persona like him in the Japanese academia – to stimulate the research, and initiatives of universities, students, and young people in general. As I always say, among the crucial social resources is ‘Kojin Ryoku’ or indivisual power and uniqueness, a creative synthesis of the self exercised at the personal level.

From Davos, part3

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The morning of the 25th was busy. I had an early morning meeting with Dr. Tachi Yamada from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to discuss about the upcoming February conference in Tokyo and other meetings that I had arranged. In the afternoon, I attended a session related to innovation and joined the beginning of plenary session “New Drivers of Development” chaired by Ms. Indra K Nooyi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pepsi Co. Participants were Mr. Bill Gates, Mr. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mr. Robert B Zoellick, President of World Bank, Mr. Michael Treschow, Chairman of Unilever and Mr.Trevor Manuel, Minister of Finance of South Africa (photo1,2).

photo1 From left: Mr. Gates, Mr. Brown, Ms. Nooyi, Mr. Zoellick, Mr. Manuel and Mr. Treschow

photo2 Ms. Nooyi

The reason for attending only the beginning was because I had a session with Ms. Sadako Ogata, Bono(photo3) and some big figures who represent Japan. We discussed how Japan can show their initiative globally to make a move on development in Africa, TICAD and G8 summit and respond to the expectation from the world. Other participants were Mr. Okuda, former Chairman of Toyota Motor Corp, Mr. Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Ms. Yoriko Kawaguchi, Mr. Matsuura, Director General of UNESCO and Dr. Komiyama, President of the University of Tokyo. I met with Bono and his staff yesterday and I think we will continue to work together in the future. Bono respects Ms. Ogata very much. He is well aware of Japan’s successful and long ODA history in Africa which is different to that from Europe and America. This year is an important year for Japan and he is seriously considering how Japan can show its presence. I was surprised at how much we can do. I learned a lot. He also said that during the 3-day concert in Japan, 120,000 fans gathered, which I later heard that he tried several attempts to send his message to the world through the crowd. He feels the passion that everybody is considering what they can do to make a change, but with the current political level, it is not well communicated inside and out.

photo3 With Bono before the meeting

Also, John Gage from Sun Microsystems joined. He supports Bono and Al Gore’s activities and I’ve been meeting him every year in Davos for 4 years. I hope my blog readers give consideration to what we can do and expand our will to the vast world to realize it. Then, I ran into Larry Page(who is very interested in climate change and global health and established the Google Foundation), the founder of Google which I introduced in last year’s report with some photos and Steve Grove from YouTube (photo4,5).

photo4　With Larry Page and Steve Grove

photo5　With Dr. Hirotaka Takeuchi from Hitotsubashi Univ, Mr. Tsuchiya from the World Economy Forum Secretariat, Larry Page and Steve Grove

（Mr. Tsuchiya studied with Steve Grove at Harvard Kennedy School. Isn’t that interesting, it’s the value of each individual in this global era.）

Tonight, Prime Minister Fukuda will arrive at Zurich. He will arrive at Davos the following morning and meet with Tony Blair, Mr Bono, Bill Gates and will deliver a speech. After that, I heard his schedule is full with luncheon meetings with the business community. I wonder whether the Prime Minister is really satisfied with his speech draft, but the speech writer must have worked hard to prepare it. The world’s opinion will show us the result. How will Japan be reported? How do the foreign media see Japan? What is the real opinion that doesn’t show up? At night, I met a lot of people at the ASEAN reception, but ended up with the usual members, Victor Chu (He is well known everywhere. He said that he travels 250 days a year for business. Wow, what an energy!) and John Gage. We had a drink at a bar at the hotel next door. Dr. Michael Porter from Harvard Business School joined and we had a great time together. This is the excitement of Davos.

photo6　With Mr. Chu and Mr. Gage

I am invited to a “Bollywood Party” hosted by India from 23:00, let’s see…

From Davos, part2

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The last keynote speech on the first day was by the US Secretary of State, Ms. Rice.  She delivered a clear and firm message about the current role of the US and the responsibility for the US and the world.  Then, the political and business leaders from the world, such as Mr. Blair, Mr. Kissinger, Mr. J Dimon(JP Morgan and Chase), Mr. KV Kamath(ICICI Bank, India), Ms. IK Nooyi(CEO of Pepsi Co, she graduated from the famous IIT in India…. Can you imagine this in any Japanese company?!), Mr. DJ O’Reilly(CEO, Chevrons), Mr. Wan Jianzhou(China Mobile Communications Corporation) etc, went up the podium for a Q&A session.  Ms. Rice handled this session very nicely.  This is indeed world class. Answering to tough questions in front of a big crowd.

This year, there were especially a large number of participants including 20 or more Presidents and Prime Ministers.  Even only on the first and second day, Mr. Karzai(Afghanistan), Mr. Musharraf(Pakistan), Mr. Yushchenko(Ukraine), Mr. Simon Perez(Israel), Al Gore and Bill Gates were there.

From Japan, ever since Prime Minister Mori attended in 2001, Prime Minister Fukuda will attend. As a hosting country for TICAD and G8 Summit, the world is watching Japan’s leadership of global agenda.  What kind of message will he give to the world? Let’s hope it will be a high toned, powerful speech that reflects as a Prime Minister of the second largest economic power, not something drafted by bureaucrats.  Regardless of domestic circumstances, ‘it’s spoken message that counts as politician.’ It is important to strategically communicate to the overseas press.

Needless to say, Ms. Sadako Ogata, President of JICA, is a global figure representing Japan, but also the global minded professors from Hitotsubashi University School of Business Administration, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Yoko Ishikura as well as Heizo Takenaka of Keio University are taking an active role in various panels and acting as session leader. In a brainstorming session called WorkSpace, Prof. Takeuchi showed his amazing ability as moderator by entertaining the participants while pursuing the subject on track. Wow, this is something inimitable.

Photo1 With Mr. Hatoyama and Ambassador Fujisaki at the conference room

At night, there was Japan Sushi Reception jointly hosted by University of Tokyo and Keio University, supported by Teijin Limited and Sojitz Corporation.  Many guests from the political, academic and business world attended.  I would think this kind of party should be led by the business community.  In fact, it’s the World “Economic” Forum.

Photo2 At Japan Reception with Mr. Hasegawa from Takeda Chemical, my friend and famous Indian political scientist, Mr. Challaney, Mr. Sakurai from Japan Association of Corporate Executives or Keizai-Doyu-kai

Photo3 With Ms. Kuniya of NHK, moderator of ‘Today’s Close-Up’

Photo4 With the President of Peking University

Just to list a few of the big names that attended from the political world, Mr. Hidenao Nakagawa, Mr. Koji Omi, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama(to substitute Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of DPJ who could not make it), Mr. Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Mr. Motohisa Furukawa, Ms. Kuniko Inoguchi etc.  From the business world we had Presidents, CEO’s and Chairmen from various companies like Mr. Okuda of Toyota Motors, Mr. Yonekura of Sumitomo Chemical, Mr. Sakurai of Ricoh and Japan Association of Corporate Executives, Mr. Nagashima from Teijin, and Mr. Hasegawa from Takeda Chemical, etc.  Ambassador Fujisaki, Mr. Kono the G8 Summit Sherpa and Councilor to the Foreign Ministry, Imai-san and Kuniya-san from NHK, Mr. Xu Zhihong, President of Peking University, Dr. Tachi Yamada of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Health Initiative also joined and we discussed about Japan’s contribution. Mr. S Brim, Founder of Google also showed up briefly.  Also Dr. Yamanaka from Kyoto University, who is gaining fame by his research in iPS cells, was also there.

Photo5 With Takenaka-san, Dr. Yamada and 2 of Bono’s staff

Photo6 With Dr. Yamada, Prof. Yoko Ishikura and Prof. Anzai, President of Keio University

As Prime Minister Fukuda will participate this year, there is a mixed emotion of expectation and anxiety among us, as to how much he can communicate a high vision and powerful political messages expected of as one of the world’s political leaders.

From Davos, part1

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The annual World Economic Forum will be held in Davos at the end of January.  This will be my 8th attendance in a row.  Please refer to some of my past blog in January.

Last year and this year, too, there is not much snow even around this area known for its snow and for skiing.  Yesterday we had some snow fall, but today the weather is crystal clear.

Prime Minister Fukuda will give a speech on the 26th, so I heard that there are many people from the business society of Japan this year.  It’s a good thing.  Mr. Okuda, Chairman of Toyota Motor Corp., will also be arriving on the 24th.  On my way to Davos, I was on the same flight with Ms. Sadako Ogata, President of JICA, Mr. Yonekura, President of Sumitomo Chemical (both were accompanied by their spouses) and Imai-san from NHK.

I was one of the panelists of the first session on the first day, 23rd, “Update 2008: Defining Innovation.”  Participants were the CEO and Partner from IDEO, TPG Growth, Doblin (all from U.S.A.), CEO of Index（NPO, Denmark） and myself.  Mr. Nussbaum(Business Week) was the session leader.  The main topic was about investment into clean energy, relief for the socially vulnerable, open innovation etc.  It was very encouraging to hear issues centered on these global agenda.  It was indeed a bit surprising.  Mr. McGlashan from TPG referred to my friend Steven Chu saying that “He is a wonderful man.  I know him very well and support him.  I’m also investing in his project.”

As for me, I talked about “the decade for Google”, “the decade for Apple and its revival with the creation of iPod and iPhone”, “the big success of Nintendo ‘Wii’ by creating a new model of non-videogame users (e.g., grandpas playing with their grandchildren”, “Negroponte’s ‘One laptop per child’ being a breakthrough of software concept” etc.  I showed some examples of innovation from the recent global society that is becoming ‘flat’ and pointed out that people’s awareness to contribute to global issues are expanding throughout the world.  In addition, I mentioned that the 2006 and 2007 Nobel Peace Prizes sending messages to potential answers and policy-making processes to the global issues, which is an epiphanic to the goals for innovation and I think they agreed to my point.  I have pointed out these issues in my blog on January 3rd and 10th, so I hope that my blog readers also understand my point as well.

After that, there was a session where we had to come up with new proposals by discussing with the person seated next to you.  There were a number of interesting ideas.  I was quite impressed by the process and some of ideas!

I was very grateful to hear later some positive feedbacks that my arguments were clear and stimulating.  Let’s offer compliments on good outcome on global issues, especially to our children!

In this year’s Davos meetings, there are “28” sessions related to Climate Change.  This shows the huge and wide awareness in the business sector of the world.  It looks as if Japanese industries are the only ones staying in their own shell.

In a later session, I met Dr. RK Pachauri, the Chairman of IPCC who has been awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.  Let’s look forward to his visit to Tokyo next month (note: this was later cancelled, but I was with him later in New Delhi).

Visit to Washington and then New York

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On January 6, I went to Washington DC from Narita airport.  It was very warm just like last year.

In the afternoon, we went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum along with Mr. James Kondo, my colleague at Health Policy Institute, our “Think Tank.”  The plan and building of the museum had been well designed but I felt the stupidity of mankind.  With only slight differences, the same things are happening again and again even today somewhere in the world and it is madness.  Preserving, exhibiting and exposing such historical records and documents are very important.  Otherwise nothing can be learned and the same things could happen again and again.  It’s foolish isn’t it?

The following day, on January 7, there was a meeting with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the morning. (Photo1).  Lunch for me was arranged in the members’ lounge, exclusively for the members of National Academy by invitation of Dr. Nina Fedoroff, Scientific Advisor of U.S. Department of State.  It occurred to me then I could have used this lounge since I was a member of Institute of Medicine (IOM) too and we talked about various topics with Dr. Fedoroff and Mr. Arimoto.  We were able to network with various people while talking and Nina was kind enough to making several phone calls.

Photo1  From left-Dr. Goldin, former director of NASA, Dr. Cicerone, chairman of National Academy and introduced many times, Dr. Serageldin, Director of Alexandria Library

On that day, there was a board meeting of IOM coincidently, thus I came across my old friend, Dr. Victor Zhau (Mentor of Dr. Ryuichi Morishita of Osaka University, well known in Digital New Deal a forum to support as a cheering group member of ‘Innovation 25’).  Dr. Zhau is now a powerful person running every thing from the medical school to the hospital at Duke University.  I also met Dr. Fineberg, President of IOM with whom I had lunch just 1 year back.  It is good to have professional friends.

(By the way, I had been selected as ‘DND person of year 2007’ in Digital New Deal, mentioned just before.)

I also met Dr. Bruce Alberts, the President of the National Academy for 12 years, who had devoted his special attention to support developing countries.  This is the first time we had met since last October.  He told me that he has returned back to the University (UCSF) but the work is becoming monotonous.  He will become an Editor-in-Chief of “Science” magazine this coming March.  So I joked with him “You will be famous won’t you!.”  In the afternoon, I visited the World Bank and met Mr. James Adams, Vice President of East Asia and Pacific Region and Mr Alfred Watkins, Science and Technology Program Coordinator.  I gave a lecture about 'Innovation for Development' for about 45 minutes in the auditorium.  You can watch it on the webcast.  Though it was the beginning of New Year, lots of Japanese were in attendance as it seems Japanese embassy announced.  Many questions were asked and it was fun.

Photo2, 3  After lecture in World Bank (In Photo2, the person on left in front of me is Mr Watkins.)

Photo4  At the exit of World Bank, with Mr. Ebata of Japan embassy
(Mr. Ebata had been previously assigned to Samawah in Iraq)

In the evening I visited Dr. Marburger, scientific advisor of President Mr. Bush (Photo5, 6). After that, I returned back to the National Academy and met Dr. Charles Vest, who has been a Principle of MIT for more than a decade (Photo6).  In this way I could meet heads from all three academies of the National Academies in one day.

Photo5, 6  In the conference room of Mr. Marburger
(Photo6 Joan Rolf, administrative secretary. He had been in Japan for about 2 years and is fan of Japan.)

Photo7  From left-Myself, Dr. Goldin, Dr.Vest and Mr. Arimoto

I had to excuse my self during dinner and returned to New York from Ronald Reagan Airport.

It was one busy day!  The temperature during the day was 18 degrees and really warm. The temperature last year was more than 20 degrees. Is this proof global warming?!

From California-1, UCLA after a long time

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Dec. 4th, I flew to California.  First of all, I had lunch at Napa Valley Grille at Westwood, with my ULCA teacher, Dr. Kleeman(Photo1) and his wife.  Then, I went to the newly established California Nanosystems Institute（CNSI）(Photo2).  This is yet to be fully opened but some work has already started.  There are joint research programs with the University of Tokyo and National Institute for Materials Science(NIMS) at Tsukuba, and I am happy to hear it.  I met there Prof. Matsui of Kyushu University Silicon Valley Office was also visiting.  Since the research conducted over here is a joint work related to medicine, engineering, and chemistry, the research laboratory is constructed right in the center surrounded by these departments, and various ideas are applied to the system of how the researchers will participate.  This NanoTech Center aims to collaborate with Bio and also works in collaboration with Univ. of California Santa Barbara (The place where Mr. Nakamura Shuji who discovered Blue Diode was head-hunted) which focus mainly in the Nano material area.  I met several researchers and also met 2 Japanese scientists.  They are doing very interesting research projects.  They are involved in their research from past 10 and 20 years, respectively.  They are working hard.  I with both all the best.

On the next day, I met Dr. Gerald Levey, Vice-Chancellor of Health Affair and Dean of School of Medicine. We knew each other for some 12 to 13.  We greeted each other and talked for an hour.  Then I had a meeting with the professor of pediatrics, Dr. McCabe(Photo4), who is a friend of Dr. Eto of Jikei University, both work in the same field, thus genetics of pediatrics deseases.  Dr. McCabe raises horses at the Doublestrand Ranch from the time he was at the Colorado University.  He is not only brilliant but the scale of activities is big.  I am envious.

Photo1　With my Mentor at UCLA, Dr. Kleeman.

Photo2　In the UCLA California Nanosystems Institute(CNSI).

Photo3　With Dr. Gerald Levey