Kiyoshi Kurokawa's blog （en）

L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship, Astronaut Naoko Yamazaki Wins Special Award

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On August 23th I left Okinawa AYEPO 2010 closing ceremony for Tokyo where I headed directly to the L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship Award Ceremony.

As I always say, shining women are the hope of Japan.

Again this year 4 bright and young women scientists were awarded this honor.  Also this year, a special award was given to astronaut Naoko Yamazaki  (Ref.1). The ceremony was even more highlighted by her presence.  The stage was very beautifully set up and the program moved smoothly, which is very much the ‘L’Oreal style’, as I always say.  I was asked to make a toast, which I of course happily accepted. 

Every year beginning 1998, in collaboration of UNESCO, 5 wonderful women scientists are awarded one each from the 5 continents of the world (Ref.1). This fellowship award, by the way, started in Japan five years ago to encourage the young women scientists.

I spent wonderful time with wonderful people just as I did two year ago at the award ceremony of 2008.

Quite a number of people gathered include Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, former Director General of UNESCO, former (Ms Bando) and current (Ms. Okajima) Directors of the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office (3 successive directors since this post was founded are all women).

The future of Japan lies in how quickly we can create and expand the places for women to participate actively (Ref.1,2). 

I would say that the major barrier is the ‘men-centered chauvinistic’ mindset and social structure, the society  where ‘herbivorous (soshokukei) men’ are dominating and taking charge.  I also suspect they (men) are scared of revealing how they actually are.  However, it is clear that in this transition from ‘vertically’ to ‘horizontally’ expanding global age, the time of ‘social titles’ with little real content or value to the world has ended long time ago.

 

Japan-Korea Exchange, Happy Gatherings

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Speech by President Lee on August 15th was for about 20 minutes.  Regarding the relations with North Korea the President expressed 3 strategic steps of partnerships based on ‘Peace’, ‘Economy’, and ‘Korean Reunion’.  I would like to read it if English and/or Japanese translations of the full text were available.

During my stay at Seoul, I was given lots of opportunities to meet people.  To my lecture at the Seoul National University, my old and new colleagues in nephrology, the science of kidney, gathered on the occasion and Dr. Narry Kim (Ref.1,2) a L’Oreal Prize Laureate of the year 2008 kindly came to the confenerce.

In the evening of 13th, the day I arrived at Seoul, I had dinner with Dr. Ju (Ref.1) whom I have introduced to you before.  Dr. Sumio Ishida, the specialist of the history of medicine in Korea (Dr. Ishida has many writings on the history of medical educations in The Netherlands and Korea) and Professor Lee, Heung-Ki (who studies history of hospitals in Korea at the Seoul University) (Dr. Lee’s photo is uploaded at the top of the previous column posting) also gathered and we all celebrated the happy reunion.  Dr. Ju is now 89 years old, but he is still very clear-headed; a truly wonderful person.
 
In the evening of August 15th, we invited a Korean female sophomore student of Waseda University who is currently spending her summer vacation with her family in Seoul.  She used to live in Japan until 5 years old because of her parents’ work and her Japanese is impressive.  Her older brother is studying in Canada.  She is very focused about her career goal and told me that she chose Waseda because of that goal.  She was selected to be a recipient of the scholarship (in Japanese) offered this July by the alumna of Waseda University  (in Japanese). I was very delighted to learn this good news.  I would like to see more and more of such mutual exchanges of young students to take place.

In the morning of 16th, the last day, I came across by chance with Dr. Tsutomu Nakada (in Japanese)(Ref.1) at the Executive Lounge of the Hotel.  I talk to him once in a while over a telephone but he happened to arrive at Seoul the day before yesterday and was leaving for Japan today.  What a coincidence!  This kind of unexpected encounter is apparently one of the hidden pleasures of traveling.  We enjoyed a brief catch ups.

Lunch was with Dr. Han Seung-Soo.  Dr. Han had been appointed to a series of ministers of the Government of Korea, is well known in international arena, was President of the 56th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (on the very morning of his inauguration ceremony the September 11 happened in NYC….), was a Professor of the Seoul National University.

Dr. Han Seung-Soo published a book ‘Beyond the Shadow of 9/11’  which records one year of his experience as the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations.  This book is a very impressive work which I highly recommend especially to those who seek careers in diplomacy or United Nation and other international istitutions.

Japan and Korea are neighbors.  We share and have long history of deep relations in various fields such as economy, politics, and culture….for over 1,500 years.  We are the most important partner to each other in this globalizing world.  To perceive whatever issue as ‘two neighbor nations in a big framework of the world that is changing dramatically’ and to think accordingly is crucially necessary and important.

This was also one of main messages of my lecture at the Seoul National University which I have reported to you in my previous posting.

Activating Intellectual Property of BioScience and Tech in Universities; Can We Succeed?

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Although countless problems are still to be solved, attempts to make use of intellectual properties accumulated in university and research institutions will get started.  This is good.  This is an effort to build functional structures that are attractive to enterprises.  There are still, however, many problems and challenges along the way enough to cause you a headache…..

I joined the press conference (in Japanese) in August 6th with my colleagues.

Scientists, engineers tend to draw a big picture or expectations from their own findings or inventions, thinking and sensing somewhat in a linear, direct goals.  It is only natural that they do so and there is nothing wrong about it.

However, people who are not scientists or engineers would often think about these findings or outcomes in relations to other ‘idea/information’ and sometimes better ‘idea/information’ emerge from such thinking.  In Japanese, we express this phenomenon as; ‘Okame Hachimoku (Onlookers can read the game (far) better than the players themselves)’ (in Japanese).  Many examples of Okame Hachimoku are found in history.

After all, it is private sector and enterprizes which deliver new services and products from inventions and discoveries to customers, thus create new market. Scientists or engineers can not do this. Of course, there are always exceptional scientists and engineers who also succeed in business, but they are exceptions.　

The new combination - ‘Neues Kombinazion’ as Schumpeter put it　- is precisely what creates new values.  This is precisely the ‘innovation’ that Schumpeter talks about.

Clayton Christensen, as you know, is today’s guru of Innovation.  Especially, ‘Disruptive Innovation’ is the core of his outstanding research.  His analysis, insights, views…everything in his books are extraordinary.  More recently, he writes on education and health care, too.

I think many businessmen read ‘The Innovator’s Dillemma’, another well known book, a bit older, but a classics, published about 10 years ago.

NHK TV Broadcast: Global Health- Chatham House

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Recently I have posted a report on ‘From G8 to G20’ meeting on Global Health- Chatham House、London.

I also reported that NHK television crew joined us to cover this meeting.

The NHK made two sets of 30 minutes English programs ‘Asian Voices: Global Health’ based on interviews with the main participants of this meeting.

Dr. Shigeru Omi, former WHO member appears as a guest commentator in ‘Part 1’ and I appear in ‘Part 2’, both hosted by Ms Aiko Doden, who speaks very nice English.

This program will be broadcasted on Cable TV at overseas, but in Japan and elsewhere will appear On-line for several times.

Please check the Cable TV and On-line broadcast schedule （in Japanese） of ‘Part 1 and Part 2’.

‘Part 1’ comes in 6 series starting from 11:10 am, August 7th (Sat) through 7:10 am, August 8th (Sun).

‘Part 2’ consists of 5 series starting from 11:10 am, August 14th (Sat) through early morning; 5:10 am, August 15th (Sun).

I was actually a little nervous when the interview was done without any rehearsals so I imagine that there must be several places here and there that make me blush if I see the video clips (though I haven’t seen it, yet).  But after all, in the Global age, what matters in “English is ‘the content’, ‘to speak’ and not in the least ‘pronunciation’”.

I invite you all to see this program.

See-D Contest: Technologies Appropriate to Local Needs Will Save the World

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The ‘See-D’ which I introduced to you recently, was held at the Fukutake Hall of University of Tokyo on July 31st Saturday.  About 200 people participated, mainly young students, including those who by coincidence came across the event and decided to join.  Kopernick is one of the important supporters of this meeting..

This event is hosted by Ms. Riku and Mr. Tsuchiya (also members of MIT D-Lab, currently living in Boston), D-Lab Japan office, other organizations, and some students from Boston who are in Japan for their summer vacation.  These people are the main driving force for planning and carrying out this conference.

It is very important that such projects/actions are created, spread and encouraged for action, particularly by young people.

At the See-D conference room, twitter and Ustream（Ref.1) were displayed on the screen in real time.  Live program with East Timor through Skype enabled the audience to  communicate by writing some comment via Post-It to moderating staff.  The three people in East Timor responded in English and those comments were instantaneously summarized in Japanese and shown on the Screen; a kind and considerate service!  The report of this event is posted on the web site of See-D Japan  (in Japanese).

Those gathered are eager and enthusiastic in search for what they could do. Three panelists with overseas experiences through JICA programs shared their work and thoughts with us.  One of them was Mr Ide who now works at Sumitomo Chemicals and its mosquito net or BetNet in Tanzania. I met him first time last March year in my flight to Dubai, sitting next to each other and we met a few time since then.

I had an opportunity to further encourage them in my ending remarks.  Here again my focus was on ‘the importance of first hand experience' (Ref.1, 2)　and ‘advice to take leave of absence from school and go abroad’.  I think the event was very hot.  I had the same impression by browsing through the many tweets. 

Anyway, everybody was so lively and high spirited.  The conference fully utilized high-technologies, too.  It was truly a motivating, good, happy conference.  By the way, Mr. Miyoshi (in Japanese)  whom I have introduced in this site many times, currently working in Bangladesh, also joined via twitter.

After this meeting, I moved to join ‘Global Health Summer Course'  which we co-host with the University of Tokyo.  It was almost 7 pm, but everybody was still working hard to make policy recommendations, presentations, having discussions. Thanks to all participants and staffs.  Tomorrow, they will present their policy recommendations in the presence of several legislators.

‘See-D’ Contest; Looking for New Ideas for the Developing Countries

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See-D Contest will kick off soon by students with entrepreneurship in search for new ideas that utilize ‘appropriate technologies’ for the benefit of developing countries.  I have introduced some activities of these students as you see in my blog postings (Ref.1).  

The sub-title of this contest is ‘Open Symposium for Creating Innovative Ideas for the Developing Countries’.

The date of the contest is July 31st (Sat.).  Students, engineers, companies interested in supporting and joining such activities, are cordially invited to participate.  Please register through the web site of See-D Contest.

You are also welcome to join us in ‘FaceBook’.

Kidney Center in Hanoi, 10th Anniversary

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In the morning of 9th, after the dialogue session with Mr. Toyama, I left for Hanoi.  This travel is to join the 10th anniversary of the Kidney Center which I helped its foundation with Dr Tang and Dr Ann  whom I have introduced to you last year. This plan is also an outcome of the effort by the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) for these 20 years of focusing its activities to the programs for developing countries

In 1990 the ISN meeting was held in Tokyo.  I have been leading the ISN activities as a committee and executive member and later as the President (1997-99) of the ISN, so I was naturally involved in COMGAN  program in reaching developing countries since its very beginning, and have traveled to Asia and many other parts of the world.  Through various activities such as COMGAN, ISN has succeeded in constructing the networks of people throughout the world for 15 years including kidney specialists in many developing countries of the world.  We celebrated the 50th anniversary of ISN last month although I had to be excused because of other responsibilities elsewhere.

Through more than 20 years of work at Asian Pacific Congress of Nephrology (Ref.1) and other activities, I have expanded my networks with many kidney specialists, medical leaders and scientists in Asia Pacific including Dr Tang and his colleagues,  visited Hanoi and Ho Chi Ming City (former Saigon) a few times, and about 15 years ago we started to make plans for Kidney Center.  The hospitals and clinics then were in terrible conditions that one may hardly imagine.

The Kidney Center is located within the hospital of Ministry of Transportation.  It is an outcome of what we would call today the ‘Public Private Partnership’ between the government of Vietnam and a few corporations of Japan.  Japanese companies did not necessarily pursue　profits, but brought about a big success in creating jobs and enhancing the growth of local businesses.   I attended their 5th anniversary, and now we are celebrating the 10th.  We had a great exciting ceremony with large number of participants.

The accommodation at Hanoi was Intercontinental Hotel. I highly recommend to try this nice elegant hotel which stands by the lake if you have a chance to visit here.

On 11th, I moved to Ho Chi Ming City. Here, everything is much more ‘developed’ compared to Hanoi and was filled with completely different energy.  I enjoyed dinner with my friends here at Cham Charm.  I do not hesitate to recommend this restaurant to you also.

At any rate, every city is filled with motorbikes.  I even saw a whole family riding on one bike. So energetic!

The return flight from Ho Chi Ming City was in the midnight of 11th, so I was able to hear the news of the overall result of the election of the Upper of Japan.  I regret having had to miss watching the World Cup final game.... I congratulate Spain for the victory.

Dr. Jonathan Dorfan to Assume the Presidency of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

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As you know, a plan to build a new graduate university in Okinawa had been in progress for quite a while.

Almost 10 years have passed since the inception of this idea, and ever since the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Promotion Corporation (OIST P.C.)  was launched as an Independent Administrative Agency with Dr. Sydney Brenner as the first President, we have been working hard for many years.  This institution’s concept is revolutionary in every aspect; the Cabinet Office of Japan is responsible in taking charge of this project, it is a scientific institution totally open to the world for the new global age.  Also, I would like to especially point out the fact that Dr. Brenner is extraordinary by his broad views and rich connections and greatly helped build OIST PC..

Since this was a very new concept, we did have some difficulties along the way such as in trying to gain understandings of the stakeholders including Japanese science community.  However, now we have paved the path enough to set up a graduate school, and finally are proud to announce that Dr. Jonathan Dorfan of Stanford University will assume his office in July as the first President elect of OIST (Ref.1).  This is truly an epoch making event.  That Japan will at last have a scientific institute with longer perspectives open to the world is something we all should celebrate.  Again, this is a revolutionary achievement.

As I have written in my past postings, conventional Japanese universities were unable to materialize such concept, although they were willing to discuss it (Ref.1, 2).  

I am determined to support President Dorfan and continue working with everyone to make this institution a success.  The credibility of science research in Japan is being evaluated and watched even through such a seemingly ‘small’ event like this in Okinawa.  I think the world might have started seeing some hopeful signs of change in Japan after a long time.

For up until now, even in the ‘academic arena’ the situation in Japan is yet closed and quite insular minded (Ref.1).

At Chatham House: From G8 to G20, Issues on Health and Development

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Photos by the courtesy of NHK Asian Voice and HPI-Japan

Chatham House in London is more formally known as The Royal Institute of International Affairs, one of the world’s top Think Tanks on international issues, a place for debates, famous also for the rule often referred to as the ‘Chatham House Rule’

This Chatham House, CSIS, an American Think Tank in Washington DC (Ref.1), and  our Health Policy Institute Japan have spent about a year preparing for this meeting at the Chatham House which was held on June 30.  The meeting was scheduled at the timing of the G8 Summit in Canada that took place a few days earlier, and the theme of the meeting was ‘Global Health: What’s next for the G20? Investing in health and development’.　

Its agenda, panel speakers, and sponsors were all superb.  I understand that the total number of participants was around 200.  Dr. Shigeru Omi (in Japanese), former regional director of WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, represented the government of Japan.  Also, some Japanese officials in London were present including Minister Oka of Japan Embassy, from JETRO, and NHK crew came to report this meeting.  I would like to extend my sincere thanks to them all.

Now and in the future, such process of independent Think Tanks or other non-governmental institutions hosting and organizing conferences to set global agendas to lead discussions that in the end can come up with some overall understandings or agreements is and will be extremely important.  Organizing and participating in such conferences have been a very good experience to us, too.  I myself was honored to have a role of listening to the discussions of the day and wrapping them up in the closing.  We also tried to make clear what we could do with the outcomes of this meeting, or what our next steps could be.

These things are easy to say, but actually to reach to this point was truly a tough task. I did write several postings on this process in this site (Ref.1, 2, 3) in addition to the reports which are posted on the web site of the Health Policy Institute, Japan.  Most importantly, we must understand that in the global world, building ‘personal’ credibility/trusts’ amongst ‘colleagues of the world’ is the basis of everything. 

It seems to me that one of the fundamental problems of Japan lies in the conventional attitude of the majority of the Japanese people who think that those global issues must be handled by ministries in charge, i.e. government offices or bureaucrats, or big companies if talking about industry.  In other words, our society is not yet mature enough as the ‘Civil Society’ - at least in my view.

So, let us all together nurture as many human resources and capitals as possible who are capable of taking actions based on the deep understanding of the importance of actions by independent individuals who do not necessarily rely on ‘governmental authorities’, as well as the importance of development of mutual trusts in individual levels, particularly in this ‘global’ and ‘flat’ world.

Commentary and Other Publication Relating to Harvard University

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This year, I was invited twice – in January  and May (Ref.1) - to participate in the activities of Harvard University.

No publication was issued of the meeting of January, but for the meeting in May  a report for the participants only was prepared under the Chatham House Rule.  One of the participants, Mr. Kurihara wrote in his Gazette (in Japanese) that he ‘laughed many times during Professor Kurokawa’s talk’ (p.3 left column) which I take as ‘honor and pleasure’.

Since the report includes a short description of that part, I will quote it below.

Session 2: Biotech Models for Development
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‘Panelist Kiyoshi Kurokawa, Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Japan, addressed the issue of biotechnology by first delineating some key issues related to its development – globalization, food and water, environment, and biodiversity – and then discussing some of the challenges facing countries interested in advancing biotech. Citing Ghana and Botswana as examples, Kurokawa argued that developing countries have little need for the newest and most scientifically intricate technologies, like genetic recombination. Rather, they need simple technologies that can be used to improve the quality of life for local people.

Kurokawa advocated the deployment of existing technology to address the most severe of world crises, like food and water shortage. Such use of technology could also result in bottom-up growth and benefit social entrepreneurs. Again emphasizing the local, Kurokawa further argued that biotech enterprises should also consider how “indigenous knowledge” might propel new developments in biotechnology. Local remedies, like the use of bark to treat malaria in China or of aspirin, have the potential to help biotechnology better address the “big needs” of the world today.’
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‘In the discussion that followed, Kurokawa re-emphasized his position that while frontier science contributes important discoveries, these discoveries should be shared and there should be a collective effort to apply new advancements to the betterment of the human condition.’

Another publication is a Commentary which I co-authored with my colleague Dr. William Saito for ‘Harvard Asia Quarterly’  published by Harvard Asia Center.  Its title and summary are as below.

Global Climate Change:
The Interconnection with Medical Technology and Health Care
Medicine, along with culture and technology, can both cause and resolve the problem of climate change. Medicine has helped reduce infant mortality and increase longevity, thus contributing to overpopulation which results in excessive pollution and resource consumption. But it can also help solve these problems by providing better forms of contraception and education.

The full text  is about 7,000 words which is a bit long, but if you could spare time to read it, I would be very grateful for comments and suggestions.