‘Sunrise 2011’ Drue Kataoka

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Much supports, aids, donations are coming from all over the world for the East Japan Natural Disaster ‘3.11’.

Drue Kataoka is a spirited artist known world wide by her works on philosophy and traditional Japanese Sumi-e (an Indian ink picture).  She participated in TEDxTokyo in 2009.  She was also invited to the Davos meeting for this year.  Her father is a Japanese.

Ms. Kataoka set up ‘Sunrise 2011’ for this great disaster.  I received a request from her by e-mail to send her a photo of my face with the sun as the background.

I sent her the photo, of course, but since she wants to collect as many photos as possible for ‘Sunrise 2011’, I will transfer her message to you, too.

Let us collaborate with the people of the world, and together create the new Japan!

TED -4; Great Technologies Used in Google Car and Other New Devices

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I knew that Google succeeded in creating a driverless safe car.  The story of its development was presented at this year’s TED (4 minutes).  The car ran between San Francisco – Los Angeles, so it seems.

It happens that two of those cars were demonstrated at the TED venue.  Of course, I signed up for the test ride.  The car ran with the high speed of 50-60 Km/h around the narrow course set up at the venue.  Here are the video of the test run (Ref.1). Both of the cars were Toyota Prius by the way.

Another speech was about a graffiti artist affected by ALS and his friends.  ALS is a disease that causes muscle weakness and degeneration of functions – known also as the disease which Lou Gehrig, the famous American Major League Baseball first baseman had.  It was a story about a project which, by combining cheap mechanical components, created a system that made possible for the artist to continue his work.

Stories of amazing application of technologies..

TED- 3: Virtual Choir and the Words of the Poet

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I posted several columns on speeches at TED.  Here are some more.  Virtual Choir and the Words of the Poet ? these were also the speeches which people liked.

How the speech was evaluated is very easily known by the percentage of the audience for Standing Ovation.  It is quite clear.

One of such good speeches was ‘Virtual Choir’. Enthusiasm gradually heated up as the speech went on and in the end there was the feeling of ‘What is this!?’ or ‘Wow!’.  It was a wonderful collaboration only made possible by today’s technology.

It is very nice and I am sure that you will enjoy it.

The second one I would like to introduce to you is a poem by a young poet, Sarah Key. Her second poem was titled “Hiroshima”.  I was slightly surprised.  At the reception, I asked and learned that she was a half Japanese.  Ms Key is a very charming poet.

Enjoy!

‘Japan Exposed Naked’, Cambridge Gazette, a Recent Letter from Harvard

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I have introduced to you a few times in my column postings Jun Kurihara (Ref.1), a senior fellow at Harvard University Kennedy School.  Kurihara-san is an erudite person, who understands (and probably speaks) multiple language, reads books, materials, data – in short all information sources-, so extensively that I am very impressed with the width and depth of his knowledge.
 
He sends his friends regularly a monthly report called The Cambridge Gazette (in Japanese). It is always my pleasure to read the Gazettes because they reflect his high sensitivity and intellect. It is also my great pleasure to see him at every opportunity he could spare for during his return to Japan.

Everyone, in spite of their own sorrow, is doing their best after this East Japan Earthquake and the dreadful tsunami.   However, here and there, I see many problems due to human factors in terms of the nuclear plant breakdown.  I assume that many of you sense this – that something is wrong – even though you may not clearly see the background that lies behind.  ‘Web’ of internet, in this context, proved to be an amazingly powerful tool for gathering information or views, to compare and choose from.

Kurihara-san has an ability to sense the changes (or little changes) that took place in Japan during this decade or so because he has been studying and working outside Japan for many years as an independent individual.  And precisely for this reason, his views as expressed in the recent Cambridge Gazette are rather critical and harsh about the state of affairs in Japan.

The latest Cambridge Gazette (in Japanese) which I received yesterday introduces straight forward evaluations visibly clear from overseas on how the Japanese authorities handled this nuclear breakdown, their thoughts on the risk management, how they think about Japanese intellectuals or Japanese ‘leaders’ who has more responsibility in the society.  I very much agree with Kurihara-san in many aspects.

I ask each of you to think seriously about what you can or must do now.

 

TED-2: The Birth of a Word

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One of the most inspiring stories that I heard at TED2011 was 'The Birth of a Word' by Deb Roy of MIT.

I was so impressed with the outstanding uniqueness of the idea, the tremendous size of its scale, the originality of analysis, and the breadth of possible development.  These are truly the characteristics of a scientist on the frontier, opening up a new field in science.

It is still only 3 weeks after the quakes, tsunami, and the nuclear power plant breakdown and we are all having a hard time.

I know you are busy, but would it be too much to ask you for 20 minutes?

 

To Overcome the Sorrow, a Gift of a Song from Korea

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This huge disaster is so overwhelming that I do not know how to express it.  At the same time, during these two weeks, I sensed clearly the great power of the internet age.

Mr. Deguchi is a friend of mine who regularly posts very nice articles to his mail magazine (in Japanese).  Originally being a journalist and newspaper reporter, collecting information and writing the coverage in an article is what he does best.  I am always impressed with his highly professional writings.  Mr. Deguchi and I have also been working together for about 3 years on a project of learning the history of Korean modern medicine

While I was browsing through twitter, I noticed quite a number of comments that said songs would be a very useful tool to support people in a tragic circumstance like this.  I think it was partly because reports on television were too standardized, lacking different approaches.

I happened to find a beautiful song and video from Korea for this tragedy, so I sent them to Mr. Deguchi.  He needed to know the meaning of the words of the song, so I asked a Korean friend of mine who sent me the Japanese translation immediately.  There was also another video which had Japanese translation in it.    Here, I will introduce to you a part of them.  Attached to the song and video are moving comments by Mr. Deguchi.
They are here (in Japanese).

The song is introduced in the section of ‘Korean singer Cho Sommo moves people’s heart with his song.  This video makes people cry.’ (in Japanese)

 

TED2011

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I have been supporting TEDxTokyo (Ref.1,2,3) for two years. 

Now, I am here to participate in TED2011, the home program of the TEDxTokyo.  I flew Los Angeles, where I lived for almost 13 years, and drove for Long Beach.  The weather in late February is fine, but rather cold, and the temperature going down as far as below 50F at night. 

The day 2 is over now, and so far, I would say the program is quite full and nicely organized. It is my overall impression that I will enjoy most of them pretty much.

As I went on attending the various sessions, I must say that a good speech must have a good, moving story.  Furthermore, the host Curators were supporting the speakers in their good hands, and this contributed much in making the presentations so wonderful.  I admit wholeheartedly that there are so many fantastic, talented, powerful people in the world. 

My friends Partick Newell and William Saito whom I work with for TEDxTokyo are here with me.  Mario Tokoro and Kenichiro Mogi of Sony, Ken Okuyama, and about 10 other people from Japan are in the audience.

You can follow the events via Twitter（#TED、#TED2011）. Photos are uploaded at this link.

We are now at the end of the day 2.

 

Health Summit: The Annual Event of the HGPI

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Following the Congressional Briefing with the members of the Diet of Japan which took place on February 25nd, we opened the Global Health Forum 2011on 26th.

We focused on Global Health, in collaboration with  UNITAID and Department of Global Health Policy of The University of Tokyo.

As you can see from the program, the host of this forum was Ms. Doden of NHK, an expert in this field, and the key note was delivered by Mr. Douste-Blazy, Board of UNITAID, UN Special Advisor on Innovative Financing for Development, and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of France.  The panelists were; Professor Shibuya, University of Tokyo, Mr. Tistdall, GAVI (Japan is one of the major nations supporting the bond issuance for immunization), Mr. Eun Joo Lee, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Korea, Ms. Cristina Parsons Perez, American Cancer Society,  Mr. Mugitani, Senior Vice Minister of Ministry of Health of Japan, Dr. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President of CSIS and Director of Global Health Policy Center, and Dr. Yonekura, Chairman of the Sumitomo Chemical and Japan Business Federation (Keidanren).  I am grateful for their participation, knowing their tight schedule.

The forum succeeded in coordinating a good, meaningful discussion thanks to the participation of many key persons in the field of Global Health.  I would also like to note here that Mr. David Bowen of the Gates Foundation kindly joined our Forum.

The discussion started by searching for the possible area and means where Japan could contribute.  We focused on the achievement of the MDG, discussing possible support by the developed countries, and the process to follow, taking into account the current financial difficulties which those developed countries have.  Although Japan is currently making contributions through immunization bond issuances in addition to ODA by the government, we tried to figure out new types of support that is independent from the tax money allocated from the government of Japan.

I hope that the Japanese economy as well as the mood in its society will improve soon.

 

The World Think Tank Ranking: HGPI Ranks in the Top 10 for the 2 Consecutive Years

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The world ranking is a topic in many areas as the world goes global.  There are the top 500 rakings of companies, rankings on DGP and competency of the nations, rankings of the universities, billionaires, so on and so forth.

It was just last year that I noticed that there was such thing as the ranking of think tanks.  The list I found was based on the study by the University of Pennsylvania.

It came as a big surprise to us when we discovered in 2009 that our Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI)  (founded in 2004, originally named as Health Policy Institute but changed to current name in 2011) was ranked in the Top 10 (Ref.1 P.42) in the field of Health Policy.  The list included Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, RAND, and other institutions known to the world as the first class policy institutes.

I wondered what this year’s ranking would be since I have thought that the result of 2009 might have been some sort of a mistake.  So, as we were preparing for the annual Health Summit to be held in February, I had some concern about the evaluation for 2010.  However, it turned out that our institution was again among the Top 10 (Ref.1 p.34&35). I don’t want to boast, but this is truly a great achievement.
 
The number of think tanks completely independent from government organizations is still small outside the United States or Great Britain.  I would like to express my deep appreciation and thanks to all the people who supported our activities and the staffs who did a great job at our institution.

Vabel Conference; A Follow-up

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I posted a report about the Vabel Conference that we held in January. The video of the conference is now on the web.  You can listen to the speeches by the lecturers.  Professor Ishikura introduces the video in her blog, too.

The majority of the participants were Japanese and the speakers were all Japanese, but the language we used was English (actually, a broken English, except for Drs. Ishikura and Saito who speak English very well….).  This may sound odd to you, but we really had a good time.  I think the key to success is to make a good atmosphere and also to getting people acclimated to the situation.

Mr. Kim, the ‘pari pari’ worker organized and hosted this conference. He had been staying in Japan for a while after taking a leave of absence from a University in England. He is again planning to go abroad.

I think having such energy and aggressiveness as Mr. Kim is good for any young professional.