Let's Talk about .. Urban Risks

During June 30-July 2, 2016, I participated in the International Conference on Urban Risks (ICUR 2016) at Auditorium of Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal. It was one of the nice conferences I attended. Many famous researchers and experts in various kinds of risk joined this conference.

ICUR 2016

I presented my research at this conference.

My presentation at the ICUR 2016

I summarized some parts of this conference.

Keynote lecture 1 "Local level implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030" by Ms. Paola Albrito, Head of the UNISDR Regional Office for Europe.

(Left) Ms. Paola Albrito

She first mentioned about the loss from the natural disasters such as the 2014 Serbia Flood which caused more than USD 2 billion.

The 15-year agenda, Sendai Framework, shifts from dealing with current risk to prevent new risks. Hyogo Framework for Action focused on reducing the current risk.

As 70% of the infrastructure in the next 15 years will be increased in the future. We have to share the vision of "How people are going to be resilience when they are taking a decision" to all stakeholders. Private sectors will be a key role player as they are the main one in developing new infrastructure around the world. That will be the key asset in our society. However, financial investment is not much considered to be included in the risk issue, despite its importance.

Some important points she highlighted include
- People-centred preventive approach to DRR
- Primary responsibility of states for DRR
- Shared responsibility of states for DRR with stakeholders
- Scope, including slow-onset, man-made and bio-hazards

Countries and cities need to know where the risks are in order to see the volume of the economics loss. Then, they can prepare for the DRR.

Some examples in the Europe were mentioned such as the 2012 UK heavy rain, which caused  a lot of times more than the 2007 UK Flood.
For the risk zoning, the new construction should not take place.

In Europe, the cities resilient campaign has been promoted.

Making Cities Resilient Campaign (Albrito, 2016)

Many mega-, medium-, and small cities or municipalities have joined this campaign. The campaign has rerun till 2020. Private sectors are extremely interested in this campaign.

Also, Portugal is one of the key group of the working groups for the local level implementation at the local level in Europe.

Keynote lecture 2 "The Game Changes: New Developments and Trends in Urban Risk and Disaster Management" by Prof. David Alexander (Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, UCL, UK)
He gave a great talk mentioned many issues. I like his presentation on the leadership in DRR. His slides are available at http://www.slideshare.net/dealexander.

Prof. David Alexander

Keynote lecture 3 "Urbanism and Hazards Extremes" by Carolina Distinguished Professor Susan L. Cutter (Director of the Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute, the University of South Carolina, USA)

Prof. Susan L. Cutter

Her talk was mainly about answering significant questions

Q1 "What makes events extreme?"
Q2 "Does an extreme event always create an extreme impact or can extreme impacts have produced from non-extreme event?"

For the first question, there are 3 ways to explain 'extreme' event.
1. Statistics: i.e., seeing the tail of the probability distribution of 95th percentile event.
2. Financial loss.
3. Extreme consequences such as human loss.

For the second question, she gave some cases to answer it.
One of them was the extreme event of the Oct 9, 2015 South Carolina extreme precipitation event.
- Spatial variability: land cover/land use, proximity, topography
- Social vulnerability
- Temporal variation
- Cascading failures

Thus, this case shows that it is an extreme event for the certain area, not the entire country.

Thank you so much, Asst.Prof. Paula Teves Costa (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal) and the organizing committees, for making this successful conference.

Let's Talk about .. Business Transformation and Technology Innovation with Motorola

Following a suggestion from Prof. Junichi Iijima, on October 6, 2015, I attended a lecture "How to Manage “Business Transformation” due to Fast “Technology Innovations” in a Global Company to avoid Irrelevance" by Dr. Mohammad Akhtar (Senior VP at Motorola Solutions, Inc.).

This is my summary from the lecture.

Along the lecture, Dr. Mohammad often mention that business needs to be moved otherwise it will die. He started his lecture by compressing a history of Motorola since 1928 to present together with lessons learnt.

Innovation
Innovation is about always looking forward, not backward, and making somebody life simpler.
A minute you stop changing, a minute you die.

Even human being also have innovation. For example, our brain, looking into a human's brain, brain can do more thing in present era than a far past time.

Who we are and What we are
Before starting anything, we have to look into who you are and what you are. For example, when saying 'Motorola', people in U.S. think about mobile innovation. When your are clearing your business, you should clear who and what you are.

Consumer means 'you and I'
Like Motorola started from consumers, you need to focus what the customers need. Motorola started with a business of mobile devices. Different customers have different scope and requirements. You should focus on what problem you're going to solve. Also, the uniqueness is also important. If you just make something, other people can easily copy your product, then you may lose your business. In mobile business, once connectivity improved, it's time to improve user experience. Especially, when mobile device is something people cannot live without it. In order to maintain sustainability in your business, it should not be easily copied.

AT&T and Motorola worked on many researches. Combining at TV and wireless services is one example. The business, actually, is selling a program on this service. The point is that this service can let the people buy immediately when they want to buy. The longer time the customers have, the more things they think and consider, the higher chance they may not buy.

Japan with individual preference, Motorola with networks
Japan seems to focus individual preference. We can say Japan focused on gadgets, not the network. That's a reason why Motorola worked with Qualcomm. At that time, Motorola worked for all mobile career operators in Japan. Anyway, Motorola made mistake at the end.

The lesson learnt is 'You need to see something beyond the thing people see'.
BUT 'Don't be rush to IDEA'.
AND ALSO 'Don't be afraid of changing a business model'.

Patents
"Patents are key to long term survival capabilities". When a company buys another company, a buyer may consider the price of a company as the value (number) of patents.

An exit
We will fail if we do not define exit. All businesses should prepare their exit. They may sell the company, moving to other market, etc. Time to change a business model or product is when your are on the top of the market share. For example, Motorola Razr was the most popular mobile phone, however, the company just worked on a line extension after its peak while Apple iPhone started creating its ecosystem which became more impact than a hardware issue.

Then, Xiaomi also created their ecosystem in China and became a majority share of mobile phones in China.

Pocketability
Pocketability was termed by docomo. In the past, mobile phones should be fit within the size of pocket. However, the current time showed that the bigger one, such as a candy bar type, reached higher share in the market.

Product lifecycle
Product lifecycle is short in technology. Especially non-traditional competitor which can come at anytime. The example is the introduction of 3G during the mature time of 3G signal. So, you should think 'out of the box'.

20-year product life cycle in technology (in the past) has been changed to '7 years' (now).

Core competencies
When you know your core competencies, you should make it stronger. Then, nobody can flight with your core competencies. Just 'Wanna be' cannot survive, but 'Core competencies' can.

One of the core competencies of Sony found by Dr. Mohammad was the 'No requirement of manual'.

Osborne effect
When the new product was introduced into the marketing then appropriate time, the effect of the new product could make some problems to the current product.

Huawei case
Huawei who was 'a fast learner' in the past became 'a fast leader' in the business area.

Thank you, Dr. Mohammad for your interesting lecture.

Let's Talk about .. d.school comes to Tokyo Tech 2015 (Lecture)

On July 17, 2015, I attended a special lecture "Practicing Innovation: Experiences and Experiments at the Stanford d.school" by lecturers from d.school of Stanford University at Tokyo Institute of Technology. It was organized by the Team-Oriented Cross Border Entrepreneur Cultivating (CBEC) program and the Academy for Global Leadership (AGL) of Tokyo Tech

This is my summary of what I learned from this lecture.

Before the lecture, there was an introduction of CBEC program by Prof. Junichi Iijima (Head of Tokyo Institute of Technology EDGE Program). Then, the lecture started with three lecturers of d.school: Dr. David Janka, Scott Witthoft, and Thomas Both.

d.school

d.school, or its full name as Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Standford, is a startup-like organization providing the elective courses for students at Standford University. No matter which programs you belong, you can join courses at d.school.

d.school believes that by design thinking, they can train people then later those people can be flexible to contribute what they learned or trained in any other context.

Thus, students in d.school are not only students of Stanford University, but also working people from companies or organizations.

Experiential learning

Instead of only receiving knowledge from professional persons, at d.school, students can learn by doing things = experience. Therefore, it's usual to view the environment of d.school's classes as lecturer and students staying at the same level. Moreover, the teaching way is giving the area for students and let them explore by themselves, instead of giving questions and answers to them directly. For example, letting them redesign radio programming.

In addition, they can learn to work in team. Within the team made of students from different areas, through Design Thinking, they can learn other perspectives.

Pop-up classes

Pop-up classes = d.fundamentals + d.skills + d.advanced. d.school made the Pop-up classes. These are opportunities for people from outside to come to teach students. Until now, there were 39 pop-up classes and 105 teaching team members,

even thought there was no credit and no teaching paid. Some examples of pop-up classes were Sticky stories, civic dreams + human spaces, etc.

d.bootcamp

d.school has also made a 4-day workshop at Standford. This bootcamp brought people from different industry sectors to make a team. They had to engage the users in order to understand the actual problems before designing a prototype.

Then, we went back to those people (users) to test their idea and got feedbacks. d.school operated these kinds of practices following the "Prework -> bootcamp -> StartUp" steps. After the bootcamp for weeks or months, the participants then later can create something by Design Thinking they have learned.

Alum action

From a week till months, there was follow-up to look at how they used what they learned and what they made from what they learned.

Location as prototype

In the beginning period of d.school establishment, d.School had no permanent location. So, they had to move every period of months. Nonetheless, it's good in terms of making a variety of prototypes. They later realized as opportunity to keep trying new things and checked if it worked or not...Till they got their current place.

Studio Space

They took a video to see the hours of things' movement in their studio. We could see that the studio was changed through many shapes for different purposes of different users.

Radical collaboration

They made a program called fellows. At the beginning, fellows were the graduates of Stanford, but later fellows could be experienced persons from a variety of working environments. They were persons who had never came to d.school, but had lots of knowledge and experience. They came to learn at d.school. Then, they applied design thinking when they went back to their industry.

Sprint planning

In each project, the team members worked with sprint planning. They could see the schedule of who, what, how, etc. in the specific period of time. One example as the practical outcome was Low cost ( partnered with miraclefeet. This product helped the children in Brazil who have the problem of clubfoot.

Purpose learning

The purpose learning is one of the ideas to change the way of studying. By changing from the major-oriented learning, which students were assigned to learn following the fixed curriculum, to the mission-oriented learning. They learn how to reach their goals.

Creative self-efficacy<...>Creative Impact

Many people focused on the external part (creative impact). But we also should pay attention to the individual level for internal part (creative self-efficacy).

Panel discussion
During the panel discussion, the moderator was Assoc.Prof. Céline Mougenot from Tokyo Tech.

- Collaboration with people from different background can make the different point of view.

- Space: a variety of created behaviour from team members; not the fancy ones but the one that can be used for all purposes.

Setting up and cleaning up space is not the assigned responsibility of students, but they know it as norm. Then, the next one can use. They did not use the word "clean the space", but "reset the space".

- Key to be creative: Dr. David always makes observation notebook. He observes the world and describes what he has learned through sketching in his notebook. Thomas considered practicing with your interest or with your assigned things. The more you practice with it, the more you became familiar and became confident. Scott always tries to make the tangible things, not just only making some ideas.

Let's Talk about .. Events in UNWCDRR 2015

On January 15, 2015, I joined the Tokyo Conference on International Study for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience 2015 (ISDRRR2015) at The University of Tokyo. I found the information in the poster session mentioned about the interesting international symposium.

This symposium is Disaster Management Policies - Preparedness against Large Tsunamis and Earthquakes etc.

National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) and UNESCO will hold this international symposium on March 14, 2015 (Saturday)

Date: March 14, 2015
Time: 13:00-20:00 (Reception desk opens at 12:45)
Venue: Sendai City AER TKP Garden City Sendai, Hall D (30th Floor)
Language: English/Japanese with simultaneous translation equipment

- "GRIPS Disaster Program & a Policy Proposal after 2011 Tohoku Earthquake" (by Adjunct Prof. Shigeru Morichi, GRIPS)
- "Japanese National Government Policy on Disaster Management (DM)" by Mr. Hiroto Izumi, Special Advisor to PM)
- "Updated DM Policies of Large Cities in Japan" (by Prof. Fumio Takeda, GRIPS)
- "Landslide Dams formed by Earthquake and their Countermeasures" (by Prof. Hiroshi Ikeya, GRIPS)
- "Japan's Crisis Communication and Foreign Responses during the nuclear disaster" (by Senior Prof. Keiichi Tsunekawa, GRIPS)
- "Comparison of Reconstruction System of the Queensland Flood and of the Great East Japan Earthquake" (by Prof. Hajime Inamura, Tohoku Institute of Technology)
- "Sustainable Development and Disaster Risk Reduction" (by Ms. Chikako Takase, Director of UN Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD))
- "Public Opinion in Areas Affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake" (by Assoc.Prof. Kazunori Kawamura, Tohoku University)
- and more

If you are interested in this symposium, please contact to Prof. Shoichi Ando (ando@grips.ac.jp) by March 3, 2015.

Let's Talk about .. Innovation and Entrepreneurship from MRA Univ. Relations Director's aspect

On November 17, 2014, through information from Prof. Junichi Iijima, I attended the Tokyo Tech Startup Weekend Follow-up Session. Many of my Thai and Japanese friends participated this talk as well.
It was a talk titled "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" by Dr. Tim Pan (University Relations Director of Microsoft Research Asia).

He started his talk with a big warning (but it's a fact) that there were two reasons people would make a startup: Rich and Freedom.

His warning was the fact that 90% of Startup failed and from his experience, there was no exact freedom at the beginning of the business establishment. The freedom seems to come after the business reaches the success.

He talked about his attractive Startup in 1997 when he started his business in Taiwan. It became successful and finally he sold it and moved to work with Microsoft since Microsoft, in his opinion, is the biggest Department of Computer Science in the world.

Let's go back to the topic. He introduced three books in his talk.

-"High-Tech Ventures: The Guide for Entrepreneurial Success" by C. Gordon Bell in 1991
-"Innovation and Entrepreneurship" by Peter Ferdinand Drucker in 1985
He summarized that the source of innovation consists of unexpected, process need,  new knowledge, and structural change. Actually there are more than these, but he chose the most important four ones. Among these, he said 'new knowledge' is the most important source.
-"The Innovator's Dilemma: Then New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail" by Clayton M. Christensen in 2000

In addition, we also introduced us some new products and services from Microsoft such as Skype Translator which is going to be launched in a few days and Microsoft Band.

Finally, his recommendation for the one who will go on StartUp.."Innovate on giants' shoulders!" would be a good way in the current situation which various technologies are rapidly moving.

Thank you very much Prof. Iijima for suggestion and Dr. Pan for the interesting talk.

Let's Talk about .. Tokyo Tech International Symposium on Education Reform

I have received information of this symposium from Prof. Junichi Iijima, my advisor, so I registered this symposium with the eager to see the education systems in MIT and UC Berkery and the plan of Tokyo Tech.

On March 14th, 2014, there was Tokyo Tech International Symposium on Education Reform at the 70th Anniversary Auditorium, Tokyo Tech Ookayama Campus, Tokyo, Japan.

The symposium is part of the education reformation plan of Tokyo Tech towards being one of the world top ten universities by 2030.

It was not allowed to take a photo or video in this symposium. Thus I wrote this summary based on my memory and my memo from the symposium.

The MC of the event was Assoc.Prof. Kayoko Nahara (Tokyo Tech). This symposium provided bilingual (English/Japanese) via the live audio receiver. It was started with the welcome address by Prof. Yoshinao Mishima, President of Tokyo Tech.

Keynote Talks: Education Systems at US Universities

First talk: "An insider's view of an MIT education"

by Prof. W. Eric L. Grimson, Chancellor for Academic Advancement, MIT (USA)

In summary, MIT now provides not only the indoor class, but also outdoor education that can increase other cross-disciplinary skills, which cannot be obtained from the traditional classroom such as leadership, for their students. Currently, 2/3 of MIT students are in engineering fields while the most popular fields (40% of that portion) appear to be in mechanical engineering, computer science, and electrical engineering.

Current students are likely to learn the real world context rather than the contents which are staying in the classroom. Also, they have an aim to make the impact of their interesting aspect (of global problems) or so-called global awareness.

As a result, he suggested that there are 4 must-develop things:

(1) "New delivery methods": new learning style;

(2) "New content": cross disciplinary content;

(3) "New living and learning settings": providing effective opportunities; and

(4) "Global leadership skills": the skills beyond the class

He suggested key elements of curriculum consist of:

(1) "Key elements of curriculum";

(2) "Seeing technical topics in context";

(3) "Hands-on, action based learning"; and

(4) together with some others such as leadership, art, athletics.

Moreover, he introduced some MIT's projects/programs:

MIT Public Service Center is a place that supports students who have motivation to make the impact to the world. Not only the benefits to society, but the students also can learn leadership simultaneously during doing the activity as a team;

MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition is a competition that lets the students practice the entrepreneurship. This program has created more than 130 companies around the world;

Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program;

MIT's Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP);

Internship program in 16 countries including Japan, China, Chile, etc.; and

MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

In addition, he introduced about the online course system founded by MIT, edX.

Lastly, he spoke of  the education plan that should be reformed. I feel they are quite fastinating. 

First, the "competency-based assessment" throughout the semester should be used instead of just waiting what the students will answer in the final exam at the end of the semester; the changing of the traditional classroom to be online classroom and letting the class being the laboratory or problem-solving classes; the dormitory should be changed from just a place to sleep to be a place to learn, and the traditional library should be changed to a "Making space" where students can make or invent something together.

Second talk: "Tradition and Innovation in Higher Education through Shared Governance"

by Prof. Ronald Gronsky, Special Faculty Assistant to the Chancellor for International Relations, UC Berkeley (USA) 

There were many interesting stories Prof. Gronsky mentioned such as many interesting statistical facts especially the amount of financial support for students which are nearly the amount of support of all Ivy League.

"Shared governance" is the idea introduced and suggested by him. In UC Berkeley, there is a systematic structure. For example, the promotion of academic position which follows the step of evaluation (there are many steps inside Asst.Prof., Assoc.Prof., and Prof.).

The evaluation of faculty is based on teaching, researching, professional activity, and university and public service.

Keynote Talk: Education Systems at Tokyo Tech

by Prof. Yoshinao Mishima, President, Tokyo Tech (Japan)

Mainly, Prof. Mishima talked about goal that Tokyo Tech will be part of the world top ten research universities by 2030. He mentioned about the formation of the committee and reformation plan that is going to be reviewed and start using in spring semester of Academic Year 2016.

PS. If I did any mistake, please feel free to inform me or share your idea in the comments.

Ref.

[1] Tokyo Institute of Technology. (2014, March 14). Tokyo Tech International Symposium on Education Reform: Best Practices for Realization of World-Class Science and Engineering Higher Education Systems. Tokyo: Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Let's Talk about .. UK-Japan Symposium on Engineering Education-Past, Present and Future

On March 11th, 2014, I participated in the UK-Japan Symposium on Engineering Education - Past, Present and Future at Kuromae Hall, Tokyo Tech Front, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan. It has been organized by 6 members universities of the Russell Group (University of Cambridge, Bristol University, University of Southampton, University of Leeds, Imperial College London, and University College London) and all member universities of the Eight-University Engineering Association (Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, and Kyushu University)

First of all, I would like to thank Ms. Seiko Oya from Energy & Advanced Technology, Science & Innovation Section, the British Embassy Tokyo, who introduced me about this event when we had a meeting together at the embassy with Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri and Dr. Ingrid Charvet.

This symposium is an event in commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Choshu Five's departure for the UK.

I took a note and summarized only the points I am interested in as follows.

Opening Remarks
Chair: Assoc.Prof. Kayoko Nohara (Tokyo Tech)

The first opening remark was done by Prof. Kikuo Kishimoto, Dean of the Graduate School of Engineering and School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology.

First Open Remark

Choshu 5 (Japanese: 長州五傑) consists of

• Prince Hirobumi Ito, "The Father of the Japanese Constitution & Parliamentary Government in Japan; Japan's first Prime Minister";
• Marquis Kaoru Inoue, "The Father of Modern Japanese Diplomacy";
• Viscount Yozo Yamao, "The Father of Japanese Engineering";
• Viscount Masaru Inoue, "The Father of Japanese Railways"; and
• Mr. Kinsuke Endo, "The Father of the Modern Japanese Mint"

And the second opening remark was presented by Ms. Elizabeth Hogben, Head of Science and Innovation, British Embassy Tokyo.

Second Open Remark

Next, the Keynote Lecture was provided by Prof. Roderick A. Smith (Imperial College London and Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department for Transport)

Keynote Lecture by Prof. Roderick A. Smith

Session 1 International Education (Overseas study and student mobility)
Chair: Assoc.Prof. Tom Hope (Tokyo Tech)
Keynote Speaker: Mr. Shigeharu Kato, Director-General for International Affairs [Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)]

Keynote Speaker by Mr. Shigeharu Kato

Currently, the majority of foreign students in Japan is from Asia such as China, Korea, and Thailand. 

Through "Abe Education", the Policy Agenda has been set to Global Human Resources Development, Economic competitiveness, and aiming to Double students’ mobility by 2020.

In details, 

- (To be) 300,000 international students in Japan;

- (To be) 120,000 Japanese study aboard;

- (To be) 10 Japanese universities in world top ten universities

Presentation 1: "International Education Program at Hokkaido University"
by Prof. Takemi Chikahisa, Vice Dean of Faculty of Engineering (Hokkaido University)
In Hokkaido University, they provide the English Engineering Education Program (e3) where the students can choose the courses to study in English. The curriculum has the same number of Japanese courses and English courses.

Presentation by Prof. Takemi Chikahisa

Prof. Chikahisa also mentioned his opinion that the challenges of doing international education program were the heavy loads for both faculty and students, limited period of financial support, and the large amount of passive opportunities for students which might in turn reduce the ability of challenging the unknown world by themselves.

Presentation 2: "Cambridge/MIT partnership"
by Prof. Simon Guest, Engineering Deputy Head (University of Cambridge)

Presentation by Prof. Simon Guest

University of Cambridge's Engineering Department is a single Department that covers all branches of engineering.

He talked about one notable person, Prof. Sir James Alfred Ewing, who served as professor of mechanical engineering at Tokyo Imperial University (currently The University of Tokyo) in 19th Century.

Also, he introduced the Cambridge-MIT Exchange program, and talked about the students' problems/challenges found from the program such as the difference between home and host, difficulty in academic change, they cannot impose a home rule on the host university, necessary to need at peer relationships; staffs' such as dealing with students with different background, losing best student for a year; and institions' such as cost/administrative load to keep the exchange alive. 

Presentation 3: "International Joint Education in Tohoku University"
by Prof. Hiroo Yugami, Vice Dean in Education (Tohoku University)

Presentation by Prof. Hiroo Yugami

Prof. Yugami introduced us various international programs at Tohoku University such as RENKEI Program; the Exchange Programs: Tohoku University Cooperative Laboratory Study Program (COLABS), International Program in Liberal Arts (IPLA); Summer Program (TESP-Robotics); Junior Year Program in English (JYPE); Direct Enrolment Education Program (DEEP); and Double degree program with Ecole Centrate Group (France), INSA de Lyon (France), KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Presentation 4: "Scientific Empowerment Program for International Students-How does it work?"
by Prof. Kiyoshi Fujita (Osaka University)

Presentation by Prof. Kiyoshi Fujita

Osaka University has various international programs such as the English cafe, English for Engineering I and II which provide simulation as international conference poster presentation in the course, Short-term study aboard at Monash University (Australia), UC Davis (USA), Frontier Lab@OsakaU, and Handai AIC

Presentation 5: "Student Mobility in International Engineering Education"
by Prof. Koichiro Watanabe, Deputy Dean of Faculty of Engineering (Kyushu University)

Presentation by Prof. Koichiro Watanabe

Kyushu University has 16 programs related to international education such as the RENKEI Program, Double degree with Lund University (Sweden), ASEAN- (AJ-BCEP), Engineering Leasers English Program (ELEP) in Silicon Valley, USA, and International Internship Program esp. Mining Engineering.

Also, since it was the 3rd Memorial Day of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, we had one-minute silence during the first session.

Special Lecture: Prof. emer. Sadayuki Ujihashi (Tokyo Tech)

Special Lecture by Prof. emer. Sadayuki Ujihashi

Prof. emer. Ujihashi gave us a lecture about what we learn from Choushu 5 ("What Choushu five learned in UCL to bring up innovative young generation?"). The lesson learned from them includes the expanding the view as they recognized huge difference in social system, military force and science as well as creating desire to found the modern new Japan.

He also mentioned about Prof. Alexander W. Willianson, who is the most respectful leader as he took care and educated Choshu 5 at UCL.

He “accept[ed] diversities and harmonize”

“Watch by yourself anything new”

Williamson monument has been founded in 2003.

Among many messages, there was one..
ききれば　かたりきるこえ　しじまより (or if you carefully hear, you can hear a voice of silence).

Session 2 University-Industry Cooperation
Chair: Prof. Jeffrey S. Cross (Tokyo Tech)
Keynote Speaker: Mr. Kenji Toda, Senior Managing Director (Health Care Science Institute)

Keynote Speaker Mr. Kenji Toda

Presentation 1: "University Coalition on Engineering Education and Industry Cooperation in Tokyo Tech"
by Prof. Tetsuya Mizumoto, Vice president for Education (Tokyo Tech)

Presentation by Prof. Tetsuya Mizumoto

Prof. Mizumoto introduced the University Coalition on Engineering Education (UCEE) which is a Non-profit organization and University-industry Cooperation in Tokyo Tech as the role of the Office of Industry Liaison (OIL) in Tokyo Tech.

Presentation 2: "Opportunities for industrial experience within and alongside the curriculum"
by Prof. Anna Barney, Associate Dean (Education) in Faculty of Engineering and the Environment (University of Southampton)

Presentation by Prof. Anna Barney

Prof. Barney talked about her university's "Consultancy Module" which the students can do real piece of consultancy work for a local company or organization by up-to-6-students team with lectures plus 3 company site visits.

Presentation 3: "University-Industry Collaborative Education to Promote Innovation"
by Prof. Takehiko Kitamori, Vice president (The University of Tokyo)

Presentation by Prof. Takehiko Kitamori

Prof. Kitamori presented about the failure of Japan in innovation. He introduced the "3rd Dearth Valley Lying on R&D". The solution of this problem is creating the initial market where users, buyers, and sellers are Ph.D. As a result, it will be "Knowledge-based Economy".

Presentation 4: "Integrated Workplace and University Education"
by Prof. Barry Clarke (University of Leeds)

Presentation by Prof. Barry Clarke

Presentation 5: "Industry-Cooperated Education Programs at Nagoya University"
by Prof. Akihiro Sasoh, next Vice Dean of Graduate School of Engineering (Nagoya University)

Presentation by Prof. Akihiro Sasoh

Nagoya has the largest industry cluster in Japan. There are many large-scale manufactures and companies in that area. Nagoya University provides NU Research Internship (1-6 months for Master and Ph.D.); 6 programs in Leading Graduate School program; Summer Intensive Program "Latest Advanced Technology and Tasks in Automobile Engineering"; and Aircraft Development Global Project Leader Training Seminar.

Session 3 Ph.D. Education and Transferable Skills
Chair: Assoc.Prof. Kayoko Nohara (Tokyo Tech)
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Haruyoshi Kumura, Fellow (Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.)

Keynote Speaker by Dr. Haruyoshi Kumura

In summary, there is no absolute linear in the innovation. The necessary transferable skills consist of (1) "Execution skill", (2) "Conflict-resolution skill" to switch constrained issues to performance, and (3) "System Dynamics skill".

Presentation 1: "The purpose of doctoral education in the 21st century"
by Prof. Nick Tyler (UCL)

Presentation by Prof. Nick Tyler

The "grand challenges" contain "Global Health", "Sustainable Cities", "Intercultural Interdisciplinary", and "Human Wellbeing", and engineering features in all challenges.

The current Ph.D. is different from the traditional Ph.D. The traditional one may considered only as a path to go on the academic pathway while the current one aims to prepare to a career in industry (research and management), then academic career following a career in industry, "research towards discovery".

Presentation 2: "Collaborating Across Cultures: The 2013 RENKEI Researcher Development School in Bristol and Kyoto"
by Prof. Tetsuo Sawaragi, Assistant to Executive Vice-President for International Affairs (Kyoto University)

Presentation by Prof. Tetsuo Sawaragi

Unfortunately, I could not attend the last 2 presentations.

Presentation 3: "Education for Cross-Boundary Innovation"
by Prof. Kosuke Sato, Head of Associate Dean (Osaka University)

Presentation 4: "EPSRC Doctoral training"
by Prof. Caroline Batchelor (EPSRC)

It is a great opportunity to join and listen to the history of engineering in Japan, current situation and programs of Ph.D. in many universities, and opinion from professors from Japan and UK.