Let's Talk about .. Check a toilet in Japan

Yesterday (December 2nd, 2013) I attended Science and Technology for Society class by Prof. Masahisa Seguchi. His lecture was about Universal Design. One part of his lecture was about Check a Toilet (developed by NPO Check), a web-based and mobile application providing map of toilet in Japan.

I think this web and app are interesting and very useful for everyone in Japan. It provides both Japanese and English versions. You can check the nearby toilets from your current location. Not only the map, but it also provides the information of that toilet such as photo, equipments  emergency call buttons, baby seat, usable hours), and others (distinction, barriers, door, space, handrail, seat).

It allows everyone to share the photo, information, report of any toilet in Japan in order to create larger and larger database of toilet.

You can download Check a toilet iOS application here, and android application here.

Note. I have no financial benefit or business relationship with Check a toilet. I just think it is useful app.

Let's Talk about .. Refresh Surface 2/Touch Cover

Yesterday I tried to connect the Touch Cover to Surface 2. The touch pad was work well, but the keyboard was not. After checking from the solution from Microsoft website at Troubleshoot your surface cover: (1) check the connection between Surface and the cover, (2) restart Surface, (3) install Surface and Windows updates, and (4) check its setting; I followed these suggestion, but my keyboard was still not able to use.

Surface 2 with Touch Cover

It is possible that some of the setting may be changed during my usage. Therefore, I tried to refresh it.

Refresh
Refresh means reinstall Windows but keep all the personal data, preinstalled applications, and those application downloaded from Windows Store.
And finally, I can use it.

Instruction to refresh Surface

• Connect the Touch Cover
• Swipe (from) the right side
• Tap Settings
• Tap PC Setting
• Tap Update and recovery
• Tap Refresh
• Tap Get started
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Update and recovery menu

In fact, I found this suggestion (Microsoft's Refresh or reset Surface RT or Surface 2) after I did refresh. So, if your keyboard on your touch cover has problem


Ref.
[1] Microsoft. (2013). Refresh or reset Surface RT or Surface 2. Retrieved November 2013 from http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-th/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/refresh-or-reset-surface
[2] Microsoft. (2013). Troubleshoot your Surface Cover. Retrieved November 2013 from http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-th/support/hardware-and-drivers/troubleshoot-surface-keyboards

Let's Talk about .. IMPAC-T Final Workshop

During November 11-13, 2013, I received a fruitful invitation to join the Final Workshop of IMPAC-T at Sendai, Japan, through the kind help from Assoc.Prof. Shinjiro Kanae (Tokyo Institute of Technology), Assoc.Prof. Daisuke Komori (Tohoku University), and Asst.Prof. Shinichiro Nakamura (the University of Tokyo), as well as Mr. Weerayuth Pratoomchai (Ph.D. student at Tohoku University), who introduced this project to me.

                                               

Along the way to the workshop

Registration of the workshop

IMPAC-T stands for Integrated study on Hydro-Meteorological Prediction and Adaptation to Climate Change in Thailand. It is a project established since 2008 with the support from SATREPS (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development). It is a collaborative projects between JICA, JST, the University of Tokyo, Kasetsart University with the researchers from many organizations such as Kasetsart University, KMUTT, Chulalongkorn University, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tohoku University, etc.

Prof. Taikan Oki (The University of Tokyo) gave an opening speech

This workshop is the final one before the final public symposium, IMPAC-T International Symposium “Coping with Climate Change Effects by Science and Technology” during January 27-28, 2014 at the Westin Grande Sukhumvit, Bangkok, Thailand. Thus, this workshop is not open to public and is considered to be one of preparation for the symposium.

Through these 3 days, not only seeing various new research from both Japanese and Thai researchers, I can make some networking and contacts with people in this area via the help of Dr. Chaiwat Ekkawatpani (KMUTT).

My seniors at Tohoku University and me

Let's Talk about .. Design Workshop

Today (October 31st, 2013), halloween day, there was the International Workshop Participatory Methods for Co-design Approach at Tokyo Institute of Technology. This workshop was organized by Assoc.Prof. Celine Mougenot (Department of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering) and Assoc.Prof. Naoya Abe (Department of International Development Engineering).

Due to my schedule, I can attend only the morning session. It was hands-on session called "Design Principles for Non-Designers" by Ms. Victoria Gerrard. She is an executive director of O(Opportunity)-Lab, SUTD-MIT International Design Center, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore.

Ms. Victoria in hands-on session

She started with showing many products of banana leaf. I can understand many things related to design in that session. 

Design is understanding

First, "design is understanding". We should not be aggressive to the environment, but we should understand it. We can design although we do not know how it will be.

Who should design?

The answer is everyone. We can find design every where. Design can also be professional and universal. 

Learning from failure

Through the activity she asked us to design, we can learn that failure can be the lesson to have a good design. Many times we started with too complex idea, but it might not be OK to implement. Once we know failure, we can change, improve, or modify it.

Rich picture

It is another activity we tried. We drew our design which expressed something. I did my work as the disaster management rich picture as it is what I am interested in.

Discussion on our Rich Picture design

Although I cannot attend the full program, thank Ms. Victoria Gerrard, Assoc.Prof. Mougenor, Assoc.Prof. Abe, and all organizers for setting this workshop.

Let's Talk about .. Starting business in Japan

Special thanks to the invitation information from Assoc.Prof. Yuriko Sato, I attended a special lecture "Starting Business and Engaging in Volunteer Activities in Japan" by Dr. August Hergesheimer, Founder of Abios Co., Ltd. and Save Minamisoma Project. 

The lecture was at Tokyo Institute of Technology on October 30th, 2013. It is organized by the International Student Center, Tokyo Tech.

It was in the style of talk. Assoc.Prof. Yuriko raised the questions and then Dr. August answered those questions. The talk was mainly about his profile, his business, and his volunteer project.

There are many interesting things I learned from this special lecture.

Not heavy brain, but god-feeling
First of all, the way of thinking to create a new seed of business. He suggested that instead of using "heavy brain" (i.e., extensive information), we should use god-feeling to generate the idea of new business. As for his case, he established his business, Abios (nutrition business) in Japan. His company reached break-even point after the first year of business.

Consider five things before starting business
He mentioned 5 things to consider before starting business.
(1) "Product": but anyway product alone cannot make a great market;
(2) "Legality": how we can trade, protect, ...., our products;
(3) "Logistic";
(4) "Communication": how we can communicate the value of our product to the customers;
(5) "Cash flow": no cash flow, no business.

Language and information

It is true as he mentioned about the language and information. He talked the example of his business. In the past, the awareness of organic food for Japanese people was relatively low. One of the reasons is about language. Using Japanese and using English have different in terms of opinions since most of available information in Japanese language are written by Japanese, but available information English are not only written by American or English, but everywhere in the world. We can get more perspective by searching in English. Nevertheless, (in my opinion) information in Japanese also have many specific knowledge in various fields especially technology.

Save Minamisoma Project
Not only focusing on business, he is also working on his volunteer project, Save Minamisoma Project, which is founded by him. The project has established from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and continued until now. If you would like to join the project, you can easily join and check their facebook.

Finally, what necessary for the entrepreneur is "Attitude".

Dr. August and me at Tokyo Tech

Thank you very much Dr. August for many things you explained in the lecture room and many things you talked with me after that.

Let's Talk about .. Design (Thinking) of Business and Tokyo Tech IS Lab

This autumn my advisor, Prof. Junichi Iijima, has chosen a book called "The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage" by Prof. Roger L. Martin for our lab book reading seminar. For me, it is one of the interesting books because the book described and show many cases related to the story. Especially, the Knowledge Funnel of Prof. Martin explains how we can take a step to discover "innovation".

Last week, my lab mate, Chaeyoung Lim, presented about Design Thinking in this seminar. There is the definition of Design Thinking by Tim Brown (2008), CEO and president of IDEO, as "A discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and method to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity" mentioned in the book. I have known some works of Tim Brown since 2010 when I took a Design Thinking course of Assoc.Prof. Hiroyuki Umemuro. I also bought a Thai edition of the book "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation" by Tim Brown at that time.

Tim Brown's concept of Design Thinking have been mentioned and referenced by many researches. From suggestion of Prof. Junichi Iijima and Asst.Prof. Jaehyun Park, I searched more about IDEO. I found many interesting stories created or supported by IDEO people. According to IDEO, innovation is the result of "Feasibility (Technical)", "Viability (Business)", and "Desirability (Human)". Prof. Iijima also said that currently our IS Lab at Tokyo Tech consists of experts in these three areas (i.e., Prof. Iijima in technological area, Assoc.Prof. Dai Senoo in business area, and Asst.Prof. Jaehyun Park in design area). 

I should learn more from them in order to be a person who can establish new innovation.

Ref.

[1] Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86 (6). 

[2] Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, NY: Harper Business.

[3] IDEO. About IDEO. Retrieved October 2013 from http://www.ideo.com/about/

[4] Martin, R. L. (2009). The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage, MA: Harvard Business Press.

Let's Talk about .. Disaster Organizations

In the world, there are many organizations doing the informing, warning, or other duties related to the disaster. Thank Assoc.Prof.Dr. Anawat Suppasri who provided me many information about them. I summarized them in order to collect as a list to be used in the future. One point that we can see is that most of them were established by the trigger of some event (disasters).

Organizations related to disaster warning system

1. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC)
• Establisher: US NOAA's National Weather Service, 1949
• Trigger: 1946 Aleutian Earthquake and Tsunami
• Location: Hawaii, USA
• Main duty: Coast and Geodetic Survey (CGS)
2. International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC)
• Establisher: UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), 1965
• Trigger: 1960 Chilean Earthquake and Tsunami
• Location: Hawaii, USA
3. Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning System (ICG/PTWS) (previously known as International Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific (ICG/ITSU))
• Establisher: UNESCO IOC, 1968
• Location: 
• Main duty: Warning for remote tsunamis occurring in the Pacific Ocean
4. National Data Buoy Center (NDBC)
• Establisher: US Coast Guard Home, 1967 (currently belong to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA))
• Location: Mississippi, USA
• Main duty: Providing data from buoys and Coastal Marine Automated Network (C-MAN)
5. Northwest Pacific Tsunami Advisory Center (NWPTAC)
• Establisher: Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), 2005
• Location: Tokyo, Japan
• Main duty: Providing northwestern Pacific tsunami information
6. Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWS)
• Establisher: Indian Ocean nations, UNESCO IOC, others
• Trigger: 2004 Great Indian Ocean Tsunami
• Location: Perth, Australia
• Main duty: Studying plan to construct Indian Ocean tsunami warning system

Ref.

[1] Murata, S., Imamura, F., & Katoh, K., Kawata, Y., Takahashi, S., & Takayama, T. (2011). Tsunami: to survive from tsunami (Vol. 32) (2nd ed.). Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.

Let's Talk about .. Internship at IRIDeS

From this week, I will do my internship at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. My internship is under the supervision of Prof.Dr. Fumihiko Imamura and Assoc.Prof.Dr. Anawat Suppasri.

IRIDeS is a research institute which was established by Tohoku University from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami event. It is located in the Campus of School of Engineering.

Let's Talk about .. GLIDE

As same as other types of data, primary key is necessary to identify the unique item or instance. For the area of disaster, each disaster is also assigned unique identifier, so-called "GLIDE". GLIDE = GLobal unique disaster IDEntifier.

The format of GLIDE is AA-BBBB-CCCCCC-DDD-[EEE]; while AA is "Hazard Code", BBBB is "Year", CCCCCC is "Serial Number", DDD is "ISO Country Code", and [EEE] is "Optional State/Province Code"[1].

For example, 2011 Thailand Floods has GLIDE as "FL-2011-000135-THA".

GLIDE has been used proposed by Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC). For more information you can find from http://glidenumber.net

Ref.
[1] Asian Disaster Reduction Center. (2005). GLIDE (GLobal unique disaster IDEntifier). In T. Jeggle (Ed.) Know Risk. (p. 80) Leicester: Tudor Rose.

Let's Talk about .. 2011 Tsunami affected area in Sendai in 2013

On May 11th, 2013, I got an opportunity to join the tsunami damage and reconstruction site visit in Miyagi prefecture (宮城県) with the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) (災害科学国際研究所), Tohoku University (東北大学), Japan. I would like to thank Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri and Tohoku University for this great opportunity.

This (AEARU) site visit trip was leaded by Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri and Prof. Yuichi Ono from IRIDeS with facilities support from Tohoku University's staffs.

After 2011 East Japan Great Earthquake and Tsunami, many areas in Sendai were still inundated, especially rice fields. Sendai is considered as an important rice producer in Japan. Currently, the situation has been better.  

The first place we went to was Onagawa Hospital. This hospital was used as the shelter during the disaster. However, the water arrived the first floor of the hospital even if it is located on the cliff. You can see the mark indicated the high of water level at the entrance of Onagawa Regional Medical Center (女川町地域医療センター) in my photo below the photo of Onagawa Hospital.

 Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri explained the impact of tsunami. Most of the buildings in this area were attached and submerged by water. One of the ruined building still stands there. It was a bank located in this area.

This train passed when we were moving to the next place.

Although there are breakwater along the coastal area, but the scale of 2011 tsunami was very large, that is why many areas were damaged.

 Kadonowaki Elementary School in Ishinomaki was our next stop. This school was burnt during 2011 tsunami. Actually, tsunami arrived only around the first flood of the school but there was burnt car flown to school with fire and caused the whole school burnt. Luckily, the students were informed to evacuate.

A short break was there with this Kamen raider.

Then, we moved to Arahama village in Wakabayashi. The Arahama Elementary School was used as an official evacuation shelter.

A new tsunami memorial was established, together with the list of deaths.

Next, we went to Hiyoriyama Minato Shrine (日和山 湊神社分霊). This shrine is located on the hill. Before walking up, we walked to the back of the hill to see the stone inscriptions indicated the previous tsunamis.

Then, the last destination was Iwanuma city. The idea of establishing an artificial hill, so-called "Millennium Hope Hills", was proposed in order to reduce the energy of tsunami in the future. For the current progress, they have built an experimental hill. They are checking if there is any reaction from the combination of various material of garbages.

Acknowledgements
Special thank Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri, Prof. Yuichi Ono, all Tohoku University staffs.

Ref.
[1] Suppasri, A., & Mas, E. (2013, May 13). Field guide of tsunami damage and reconstruction site visit in Miyagi prefecture. Miyagi: International Research Institute of Disaster Science.

Let's Talk about .. The 10th Tokodai Science Cafe

This year, there is the 10th Tokodai Science Cafe at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Tokodai is an abbreviation of Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japanese. This time I am one of the organizer team. I'd like to introduce you to join if you're interested in.

Designed by Natsumi Takahashi

The 10th Tokodai Science Cafe

Theme: さわる　感じる　伝える　こころ

Date: Saturday February 16th, 2013

Time: 13:00-15:30 (Door open: 12:45)

Venue: 手島精一記念会議室, Tokyo Tech Front 3rd Floor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama Campus

Entrance fee: 500 Yen (Including drink and snacks)

Language: Japanese (mainly)

Note: Web register is required

URL: http://titechsciencecafe2013.web.fc2.com/index.html