UTokyo President’s Log

I participated as a panelist in an opening talk at Todai Week @Maruouchi, an event organized as part of UTokyo’s collaboration with property developer Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd., where UTokyo professors from various fields gave talks at several venues in the Otemachi, Marunouchi and Yurakucho central business district in Tokyo. In our talk, Mitsubishi Estate President and CEO Junichi Yoshida and I centered our discussion on building a better future while creating a new industrial nucleus through industry-academia collaboration.

I took part as a speaker at THE Campus Live Japan, a Times Higher Education (THE) event, where I and other university presidents participated in a discussion titled “University leaders panel: The challenges and opportunities of reimagining the future of Japanese universities in the post-pandemic world.”

Chairman Kengo Sakurada of Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives) and I held a meeting, where we discussed realizing the business group’s vision of a society co-created by its seikatsusha — individuals in multiple roles and positions who share a common tradition, culture and spirit, as well as the organizations that are a collection of these individuals — and implementing UTokyo Compass, a statement of the guiding principles of our university. Among the topics we covered were diversity and the shape of new Japanese values to come, as well as the roles of corporations and universities and how they can collaborate with each other. 

Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran of India’s global conglomerate Tata group and its holding company, Tata Sons, visited UTokyo and delivered a lecture titled “Digital Revolution: Data-led Prosperity in the 21st Century” as a part of the Tokyo College lecture series.

Following the lecture, Mr. Chandrasekaran met and interacted with UTokyo’s Indian students and toured the General Library where he viewed a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian poet and philosopher who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913, which was donated by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India when the premier visited our campus in October 1957.

UTokyo and South Korea’s Chey Institute for Advanced Studies once again held Tokyo Forum, the annual international symposium the co-hosts launched in 2019. 

With “Dialogue between Philosophy and Science” as its main theme, this year’s event provided multifaceted dialogues between philosophers, scientists and experts from a multitude of fields, who participated in discussions on the state and humanity in the 21st century, with a view to imagining and proposing a vision of the society we need. 

The student sessions, in which participants carried out very active discussions, also proved to be very fruitful. 

A sakura tree-planting ceremony commemorating solidarity with Ukraine was held at the Koishikawa Botanical Garden of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Science. The event was organized at the initiative of the Embassy of the Czech Republic, which took over the rotating presidency of the European Union, with the cooperation of the nonprofit Cherry Blossom Association (Ikuokai) and UTokyo. 

Among the attendees were representatives of EU member states, and UTokyo members from Ukraine who are at the university under the Emergency Relief Program for Scholars and Students at Risk Following the Invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The event provided a wonderful opportunity to express our solidarity with Ukraine and reaffirm our commitment to continue our support. 

We welcomed Paul Polman for a talk event at the Komaba Campus, in which I delivered the opening remarks. Mr. Polman is a former CEO of British consumer goods company Unilever and a highly regarded business leader who has been addressing issues such as climate change and global inequality.

Following a “fireside chat” between Mr. Polman and UTokyo Executive Vice President Naoko Ishii, undergraduate and graduate students asked questions and engaged in a lively discussion.

I delivered a lecture on the topic of technology that transcends boundaries, as the guest speaker of the Metaverse School of Engineering’s second Special Lecture, aimed at UTokyo faculty and staff, students and people enrolled in the digital intitiative’s Reskilling Engineering Education Program.

At the lecture venue, I also met with students who are participating in the activities of the Metaverse School of Engineering as volunteer “tech ambassadors.”

I attended the Global HR Forum 2022 held at the Grand Walkerhill Seoul hotel in South Korea’s capital. The annual human resources event, organized by the Korea Economic Daily business newspaper, celebrated its 17th anniversary this year. The theme of the 2022 forum was “The Next Talent in the Era of Grand Transition.”

On Day One (Nov. 2) of the two-day program, I gave a keynote speech in which I addressed the importance of promoting reskilling — training to gain new or improved skills — and diversity and inclusion in a data-driven society. President Oh Se-Jung of Seoul National University, the moderator, and I engaged in a discussion following my speech.