UTokyo President’s Log

I attended UTokyo Africa Evening, an event to promote exchange with international students from African countries who are studying at UTokyo.

The students introduced their countries and gave presentations on their research. After their talks, I had a chance to chat with the students individually. The evening turned out to be a highly stimulating and educational experience.

I visited Google’s Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara, California, in the U.S. In May of this year, UTokyo, Google and the University of Chicago signed a partnership agreement for advancing research on quantum technology.

I met with Engineering Director Hartmut Neven, who leads the company’s quantum AI research, and members of his team, and we discussed various potential applications of quantum computing. I concluded my visit with a tour of the campus and its research facilities.

I visited the campus of Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, a city near Seattle in the U.S. state of Washington. During my visit, I learned about the company’s various initiatives and exchanged opinions on applications of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, as well as efforts to promote diversity and inclusion, and the green and digital transformations, among other topics.

I met with Corporate Vice President Peter Lee, who heads Microsoft Research, and we discussed the history and various applications of the large language model GPT-4.

I also met and talked with UTokyo alumni who are now working as researchers at Microsoft Research.

I participated in the symposium on the final day of the joint summer program between UTokyo and the Asian University for Women (AUW) in Bangladesh.

The 10-day program, held on the Hongo Campus, was designed for UTokyo and AUW students to join together to explore its theme, “Movement of people in the 21st century — ‘Migration, Immigration, and Refugees,’” and encourage them to actively engage in discussion and exchange opinions with each other. It was also aimed to provide inspiration for the students’ future careers.

Ms. Kanae Doi, Japan director of Human Rights Watch, gave the keynote speech at the symposium. This was followed by participants from the two universities presenting learning outcomes of the issues they focused on in their group projects.

The students offered a positive outlook in their presentations. Also, many of them came up to me after the symposium to express their appreciation.

We invited junior high students from the city of Shingu in Wakayama Prefecture to UTokyo and held a multiday seminar for them to learn about the historical and cultural signifance of the Kumano region and experience various activities. Shingu lies on the Kii Peninsula, south of Kyoto and Osaka, and is in the heart of the Kumano region, known for its sacred sites and pilgrimage routes.

This seminar is part of the partnership agreement concluded in March 2021 between Shingu and UTokyo’s Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, with the aim of revitalizing the region through various research and educational projects in Shingu and the surrounding Kumano region, and deepening exchanges with the people in the area.

We had to put off holding the event last year due to the COVID pandemic and are very happy to have been able to welcome the students to UTokyo for the first time this year.

At UTokyo Open Campus 2023, which was held virtually, I addressed student questions in an online talk session entitled, “What is the dream you wish to fulfill at UTokyo? Contemplating ‘a university that anyone in the world would want to join’ with President Fujii.”

The dialogue session was held among avatars, using a virtual Yasuda Auditorium as our platform.

Some of the questions could easily have been mistaken as coming from a graduate student for their complexity, while others dealt with specific, forward-looking goals, and I could feel the students’ strong enthusiasm.