令和8年度　東京大学秋季入学式　祝辞（國部 毅 東京大学校友会 会長）

Congratulatory Address by The UTokyo Alumni Association President at the AY 2026 Autumn Semester Matriculation Ceremony

Thank you for the kind introduction. My name is Takeshi Kunibe, and I speak on behalf of the UTokyo Alumni Association.

To everyone entering our university today and to your families, I offer my warmest congratulations.

I graduated from the Faculty of Economics here in 1976, and now I work as an Honorary Advisor at Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.

Since July 2024, I have served as President of the UTokyo Alumni Association. Our Alumni Association began in 2004 as an organization for the entire university. All graduates, current students, faculty, and staff are members, so everyone joining the university today is a member as well. As President of the UTokyo Alumni Association, I welcome you all.

Whenever I attend an entrance ceremony like this, I am always struck by the sight of new students taking photos in front of Yasuda Auditorium, their faces beaming. Perhaps many of you took photos here today, too.

I hear that young people today use apps to add filters to their photos and sometimes even edit their photos with AI. I wonder if some of you will edit the photos you took here today.

Ever since photography was born about two centuries ago, the technology has advanced steadily. Today, you can make a subject look more beautiful than it really is, or you can remove parts of a photo that you do not need. It is easy to create an ideal image—exactly the image you want.

This power to see only what we want is not limited to images.These days, we are surrounded by all kinds of information, and it is easy to take in only what we want to see and hear.

That is why, today, I want to share some words from the management thinker Peter Drucker.

Drucker said this: “The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.” He wrote those words in 1971. They come from the preface to his essay collection “Men, Ideas, and Politics.” Those words still speak to us today.

Your logic may be excellent, but if the question you start from is wrong, you will never reach the right solution.

I have felt this strongly in my own career as a business leader. Whenever I faced a problem with no precedent, I had to find its root cause. That meant asking the right questions.

Today, AI has become remarkably good at giving logical answers. Anyone can type in a prompt and get a decent response. What matters now more than ever are the questions we ask. That is why Drucker’s words ring so true today.

So how can we learn to ask the right questions and better questions? I believe the key is to face the unedited world—the world as it really is. We must look at it closely and honestly. And we must learn to see it in more detail, at a higher resolution. You can look as long as you like at information that makes you comfortable, but you will never find the right questions there.

Out in the real world, social issues are becoming more and more complex. To solve them, we must confront many kinds of facts and opinions. Some are inconvenient or hard for us to accept, so we must keep trying to ask better questions.

Fortunately, here at the University of Tokyo, your fellow students come from many different backgrounds. Each is a unique individual. During your student years, please engage actively with others, listen to opinions that differ from yours, and discover values that are new to you.

Such new encounters can create friction. You might feel confused or uncomfortable, and opinions may clash. I know that it sometimes takes courage to confront things as they really are, but I hope that you will face the world with that courage.

I hope you will develop eyes that see things in high resolution—eyes that will lead you to the right questions. And I hope you will become leaders who solve the problems of our world.

The UTokyo Alumni Association is another place where you can meet people with different ways of thinking, so please make the most of our community.

Let me close by wishing you all the best of health and a fulfilling student life.

Once again, congratulations.

KUNIBE Takeshi
President
The UTokyo Alumni Association
October 1, 2026