The Leading Program participated in the 4th Student Meeting of Leading Graduate Schools

　

The 4th Student Meeting of Leading Graduate Schools was held over three days starting Friday, July 8, at Makuhari Messe International Conference Hall in Chiba Prefecture. The meeting, which was conceived to offer students an experience that goes beyond ordinary life as a graduate student, was planned and jointly hosted by the "Nurture of Creative Research Leaders in Immune System Regulation and Innovation Therapeutics" program at Chiba University along with the "Ph.D. Program in Human Biology" and the "Empowerment Informatics" program at the University of Tsukuba. The theme was "festivals."
In a workshop conducted in collaboration with the magazine Forbes JAPAN, more than 250 participating students were divided into groups of five or six and asked to create "funnovation" (a combination of "fun" and "innovation") in the spirit of "hijacking" the magazine. It proved to be no simple task for the teammates, who differed not only in their fields of research but also in their nationalities and cultural backgrounds, to discuss their thoughts, but they worked hard to come up with new ideas while remembering how Forbes JAPAN publisher and surprise guest Akihiro Fujiwara had asked in his lecture whether they were capable of being the kind of person who can start dancing first and then keep going, or a first follower (one of the first ones to participate in such a dance).
Speakers Yoshihiko Hatanaka, President and CEO of Astellas Pharma Inc.; Jun Suzuki, President and CEO of Teijin Limited; and Akira Kadokura, Group Leader of the Space and Upper Atmospheric Sciences Group at the National Institute of Polar Research offered advice for the next generation based on their experiences overcoming numerous difficulties along with hints about how to survive and flourish. The information seems to have prompted the students to think anew about their visions for their own futures.
How did the taiko drums at the festival reverberate in your heart?