The Kansai Resilience Forum 2019

Date & Location: February 22, 2019 | Kobe, Japan
Venue: The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art

Kansai Resilience Forum 2019 ProgrammeThe Kansai Resilience Forum 2019 is an event organised by the Government of Japan in collaboration with The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), which re-examines resilience from interdisciplinary perspectives and paradigms, from the abstract concept to the concrete, with contributions from thought leaders in academia, business and government.

Although Japan-focussed, this event invites comparative and contrastive reflection on the concept and reality of resilience as a positive and necessary trait for survival in individuals and societies, and how it is nurtured through education and training in the preparation for challenges of all kinds.

The one-day invitation-only event will comprise panels on Disaster Management Strategy, Resilience and Society, and Resilience and the Globalising Economy, and will culminate with a special keynote presentation by world renowned architect, Tadao Ando, who designed the event venue, the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, following the Kobe earthquake of 1995. Completed in 2002 the museum is a symbol of regeneration and renewal, and a testament to the resilience of the city.

This event is organised with the kind support of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University, Kobe University and the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art.

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Speakers

Keynote Speaker

  • Tadao Ando
    Tadao Ando
    Tadao Ando Architects & Associates, Japan

Panel I: Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy

  • Yuki Matsuoka
    Yuki Matsuoka
    The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
  • Shota Hattori
    Shota Hattori
    Kozo Keikaku Engineering, Japan
  • Satoru Oishi
    Satoru Oishi
    Kobe University, Japan
  • Ljiljana Markovic
    Ljiljana Markovic
    University of Belgrade, Serbia
  • Peng Er Lam
    Peng Er Lam
    National University of Singapore, Singapore
  • Haruko Satoh
    Haruko Satoh
    OSIPP, Osaka University, Japan

Panel II: Resilience and Society

  • Hiroshi Okumura
    Hiroshi Okumura
    Kobe University, Japan
  • Tomohide Atsumi
    Tomohide Atsumi
    Osaka University, Japan
  • Hidenobu Sumioka
    Hidenobu Sumioka
    Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory, ATR, Japan
  • Lowell Sheppard
    Lowell Sheppard
    HOPE International Development Agency, Japan
  • Monty P. Satiadarma
    Monty P. Satiadarma
    Tarumanagara University, Indonesia
  • Richard Lloyd Parry
    Richard Lloyd Parry
    The Times (London), Japan

Panel III: Resilience and the Globalising Economy

  • Tasuku Kuwabara
    Tasuku Kuwabara
    McKinsey & Company, Japan
  • Ray Klein
    Ray Klein
    Tekinvest KK, Japan
  • Takenosuke Yasufuku
    Takenosuke Yasufuku
    Kobe Shushinkan Breweries, Japan
  • Atsushi Iizuka
    Atsushi Iizuka
    Kobe University/RIKEN, Japan
  • Thomas Mayrhofer
    Thomas Mayrhofer
    Intercontinental Group, Japan
  • Brad Glosserman
    Brad Glosserman
    Tama University, Japan

Special Keynote Presentation: Tadao Ando

  • Yutaka Mino
    Yutaka Mino
    Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan
  • Tadao Ando
    Tadao Ando
    Tadao Ando Architects & Associates, Japan

Welcome Addresses

  • Tomoaki Ishigaki
    Tomoaki Ishigaki
    Prime Minister's Office, Government of Japan
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    IAFOR, Japan

On Resilience in Japan: Managing Disaster Risks

When struck with disaster caused by natural hazards, such as earthquakes and typhoons, the Japanese have been shown to have remarkable resilience. In the aftermath of Typhoon Jebi in September that closed down Kansai International Airport due to extensive flooding and damage to the bridge connecting the airport to the mainland, the airport was fully operational and back to business as usual within weeks. The Kansai area was a disaster zone that summer, still recovering from flooding and an earthquake from only a few months earlier, and yet the people were determined to carry on as usual. This ability to recover quickly from setbacks and crises may be called a trait — a thread that weaves through the narrative of Japan’s modern history. Recovering from the ashes of war devastation, three massive earthquakes that flattened Tokyo (1923), Kobe (1995) and the entire Pacific coastal regions of Tohoku (2011), not to mention many more earthquakes that hit other cities, such as Niigata, Kumamoto, and more recently in Hokkaido, the efforts to recover are an intrinsic part of coping with numerous personal tragedies.

Japan is faced with what has been described as a demographic disaster as it is the first country to undergo a peacetime population decline. It now has the oldest population in the world. All eyes are on Japan as it has the dubious honour of leading the world. How it is able to cope will provide best practices for other countries facing similar demographic challenges.

There are other crises and calamities that set all of us back, whatever our nationality and wherever we are, as part of the international system that connects countries, businesses and peoples. While trying to remain open and connected, the compulsion to close up borders and control the flow of peoples, information and goods is also part of world politics today. Japan’s modern history is also a story of shifting and adjusting to the dramatically changing outside world, incrementally but nevertheless changing as a way of overcoming the challenges of modernity. It is not resistant to change, but perhaps resilient to the changes that come its way.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 was adopted by the UN Member States and endorsed by the UN General Assembly. The Sendai Framework recognizes that the State has the primary responsibility to reduce disaster risk, but that responsibility should be shared with others including local governments, the private sector, civil society, media, academia, scientific and research institutions. The Sendai Framework also advocates for an inclusive approach to disaster risk reduction. Women, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly are all actors for disaster risk reduction, not just vulnerable people.

This Forum on “Resilience” is themed around the ways Japanese society as a whole demonstrates this capacity to overcome, as a reflection of Japanese ways of doing things that may contribute to building resilience in other societies around the world.

In Support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Media Partner

Wall Street Journal Logo - Media Partner Kansai Resilience Forum Japan

Tadao Ando
Tadao Ando Architects & Associates, Japan

Biography

Tadao Ando was born in Osaka, in 1941. He taught himself about architecture and, in 1969, established Tadao Ando Building Research Institute. His major works include “Church of Light”, “Pulitzer Art Museum”, “Underground Art Museum”, among others. In 1979, he received the Architectural Association Award in "Sumiyoshi Nagaya", the Japan Art Institute Prize in 1993, the Pritzker Prize in 1995, the 2003 Cultural Merit Award, the 2005 International Federation of Architects Alliance (UIA) Gold Medal, the 2010 John F. Kennedy Center Arts Gold Prize, the Goto Shinpei Prize, the Cultural Medal from the Emperor of Japan, Order of the French Arts and Culture in 2013 (Commandeur), the Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy in 2013, the 2016 Isamu Noguchi Award, and many others. A solo exhibition was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1991, and at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 1993. Ando has also been Visiting professor at Yale, Columbia, and Harvard University, as well as Professor of the University of Tokyo since 1997 (now Professor Emeritus).

Yuki Matsuoka
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)

Biography

Dr Yuki Matsuoka is the Head of the UNISDR Office in Japan, and has been since 2009. She joined the UNISDR Headquarters (Geneva) in 2004 as a programme officer. Prior to joining UNISDR, her career field included the overseas division of a private company, the Embassy of Japan in New Zealand, and the Permanent Mission of Japan to the International Organizations (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan) in Geneva. She was engaged in the coordination process of the Second UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction (January 2005, in Kobe) including the process to develop the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015. Since April 2005, she served as Special Assistant to the Director at the UNISDR Headquarters, after which she became the Head of the UNISDR Office in Japan (in 2009). She was engaged in the overall coordination of the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March, 2015, in Sendai.

In cooperation with stakeholders around the world, including many partners/relevant organizations in Japan, Dr Matsuoka, as the Head of the UNISDR Office in Japan, has been working on promoting the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the international guidelines for disaster risk reduction adopted in the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. She holds a PhD in Global Environmental Studies.

Shota Hattori
Kozo Keikaku Engineering, Japan

Biography

Mr Shota Hattori is President of Kozo Keikaku Engineering (KKE) Inc., a leading structural design and supervision company in Japan which was established in 1959. Mr Hattori studied at the University of Tokyo, obtaining his Master's at the Graduate School of Sociology in 1982. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study at MIT in 1985. He joined Boston Consulting Group in 1985, accumulating experience in the consulting field in the United States and Japan. He joined KKE in 1987. After serving as a Director and the General Manager of the Innovative Information Technology Department, he became the President of KKE in 2002. He now serves as the Chief Executive Officer, Head of Kumamoto Kozo Keikaku Engineering and Manager of Fukuoka District Office at Kozo Keikaku Engineering Inc. He served as a General Manager of Marketing Division at Kozo Keikaku Engineering Inc. He serves as Vice President of the Executive Board of The Japan Society for Management Information, as well as lecturing and giving seminars at universities. He has been a Representative Director at Kozo Keikaku Engineering Inc., since September 2001.

Satoru Oishi
Kobe University, Japan

Biography

Satoru Oishi conducted disaster-related research for more than 25 years. During 1993 to 1999, he was a research associate of Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, and he mainly focused on fundamental mechanisms of cumulus cloud generation and development by using numerical simulations of cloud-resolving model. He also conducted many observation experimental projects like “BIWAKO project” and “X-BAIU” for measuring atmospheric data and comparing the measured data with numerically simulated results.

From 2000 to 2009, he was an associate professor in the University of Yamanashi, and he studied river engineering and sabo engineering in Yamanashi Prefecture, where many target rivers and tributaries could be found. He collected some samples from rivers to detected the sources of sediments. He also conducted many field studies abroad under the project of CREST. This activity helped him to expand his international activity.

From 2009 to present, he has been a professor at Kobe University. He mainly focuses on applications of remote sensing techniques to disaster prevention. He developed mini X-MP radar with a private company in Hyogo Prefecture, and they used the radars for sewage water pipe operations, and raising citizens’ awareness against flood and inundation in local areas in Japan, as well as volcanic debris flow warnings. As a team leader of RIKEN R-CCS, he is working for promoting high-performance computing simulation of disasters including earthquake, tsunami and weather-related disasters.

Ljiljana Markovic
University of Belgrade, Serbia

Biography

Dr Ljiljana Markovic is Dean, Chairperson of the Doctoral Studies Program and Full Professor in Japanese Studies at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. She has previously served as Vice Dean for Financial Affairs, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade (2008-2016). She holds the positions of Chairperson of the Association of Japanologists of Serbia, Member of the University of Belgrade Council, Chairperson of the University of Belgrade SYLFF Committee, Member of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Bilingual Education Board, and Member of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Culture, Committee on Books Procurement for Public Libraries. In 2010 she received the Gaimu Daijin Sho Award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and in 2011 she received the Dositej Obradovic Award for Pedagogical Achievement. She is the author of a large number of publications in the fields of Japanese studies and economics.

Peng Er Lam
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Biography

Dr Peng Er Lam, a political scientist, obtained his PhD from Columbia University. His publications have appeared in international journals such as the Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Asian Affairs, Japan Forum and Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics. Lam's latest single-authored book is Japan's Peace Building Diplomacy in Asia: Searching for an Active Political Role (New York and London: Routledge, 2009). Other books include: Japan’s Relations with Southeast Asia: The Fukuda Doctrine and Beyond (London and New York: Routledge, 2013) edited, Japan's Relations with China: Facing a Rising Power (New York and London: Routledge, 2006) edited and Green Politics in Japan (London: Routledge, 1999). He is an executive editor of the International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (A Journal of the Japan Association of International Relations published by Oxford University Press) and Asian Journal of Peacebuilding (Journal of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National University).

Haruko Satoh
OSIPP, Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Haruko Satoh is Specially Appointed Professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), where she teaches Japan’s relations with Asia and identity in international relations. She is also co-director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre and she was previously part of the MEXT Reinventing Japan project on “Peace and Human Security in Asia (PAHSA)” with six Southeast Asian and four Japanese universities.

In the past she has worked at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), Chatham House, and Gaiko Forum. Her interests are primarily in state theory, Japanese nationalism and identity politics. Recent publications include: “China in Japan’s Nation-state Identity” in James DJ Brown & Jeff Kingston (eds) Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia (Routledge, 2018); “Japan’s ‘Postmodern’ Possibility with China: A View from Kansai” in Lam Peng Er (ed), China-Japan Relations in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); “Rethinking Security in Japan: In Search of a Post-‘Postwar’ Narrative” in Jain & Lam (Eds.), Japan’s Strategic Challenges in a Changing Regional Environment (World Scientific, 2012); “Through the Looking-glass: China’s Rise as Seen from Japan”, (co-authored with Toshiya Hoshino), Journal of Asian Public Policy, 5(2), 181–198, (July 2012); “Post- 3.11 Japan: A Matter of Restoring Trust?”, ISPI Analysis No. 83 (December 2011); “Legitimacy Deficit in Japan: The Road to True Popular Sovereignty” in Kane, Loy & Patapan (Eds.), Political Legitimacy in Asia: New Leadership Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), “Japan: Re-engaging with China Meaningfully” in Tang, Li & Acharya (eds), Living with China: Regional States and China through Crises and Turning Points, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Hiroshi Okumura
Kobe University, Japan

Biography

Professor Hiroshi Okumura (Professor and Dean of Graduate School of Humanities, Kobe University/Vice-Director of Office of Promoting Regional Partnership, Kobe University). Born in 1960, I am an expert on Modern Japanese History and Historical Archive Studies. Particularly, I have been investigating the formation process of regional societies in Japan from the end of Edo period to Meiji period, whereas working on many editorial projects of municipal histories, such as in Kobe and Himeji cities. Furthermore, since the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in 1995, as a leading committee member of the Shiryo-net [the network to conserve historical materials in Japan], I have promoted various activities to protect local historical and cultural heritages in areas devastated by natural disasters. In this field, I also serve as a member of various committees, [e.g. Cabinet Office 39’s committee for protecting cultural heritages and creating communities resilient to natural disasters] and provide expertise in protection and utilization of local historical heritages to wider society. My recent books are Great Earthquakes and Conservation of Historical Materials: From the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake to the Great East Japan Earthquake (Tokyo: Yoshikawakobunkan, 2012) and Regional Historical Heritage and Contemporary Society (Kobe:Kobe University Press, 2018).

Tomohide Atsumi
Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Tomohide Atsumi is a professor in the Faculty of Human Sciences at Osaka University. He has published books on the psychology of disaster prevention, recovery from natural disasters, and post-conflict resolution. Professor Atsumi has conducted extensive research and published numerous papers on various psychological aspects of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and on post-disaster communities in Japan.

Hidenobu Sumioka
Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory, ATR, Japan

Biography

Dr Hidenobu Sumioka is attached to the Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory in ATR, Japan, where he is the group leader of Presence Media Research Group. This group makes use of presence media technologies such as Hugvie, a cushion with a minimalistic human-shape design that transmits human presence, that integrate tactile information and remote conversation in order to improve interaction and reduce stress. With the collaboration of the industry consortium, this technology aims to create new business areas such as remote counseling.

Dr Sumioka is an invited Associate Professor in the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Department of Systems Innovation at the Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University. He is also an Invited Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies at Kobe University. He has also been a senior assistant at Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Informatics, University of Zurich, Switzerland, and a fellow of Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Lowell Sheppard
HOPE International Development Agency, Japan

Biography

Lowell Sheppard is Asia Pacific Director of the HOPE International Development Agency, an organization focused on working with the world’s extreme poor in their quest to climb out of poverty. A fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, Mr Sheppard is the author of six books, which reflect his diverse intellectual interests, and life experience. Lowell is a noted public speaker, and has given lectures at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Lowell has been involved in helping communities rebuild after times of natural disaster and war. In particular, through HOPE, he assisted 20 communities in Tohoku following the devastation of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami by enabling the re-starts and start-ups of 70 small businesses.

Lowell also cycled through Tohoku researching the role that “tsunami stones” have played in preserving communities.

Monty P. Satiadarma
Tarumanagara University, Indonesia

Biography

Dr Monty P. Satiadarma is a clinical psychologist who has been teaching psychology at Tarumanagara University since 1994. He was one of the founders of the Department of Psychology at Tarumanagara, as well as the Dean of Psychology, Vice Rector and Rector of the university. He graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Indonesia, art therapy from Emporia State, Kansas, family counselling from Notre Dame de Namur, California, and clinical hypnotherapy from Irvine, California. He has nationally published a number of books with a particular interest in educational psychology, and in music and art therapy – methods with which he treated survivors of the Indonesian tsunami on behalf of the International Red Cross and the United Nations. He is a board member and area chair of the International Council of Psychology, and a founder and board member of the Asian Psychology Association.

Richard Lloyd Parry
The Times (London), Japan

Biography

Richard Lloyd Parry is an author and foreign correspondent, and the Asia Editor of The Times. He was born in Southport, Merseyside in 1969, and educated at Oxford University. Since 1995 has lived in Tokyo, working first for The Independent and now The Times. He has reported from twenty-seven countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and Macedonia. In recent years, he has covered the war in Iraq, the crisis in North Korea, political turmoil in Thailand and Burma, and the tsunami and nuclear disasters in Japan. In 2005, he was named Foreign Correspondent of the Year in the UK’s What The Papers Say Awards.

He has also contributed to the London Review of Books, Granta and the New York Times Magazine. His books include In the Time of Madness (Cape 2005), an account of the violence in Indonesia in the late 1990s, People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman, published in February 2011, and longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, and Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone, published in 2017.

Tasuku Kuwabara
McKinsey & Company, Japan

Biography

Tasuku Kuwabara is a leader of McKinsey & Company's Healthcare Practice in Japan and Asia. He primarily serves pharmaceutical and medical-technology companies, as well as companies in adjacent sectors, in the areas of strategic alliance and joint-venture negotiations and management. He also leads a team of operational transformation consultants for pharmaceutical and medical-technology companies.

Beyond his corporate finance expertise, his recent projects included developing emerging-market strategies, R&D strategies, and organisational transformation. Tasuku frequently counsels client-leadership teams about the development and execution of globalisation strategies. He has also led multiple projects for operational transformation of pharmaceutical and medical-technology companies, including lean manufacturing and supply chain management redesign.

Tasuku also leads various initiatives related to the public and social sector in Japan and Asia and has been invited to various international conferences to speak on these topics.

Ray Klein
Tekinvest KK, Japan

Biography

Ray Klein is an entrepreneur, mentor, crisis manager, and project leader. Ray Klein co-founded American Life Inc., a Seattle, WA real estate investment company, in 1996. During his tenure, from 1996 to 2012, he grew total funds under management to approximately USD 1 billion, primarily from Asian investors. During 2012–2014, he led Rainbow Clean Energy GK, a developer of mega-solar power generation projects in Japan. In 2015–2016, he restructured and then sold a USD 1.5 million retail and gift store business that was previously acquired as part of the Okabe purchase. In 2009, he led a local private investor group in the acquisition of the Okabe Hotel Group, a 500-room resort chain in Japan, and served as its president until the company was sold in late 2010. In 1996, Ray also founded Tekinvest KK, a strategic consulting firm that focused on localizing numerous U.S. technology companies to the Japanese market. Most notable was NetRatings Japan, Inc. (a joint venture with Nielsen Media Research and Transcosmos Inc.). Ray has previously served on the board of HOPE International Development Agency, Japan, which extends help to Asia's neglected poor. He holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science.

Ray is bilingual in English and Japanese, and has lived in Tokyo since 1990.

Personal interests include cycling and yoga.

Takenosuke Yasufuku
Kobe Shushinkan Breweries, Japan

Biography

Takenosuke Yasufuku is the President of the 13th generation owner of Kobe Shushinkan Breweries, a 250-year-old sake house. When Takenosuke was a university student in the United States, the 1995 Kobe earthquake levelled the brewery. This disaster set in motion a major shift in the family operation — first led by his father and brother — to redirect production with local rice farmers, improved quality, and enhanced experiences (including restaurants, tasting rooms, etc.).

Japan’s sake market is crowded and shrinking. Many smaller sake makers struggle to find the right size and audience for their products. The company is facing these challenges and successfully marketing in Japan and abroad, and its flagship Fukuju sake is known to sommeliers internationally, and has been served at the Nobel Prize ceremony.

Atsushi Iizuka
Kobe University/RIKEN, Japan

Biography

Professor Atsushi Iizuka is currently Director of the Information Science and Technology Center, and a former Director of Research Center for Urban Safety and Security at Kobe University, which was established just after the 1995 earthquake to accumulate related research. His research area is basically Geotechnical Engineering. Especially his interest was focused on the theoretical interpretation of mechanical behavior of soil materials and development of numerical simulation techniques for ground deformation. But since he moved to Research Center for Urban Safety and Security, Kobe University, his research area was widened to the cross-sectoral research topics relating to disaster prevention and mitigation. He is now working on collaborative researches with RIKEN R-CCS, JAMSTEC, E-Defense and so on, related to that field. Also, he is currently a leader of the research unit of Multidisciplinary Integration for Resilience And Innovation: MIRAI, which was established in 2017 at Kobe University. This world-leading research has been the basis of implementation of best practices in Japan and abroad.

Thomas Mayrhofer
Intercontinental Group, Japan

Biography

Thomas Mayrhofer is currently the Regional General Manager for ANA Crowne Plaza hotels, part of the Intercontinental Group, and concurrently GM for the Crowne Plaza Osaka. He has previously been area manager for the same group, and GM of the ANA Crowne Plaza Kobe.

Born in Salzburg, Austra in 1966, he emigrated to Canada in 1983 to pursue a career in the hospitality industry. He has extensive international experience, having worked in leadership positions in the hospitality industry in China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan.

A keen mentor, he has also lectured in Hospitality Management at Malaspina University-College, Canada, and served on the Executive Committee as Co-Chair of the Business Programs Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan,

Mr Mayrhofer holds an MBA from the University of Guelph, and is married with two children.

Brad Glosserman
Tama University, Japan

Biography

Brad Glosserman is a Deputy Director of and Visiting Professor at the Center for Rule-making Strategies, Tama University. He is also a Senior Adviser at Pacific Forum, where he served for 13 years (2004-2017) as executive director.

Brad is co-author (with Scott Snyder) of The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash (Columbia University Press 2015). Peak Japan: The End of Grand Ambitions (Georgetown University Press) will be published in early 2019. He is the editor, with Tae-hyo Kim, of The Future of U.S.-Korea-Japan Relations: Balancing Values and Interests (CSIS, 2004). He is also the English-language editor of the journal of the New Asia Research Institute (NARI) in Seoul. A frequent participant in US State Department visiting lecture programs and the US Navy’s Regional Security Education Program, he speaks at conferences, research institutes and universities around the world. His commentary regularly appears in media around the globe. He has written dozens of monographs and articles on US foreign policy and Asian security relations and he has contributed numerous chapters to books on regional security.

He was for 10 years a member of the editorial board of The Japan Times. He continues to serve as a contributing editor.

He is an adjunct lecturer at the Management Center of Innsbruck (MCI) and a guest lecturer at the Osaka University School of International Public Policy (OSIPP). He has a JD from the George Washington University National Law Center, an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a BA from Reed College.

Yutaka Mino
Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan

Biography

Dr Yutaka Mino was born in Kanazawa, Japan, in 1941, and received his PhD in Art History from Harvard University, in 1977. He was appointed associate curator in charge of the Asiatic Department at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in 1976, the curator of the Oriental Art Department at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, in 1977, and the curator of the Asian Department at the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1985. After Returning to Japan, he was named as the director of the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, in 1996, and as the founding director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, in 2004. In 2007, he became the Vice Chairman, Sotheby’s North America, the Chief Executive Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and the Honorary Director, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art. In April 2010, he was appointed as the director of the Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art, and in 2012, the director of Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2013, he was named Honorary Director, Abeno Harukas Museum of Art. Yutaka Mino has organized many exhibitions, and also published individual books and catalogs such as Freedom of Clay and Brush Through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D. in 1980, and Hakuji (White Ware), vol.5 in the Chugoku Togi (Chinese Ceramics) series in 1998.

Tadao Ando
Tadao Ando Architects & Associates, Japan

Biography

Tadao Ando was born in Osaka, in 1941. He taught himself about architecture and, in 1969, established Tadao Ando Building Research Institute. His major works include “Church of Light”, “Pulitzer Art Museum”, “Underground Art Museum”, among others. In 1979, he received the Architectural Association Award in "Sumiyoshi Nagaya", the Japan Art Institute Prize in 1993, the Pritzker Prize in 1995, the 2003 Cultural Merit Award, the 2005 International Federation of Architects Alliance (UIA) Gold Medal, the 2010 John F. Kennedy Center Arts Gold Prize, the Goto Shinpei Prize, the Cultural Medal from the Emperor of Japan, Order of the French Arts and Culture in 2013 (Commandeur), the Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy in 2013, the 2016 Isamu Noguchi Award, and many others. A solo exhibition was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1991, and at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 1993. Ando has also been Visiting professor at Yale, Columbia, and Harvard University, as well as Professor of the University of Tokyo since 1997 (now Professor Emeritus).

Tomoaki Ishigaki
Prime Minister's Office, Government of Japan

Biography

Tomoaki Ishigaki joined the Japanese Government in 1994 and spent most of his career dealing with international affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He assumed his current post in July, 2018, and oversees international media and public relations at the Prime Minister’s Office (Kantei).

Joseph Haldane
IAFOR, Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s current research concentrates on post-war and contemporary politics and international affairs, and since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

He is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the College of Education of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance.

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

A black belt in judo, he is married with two children, and lives in Japan.