I participated in the Vabel Confrence this afternoon at the GRIPS.  It was organized by Haegwan Kim, CEO of Vabel, nonprofit organization.  I got a note fromHaegwan Kim quite a while ago, asking me to be one of the speakers.  The concept of Vabel and the Conference was very appealing and other speakers included people that I know.  So I said that I would participate without really knowing what it is all about.  (As I am available today and liked the concept, why not? is what I thought.)

  It turned out to be a very interesting conference with interesting group of speakers and Q& A session.  I trust it was Ustreamed and some may have watched.   My regret was that I missed the first presentation by Mr. Fumio Nanjo, director of Mori Art Museum.  I took over the second speaker role as there was a bit of technical problem for the presentation by the second speaker, Chiaki Hayashi. 

 I talked about the job crisis and how we are trying to resolve by promoting the Global Mobility of Talent.  As I wanted to make it relevant to the audience (majority are young students and business people, it seemed), I asked them to do something to get ready for the era of global mobility of talent.  I will be working on building the mechanism and knowledge bank of good examples while in Davos and onward.

  I received many good questions, some I could not answer.  It was very exciting and stimulating to me. 

  I watched other presentations after mine.  It was exciting to find that Chiaki Hayashi was involved in Ryuichi Sakamoto’s concert  distributed on the Internet in January. I heard about this initiative Saturday last week at Information Session at KMD and was absolutely fascinated by it. 

  Presentation by William Saito on Entrepreneurship was very interesting, too. I had known William, but never heard his presentation.  In particular, I liked his comment on team development, requirement for entrepreneurs and his advice to the young people. 

  Next was the presentation by Kiyoshi Kurokawa.  I heard his presentation many times and yet, he is always dynamic, funny and stimulating. He is very outspoken and has a very nice way of making his point, powerfully and yet with some sense of humour.  I always find his presentation with high level of energy which is contagious.

  Last, but not least,  was presentation by Ken Mogi. I heard his presentation a few times and love his natural, casual,  and at the same time scientific style.  I find his comment on curiosity vs. fear as driver/impediments for change insightful.  He is provocative and at the same time, very encouraging and supportive. 

  I hope those who were there and watched Ustream were stimulated and excited as I was.   Hats off to Haegwan, who single-handedly made this conference happen.  He is the doer.