Thursday, July 11, 2019A group of East and Southeast Asia Program Lauder students visited Tokyo and Kamakura between July 11 and 14 as part of their summer immersions in East and Southeast Asia.
On July 11, the 16 students and 2 faculty first took the lecture of Yuko Kawai, WG'93, GM for Europe and Chief Representative in London at Bank of Japan who kindly gave Lauder stundents insightful session on Fintech and Japan's macro economics at Waseda NEO. It was quite interactive and inspiring one and Lauder students really enjoyed it. She just comes back to Tokyo for her business trip this week and the students have a great priviledge to have her talk.
Then, they had a lecture on Japan's growth strategy by Mr. Shimazu, Minister's Secretariat at METI and this is another intereatctive session where the students had fruitful discussions.
Then moved to Nissan Global Headquarter and had a session with Erika Shirai, GM, Diversity Development Office, on “Diversity & Inclusion - a key source of competitiveness”.
On July 12, Shuji Honjo, WG'93, organized the morning session for them. Richard Kincaid, CFO, Healios, an innovative regenerative medicine company, provided a very interesting presentation. Shuji also presented an overview of Japan's entrepreneurship/VC and life science. The students asked a lot of questions to make the session vibrant.
In the afternoon, they visited DeNA and also Meiji Jingu. Being supported by Liz Sasada, FA91 & GFA92, Mr. Taisuke USUI, Shinto Priest at Meiji Jingu kindly provided a tour and attended the unique Shinto “Gokigan-sai” ceremony: the “Miko” maiden dance accompanied by ancient ritual music performed by Shinto priests with prayer in chant at Meiji Jingu’s inner sanctum room, Kaguraden. In the evening, they joined Pub Outside Penn at Bistro En Ballon and enjoyed networking with more than 20 local alumni.
On July 13, they had a culturral visits to Yasukuni Shrine in the morning and went to Kamakura in the afternoon guided by Ken Takehisa, WG'93, who also kindly gave the students tea ceremony.
We're truly grateful for all the help by our alumni who arranged these visits for the students. The students really enjoyed the visits and found a lot of takeaways.
