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| About the Second Year of the Takeda Awards |
| September 17, 2002 |
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From the 17th to the 19th of June of this year, the First Takeda Symposium
was held in Helsinki, Finland, and Uppsala, Sweden, in close cooperation
with the University of Helsinki and the Swedish Collegium for the Advanced
Study for the Social Sciences. Dr. Youichiro Murakami, Professor at the
International Christian University, organized the symposium and Dr. Hideto
Nakajima, Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, acted as secretary
for the symposium. The main theme of the symposium was "Engineering
Intellect and Knowledge / the Wealth of Market / Public - Silicon Valley
Model vs. Scandinavian Model." The participants included Professor
Bjorn Wittrock of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social
Sciences, Dr. Helga Nowotny, former Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology Zurich, the 2001 Takeda Awardee, Professor Friedrich Bio
Schmidt-Bleek of the Factor 10 Institute, Dr. Ken-ichi Matsubara and Dr.
Kiyoshi Kurokawa, Managing Directors of the Foundation. The total number
of participants was about forty.
I am truly grateful to Professors Murakami and Wittrock who gave us a chance
to hold the First Takeda Symposium in Scandinavia. We could experience
the air of the birthplace of the Nobel Prize. We could also absorb the
attitude of people who respect wisdom of human beings. Humans have been
creating and developing wisdom, and establishing wealth. At the Symposium
we discussed various ways of developing wisdom including regional differences
of innovation systems, and paradigms of innovation, and so on. We are determined
to nourish ourselves to deepen our mission and concepts, that is expanding
the wealth, richness, and happiness of people, and promoting techno-entrepreneurship
and engineering intellect and knowledge, by reflecting on the results of
the Symposium.
Engineering intellect and knowledge, and techno-entrepreneurship create
the value for people.
The Takeda Award was established to send our messages of wonder at newly
established technologies and breakthroughs to people, and messages of our
admiration of those who have created and developed innovative technologies
to techno-entrepreneurs.
Since I have limited experience spending half my life developing semiconductor
testers and managing my own company, I can not help but look at things
from my own experience in semiconductor technologies. Since the student
mobilization right after I entered college during World War II, I have
been witnessing how much wealth semiconductor technologies have been creating
for people. From my experience I also can imagine innovations in areas
other than the semiconductor area. I have decided to give awards for technological
innovations in three application fields: one is in my own field of experiences,
information technology and electronics, and the others are in the currently
heated areas of life sciences and world environment. It is not easy to
see directly how much value these innovations have created for people.
For instance, every cellular phone contains semiconductor chips, but people
scarcely know that there is a technology to test the functions of semiconductors.
Notwithstanding the ubiquitous presence of semiconductor chips, such as
in radios, TVs, and personal computers, people do not notice the technology.
Visible or not, I would like to award novel technologies and breakthroughs
that expand the wealth, richness, and happiness of people.
We have not adopted the methods used to evaluate academic achievements.
We stand not by the vender's side but by the customer's (people's) side
to evaluate technologies when we select achievements for the Takeda Award.
We would like to award achievements aimed at the creation of value for
people, taking into consideration the efforts and enthusiasm embodied in
breakthroughs and commercialization. Therefore these achievements should
be cutting edge technologies that contribute directly to the expansion
of value for people. I also would like to emphasize that we should not
wait for these achievements to be completed before they are awarded. Awarding
early achievements has the risk that these achievements might not reach
the final stage that contributes to people's wealth. On the other hand,
early achievements have huge potential of contributing to people's wealth
in the future. If we seek established achievements following strict evaluation
methods, such as academic methods, we will miss the chance to encourage
researchers and entrepreneurs to realize the potential of these achievements.
The Takeda Award should nourish engineering intellect and knowledge that
expand the wealth, richness, and happiness of people by absorbing the dreams
of people all over the world. I think academic evaluation has almost nothing
to do with contributing to the wealth, richness and happiness of people.
The wealth, richness and happiness of people can be created and accumulated
by direct and indirect selections by each individual.
When we select achievements for the Takeda Award, we evaluate achievements
that are nominated by designated nominators. The nationalities of the people
recognized for their achievements do not count. Nationality has nothing
to do with choices made by people. At present, most people enjoy selecting
imported goods. People can do business crossing national borders by using
the Internet. I adopt the stance that good products can be selected and
survive, notwithstanding political intervention in the market. I am hoping
that engineering intellect and knowledge will be based on choices made
by people not based on national interests.
I would like to say a few words about national interests. When some leaders
repeat the phrase "national interests," they mean protecting
their own country's benefits and are very much self-centered. They do not
much care about benefits for other countries. Furthermore, using military
force to protect their country's benefits leads to wasting tax money and
consequently destroying the wealth of people. I can not help recall myself
the history that during World War I and World War II, government leaders
drove young people to the war front for the sake of national interests.
Once Japan invaded China and deprived the Chinese people of wealth. From
this invasion, while Japan might have been being enriched, the wealth of
all the people on the Earth must have been decreased. In fact, Japan was
worn out after the defeat in World War II. Even if some country benefits
from invading and depriving other countries, the wealth of the whole world
decreases. This is the experience inscribed in the deepest part of hearts
of our generation that spent their youth during World War II.
Selection by people and the market
The market is the place where people select goods. As for the stock markets,
the Japanese stock price average as well as that of NASDAQ keep dropping.
Since economic borders are disappearing between nations, simultaneous changes
in stock markets are reasonable. In the 1990s Japan experienced the burst
of the economic bubble that arose due to the inflated value of land. Prices
had gone up without an increase in the substantial value and the economy
fell from the burst of the bubble. In the 18th Century, the wealth of mankind
was created by the efforts of people, namely the Industrial Revolution
as described in "Managing the Next Society" by Peter F. Drucker.
A rapid economic growth in the 18th Century Industrial Revolution was generated
almost spontaneously, not like the Japanese artificial economic bubble
in the 1990s. US economic growth in the 1990s was driven by the development
of information technology and e-commerce. This was accompanied by an increase
in substantial value and completely changed the American economy, markets,
and industries.
In human history, the first Industrial Revolution was the invention of
primers and printers by Gutenberg in 1455. In 1769, the steam engine was
invented by James Watt, and the economic growth driven by the steam engine
lasted for 100 years, which affected later society. At first, the steam
engine was applied to the cotton spinning industry in 1785, and all spinning
machines were mechanized. In 1829, steam locomotives were invented and
the railway business started. It was a true revolution. The present economic
growth (the third Industrial Revolution) has been driven by computers and
IT technologies, and can not end with a burst of the economic bubble. I
expect IT technologies and e-commerce, like steam engines, will continue
to drive the present Industrial Revolution for more than 100 years, which
will affect later society. I expect people will continue to select and
enjoy benefits brought by computer and IT technologies. As a people, I
would like to select by myself the wealth, richness and happiness for the
future. And as the awarder of the Takeda Award, I would like to see the
dreams of people in the Award.
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