3D Hologram

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Possibility of Social Entrepreneur

I'm interested in a concept "Social Entrepreneur". This means to pursue to solve social problems by doing business. There are several approaches to solve social problems. Donation or participation to NGOs or NPOs. However NGO and NPO always have a problem, which is how to raise money to sustain that activities.

Social Entrepreneur is one solution to this issue. They have to come up with good business model which enabes to make money for their activities. If customers or clients are poor people, it is possible to achieve effective business. This is well explained in a book, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid " by C. K. Prahalad . This book is really nice, which changed my bias to poor peoples's ability to buy.

In Japan, the concept of Social Entrepreneur is growing, but its influence is much smaller than that in US and Europe. I was heard that skillful middle age people are earnest about those activies, in the other hand, younger people such as undergradulate student without business experiences are serious in Japan.

This difference is interesting to me. A guy who knows well about social entrepreneurs in Japan said that middle age pepole in Japan are very nervous to lose their increasing salary and promoting position in companies. What is American or Europian people's incentives to start social business? Is it relating to a sense of religion?

In developed countries, problems that government holds are getting bigger, much more serious. There are lots of inefficiencies, stacked bureaucratic organizations, sectionalism and so on. They exposes their limitation of public services.

My impression is social entrepreneurs are more active if disappointment about public services by government is more serious. Anyway I think this activity has great possibility to change societies better.

iPhone 3G Ad

Canvas Car by BMW Concept

iPhone 3G - Leading device in the future

iPhone 3G is a hand held computer.
Apple Inc. unveiled iPhone 3G on Monday in Carifornia. The biggest feature is 3G, high speed communication standard in the world. Thank to 3G, many people in the world will enjoy this device.

Some people reagrd the iPhone as a phone, however its spec is actually more than a phone. It is a computer. For instance, its OS and brower are the same ones with Mac OS, OSX and Safari. Lots of people can develop applications by using Software Develoment Kit released by Apple.

It's really a computer with a phone. Some critics say iPhone won't be not so popular. Wate... This is just a beginning of great things. It's not so surprising that iPhone is not so popular now. People just don't know how innovative it is. But if people are aware of it...

That is a time IT brings us a revolution.

Shikoku

Last week, I traveled Shikoku island in Japan.
There are lot ofmountains and less flat land, where cities locate.
There is a inland sea called Setonai-kai between Shikoku and the main land of Japan. There are 4 big bridges accross the sea, which are Akashi Ohashi, Seto-Ohashi and Shimanami Kaido. Their outlooks are really bearutiful. When I took a ferry, I felt that nice view, it was like Aegean Sea in Greece.

Shikoku Island is coutryside except Takamatsu and Matsuyama. People there are friendly and local time looks slowly. If you want to relax in the countryside, it's better to visit there and enjoy hot springs and its nature.

Matsuyama(松山)

Freeze in a crowd!

It's difficult to find a doctor

When you want to see a doctor, how do you find?
It's not easy to find an ideal doctor. For me, I'm new comer in Kobe and don't have an information at all...

If this issue is about products, I can compare them by reading reviews on the Internet. Their spec is objective and easy to compare with others.

However when it comes to doctors, this method doesn't work. This is because our demand is depend on our situation. Expectation from young men is probably different from that from elder people.

I tried to search by Google Map. But I just found a long list of doctors. There was not any reviews and no information of doctors.

Then I decided one doctor. It's gamble. My conditions were only two, access and office hours. What was the result?

It was bad...
I got a joker. There was an old doctor who looked to have lots of experience. But that experience annoyed me. He never listened my explanation. He just looked at me and diagnosed from his experience. I appealed that his points were not exact, but he ignored.

I promised myself I would not see him anymore. He was far from my ideal image of doctor. But still I don't know how I can find a doctor...

Radical Innovation Cleaning water

"Social Entrepreneurship" - Ashoka's Bill Drayton speaks...

Meaning of "Education"

I'm interested in education.

One day I looked into its origin with a dictionary. I found that Education is composed of "edu" + "cation". "edu" means something that comes from inside to outside. "cation" means action. Then I realised that the education is basically self-motivated action.

In Japan, "education" is regarded as teaching in schools. Teachers give their knowledge to students. The position of teachers is higher than that of students. Discipline or rules govern the students.

I don't like this culture and think it is wrong from the educational point of view. The real role of teachers is not giving knowledge, to inspire their students to motivate self-learning. Teachers are just supporters in the case their students are at a loss in their thinkings.

I watched a TV program which shows teachers in Finland. Finish way of teaching is respected by the world. Their goal is for children to think by themselves. Theacher as a carrier is ragarded as respectable job. It's not easy to get the job. All candidates have to get PhD in universities. I guess this is one of proofs that they think education very seriously.

I hope Japanese education system will be like that in the future. To do that, we have to change our mind-set totally.

Eco Touring at Biwa-ko (Biwa lake)

There is lots of water in Japan. We don't have to prepare about drought.
Last week, I participated in an eco touring in Harie, Shiga. People who live that town make the best use of water, stream and spring water.

Each house has a water place called "Kabata" inside or outside the house. Kabata is composed of water from stream and spring water. In the water from stream, there are carps and other small fishes.

People use spring water for their drinking, cooking and cooling vegetables and fruits. Some people use that water for washing their faces and teeth. In the other hand, people use the water from stream to wash their dishes. When washing the dishing, the carps are eating leftover meals and make the water clean. That is really sustainable water system. Many carps keep the water clean and people can use it for their lives.

This place became famous because a documentary about Kabata by NHK earned an international prize. I was heard from a guide that ABC from US covered that place before our touring. It was really good countryside in Japan.

Tibet Uprising

I'm worrying about the situation in Tibet.
I've been interested in Tibet. People in Tibet have been facing hardship. They are fighting with the power which tries to overwhelm Tibetan culture. Chinese Government requests their obedience and its attitude looks superior.

What shoud I do for Tibet? All I can do is only looking at the extinction of the culture? I hope lots of individuals in the world keep attention for what is happening in Tibet now and find opportunies to empower them anytime, anywhere.

Pursuing geographic teritory is out of date. The goal we have to aim is to become an independent individual. The government and the nationarity is secondary.

Nice Song

I zapped the net and found a nice song.
It's old (80s?), but cool french pop.

Cool Car by TOYOTA

I love small cars. But most of car companies were not serious to manufacturing small car so far.

However the age has changed. TOYOTA released new concept of small car. I hope they keep its design when they start production model.

Whale hunting issue in Japan

Recently we can see articles about Japanese whale hunting.
Many countries and NGOs are aganst this Japanese action. Australian activist "Sea Shepard" threw away anything like chemicals to Japnaese suvey ship. I think this is too radical and dangerous.

However I also think Japanese Government is irrational. My opinion is to quit the hunting right now. But I agree that hunting whales were one of Japanese tradition. When we didn't have enough food after the war, whales were important proteins for children in the schools. But eating whales was just one of our culture. And now we have enouh food and there is no need to eat whales.

I know some people who demand hunting think "Western people killed tons of whales for only their oils, while Japanese made the best use of them. Why do they regard us as bad men?" I feel sympathy with this opinion. But yet I think we don't have to hunt whales. Becasue we can't find a certain reason to persist whales. We kill animals to keep our lives. We kill cows and pigs to keep our lives. They are common in our food. But not whales.

Japan has lots of other serious problems such as aging population, grobal warming and education. We should forcus on these issues. Whale hunting looks sensational, but essantially tiny problem to be solved.

IT as a tool

Demands of people against IT are various.
It's impossible to embed all possible functions in a package. So I guess the ideal software is based on Internet, on demand, download required software, it's real time events. That software looks infinite for users because of lots of combinations of functions.

Basic function is classified as units and people select them like LEGO toys.
All information about the software is open and companies make money by consulting and maintenance.

The software encourage people as a individuals because every application differ as user wants. People appeal their demand and that movements introduce democracy on the Internet. That change of mind affects our real lives. The customizing our software will be an opportunity to get back an initiative of life from the governments and companies.

IT should be a great tool for the people who are in weak position so far.

Open Source

My expect about IT is that most prevalent technology is open source. It's extremely opposite of secrecy and crowds of knowledge. If the important software like OS is supplied by commercial companies, Users will be victims of company's money making. If making money is the fist thing, our sense of beauty and curiosities about unknown things become worse. Then we can't enjoy our lives instead of the only once lives.

Developing technology evolves our utilities.
How about a concept "Significance"?

I think that has been left out on a limb.

Life in Natural Circulation

One day, I watched TV program about "Kabata". I was really impressed and moved to make full use of nature function.

Kabata is a system to use natural water running through the town. There are various kainds of lives such as carps and crawfishs and they are in the stream of water in the kitchen in each houses. There are also spring water in the kitchen. So people separate the stream and the spring water.

When they want to wash vegitables or cool fruits, they use the sprint water. When they want to wash their dishes after meal, they use the stream. Leftover meals become delicious food for the fish in the water. They help water to become clean by eating the meals.

People in the area are very humble against the nature and coexist with other animals. Probalby that peaceful scene impressed me.

* This area locates the north west of Biwa-ko in Japan.

Dentist

Last night, I went to a dentist.
It was the first time for 15 years! I was scared of a diagnosis because I feel a pain in molors, it must be a cavity...

The result was a cavity, of course. But it was serious. My wisdom teeth partially erupted and hit the next molor. I got a cavity in the small gap between them. The doctor told me that I had to decide to extract that wisdom teeth. She also explained that the teeth is tough and there is big nerve near that teeth. That means I'll got a pain after the treatment.

I'm scared the dentist...

MacBook Air by Apple Inc.

I could touch Macbook Air on Sunday.
I knew its feature by many pictures on the internet, but the real shape was very nice! I was strongly impressed by its details.

I wanted to buy MBA. But there were 3 problems.
1)Only 1 USB port: I use a USB to sycronize my iPod touch. So I need at least 2 ports.
2) Size of SSD is 64G. Size of my all media fies is over 90G. At least 128G is needed.

Yes, I spin a daydream as many Mac users do...
:-)

Uncertainty in the future

Basically our life is surrounded by uncertainties. Almost all the people are afraid of that and have tried to predict and avoid dangers. Science has developed by that strong sense of human nature.

And now, our fear about the future has decreased? The answer is No. No matter how we develop science, uncertainty still exists. We never remove it.

So how can we face our life? The only way is to accept the uncertainty and risk to live, with doing our best.

Our goal so far was to avoid starvation physically. That is right way in developing countries. But people who are responsible to create new added value, new possibilities, needs to avoid starvation mentally.