TKT CAMPUS Asia Global Workshop "Quantum Leap from Asia to a Globally Sustainable Future"

On February 21, 2014, Tokyo Tech hosted the first Global Workshop titled "Quantum Leap from Asia to a Globally Sustainable Future" at its Ookayama Campus for the TKT CAMPUS Asia Consortium, created by the governments of Japan, China and Korea.

Faculty and students representing Tsinghua University (China), KAIST (Korea), and Tokyo Tech, as well as special guests from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (China) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) gathered to discuss the future of international collaboration and the advancement of Asia's science and technology in the global community.

The workshop started with welcome remarks by Professor Kikuo Kishimoto, Dean of the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, followed by a speech by the Guest of Honor from MEXT, Mr. Kuniaki Sato, the deputy director of the Office for International Planning in the Higher Education Bureau.

The morning session consisted of special lectures by two renowned scholars. Professor Joseph Hun-wei Lee, Vice President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, first gave an interesting talk on the "Journal of Hydro-Environment Research: A Success Story of Asian Collaboration." Next, Professor Nam-Joon Cho of Nanyang Technological University delivered a presentation titled "Global NTU: Building a World-Class Research University for the 21st Century" to explain how NTU turned itself into one of the fastest rising, top-ranked universities in the world.

The workshop resumed after lunch with a series of presentations by students from the three TKT CAMPUS Asia participating universities. They shared their study-abroad and research experiences in the TKT CAMPUS Asia program and actively interacted with the audience during the Q & A session. After student presentations, the workshop was divided into two sections that took place concurrently. Invited faculty and students from the three TKT CAMPUS Asia universities gathered for group discussions on current global issues such as the environment, social networks, infollution and scientific literacy, while Professor Hara moderated a highly engaging open discussion with the rest of the workshop participants on "Quality Assurance and Problem-Solving Global Human Resource Education." Professor Hara's session touched on such issues as globalization, education reform, university rankings and university branding.

To draw the one-day workshop to a close, one student from each of the four discussion groups shared their opinions about how they should go about helping to solve global issues as young scientists. With the active discussions and information exchanges throughout the day, the Global Workshop certainly met its goal of bringing everyone together to help facilitate international collaboration and further sci-tech development among leading Asian sci-tech universities.

• Global Workshop on TKT CAMPUS Asia Consortium "Quantum Leap from Asia to a Globally Sustainable Future"

Group photo of participating faculty and students