For many private entrepreneurs, it is the time of year for filing tax returns, while for corporations it is often the month of the end of the financial year, and many are busy at this time. I would like to summarise all the social contribution projects in FY2024 in this blog.

Our institute’s social contribution projects are carried out using 50 per cent of the profits generated from membership fees for the Takeo Harada Gemeinschaft membership service. By agreeing to the membership rules and social contribution projects at the time of joining, members are invited to participate in social contribution projects through the institute. Let’s take a look back at the detail month by month.

●April 2024:

-Attended the Global Water Forum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

-Attended the UNU AI Conference in Macau

●May:

Accepted the company visits for ‘UT-ONE’, a thematic subject for first-year students at the University of Tokyo①

●June: Joint webinar with the UNU Macau

●July:

-Held the briefing session on Project Pax Japonica

-Participated in UNU Global AI Network

-Accepted the company visits for ‘UT-ONE’, a thematic subject for first-year students of the University of Tokyo②

●August: Accepted internship students from Hiroshima University

●September:

-Participated in the Hiroshima Love It Consortium.

-Held the 1st and 2nd IISIA reading club

●October:

-Attended Global Green Growth Week (GGGI) in Seoul, South Korea

-Held the 3rd IISIA reading club

●November:

-Special lectures held to commemorate the 75+75th anniversary of Hiroshima University and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Higashi-Hiroshima City.

-Courtesy visit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands.

-Attended the 16th Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna, Austria.

-Held the 4th and 5th IISIA reading club

●December:

-Renewal of agreement with St. Petersburg State University of Economics, Russia.

-Held the European business trip debriefing

-Held the 6th and 7th IISIA reading club

●January 2025: Introduced near-infrared SSPD single-photon detector in the University of Tokyo joint research laboratory

●February:

-Participated as a judge for student idea pitch contest (Hiroshima Love It Consortium)

-Attended NHK Symphony Orchestra with the internship students as its supported member

-Held the 8th IISIA reading club

●March: Creating the social contribution projects pamphlet in FY2024

The first pillar of our social contribution projects is ‘entrepreneurship education’. Our institute believes that entrepreneurship education, including information literacy education, is necessary for true leadership, and the thinking framework shown in the diagram below is an essential part of this.

(Figure: Whole picture of analogous information literacy)

(Reference: Harada 15, pp.140-141.)

In the above diagram, an accurate grasp of history, including the structure of interests, and the input of a vast amount of knowledge are essential for ①looking back and ②discovering causal relationships = historical principles (framework for thinking). In addition, ④Intuition = awareness (illogical), which is illogical thinking that only we ‘humans’ are capable of. Therefore, even if AI (Artificial Intelligence) with its huge database can predict the future, it is impossible for AI to replace the part ④ which is based on human’s intuition. In a society where AI is being updated, it is almost certain that the part of ‘awareness’ that only we ‘humans’ can do will become more and more important.

In short,

(1) Learn as much as possible about the correct past,

(2) Make fixed-point observations about the present,

(3) Backcast the future as a result of these observations,

(4) Logical thinking by “deduction” and “induction”and,

(5) Creating a new reality for the future by involving others and practicing as a player by oneself.

This is what we call ‘information literacy,’ and it is a concept that we hope more and more people will learn and practice together.

Our institute not only advocates these ideas, but also conducted entrepreneurship education for students through the ‘IISIA Reading Club’ held eight times this year (see here for details). In collaboration with UT-ONE, a subject for first-year students at the University of Tokyo, our institute conducted company visits with the keyword ‘future scenario’ for about 50 students from the University of Tokyo, and made efforts to create future entrepreneurs (see here for details). Other activities included accepting Hiroshima University students for internships, and the ‘World’s easiest lesson on reskilling and entrepreneurship’ by Takeo Harada, CEO of our institute, at special lectures to commemorate the 75+75th anniversary of Hiroshima University and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Higashi-Hiroshima City Government.

In addition, as part of a project to realise our institute’s vision ‘Pax Japonica’, a joint online seminar ‘Generative AI and Diplomacy – What’s beyond?’ held with the UNU Macau was an opportunity to experience the growing interest in the topic and to see how our institute’s research activities and advocacy for global society are making a steady impact on the key issues of global society beyond its domestic stakeholder base. In addition to the above, our institute was able to expand its reach beyond the domestic sphere by building relationships with overseas stakeholders through regular trips abroad. This will form the basis for the future expansion of our institute’s activities.

Having now briefly reviewed our social contribution activities in FY2024, we believe that this year we were able to develop activities based on the keywords ‘entrepreneurship education and global’.

Every year, our institute publishes a report summarising its social contribution projects for the year. For the year 2024, our institute has compiled its social contribution projects, including the above-mentioned initiatives, into the ‘Report on Social Contribution Projects in 2024’. The completed pamphlet version of the report will be unveiled at the reception for Gold Members of the Takeo Harada Gemeinschaft members (8 January). We hope that those attending the reception will look forward to reading it, and at the same time, we would like to invite the readers of this blog to visit the official website of our institute (https://haradatakeo.com/tocompany) and to follow this link from Sunday 9 March onwards. (*You will be able to respond to the survey from 00:01 on 9 March 2024. After completing the questionnaire, you will also be able to download the PDF version of the FY2024 Social Contribution Project Report (Japanese version)).

In this blog, we have summarised our social contribution projects in 2024. Looking back over the past year, it is clear that our institute’s social contribution activities have been carried out in a wide range of situations, both in Japan and abroad, with the support of the members of the Takeo Harada Gemeinschaft membership service and many other interested parties. We hope that as many people as possible will read the full report on our social contribution activities in FY2024, which is a condensed version of these activities. We hope that as many people as possible will take the time to download the report on our social contribution activities in FY2024!

【Afterword】

For the first time, I have taken charge of producing the ‘Report on the social contribution projects in FY2024’. In publishing this report, I have received the cooperation of various people, including members of the Takeo Harada Gemeinschaft membership service, graduates of the Takeo Harada Seminar at the University of Tokyo, and students participating in the IISIA reading club. First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those involved for their cooperation.

This year (FY2024), we were able to expand our reach beyond Japan through exchanges with overseas researchers in a joint webinar with the UNU Macau and by building relationships with overseas stakeholders through regular trips abroad. In 2024, when elections were held in countries around the world, the world seems to have entered a new phase, as if it has shed its skin, with long-standing governments changing and new prime ministers coming to power, as well as high-profile figures returning to the prime minister’s seat in the form of re-election. It is precisely because we live in such an era that the development of young people through entrepreneurship education for a correct understanding and appreciation of history is in even greater demand, and social contribution projects based on ‘anticipatory governance’ will spread from Japan to the global community. We believe that social contribution projects based on ‘anticipatory governance’ will surely lead us towards peace, or ‘Pax Japonica’, which will spread from Japan to the global community.

At the end of this report, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who supported and cooperated with us in the publication of this report. Thank you very much. We look forward to your continued understanding and cooperation with our social contribution projects in the future. For various reasons, this is the last time I will be writing a blog on our social contribution activities. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have read the blog up to the present day, those who have left feedback on the blog and those who have said they look forward to the updates. Thank you very much. With sincere respect.

[Reference]

[Harada 15] Takeo Harada, ‘Why do the elites who run the world use this ‘framework’?’ , Kanki Publishing (2015).

※The statements in this blog are not the official views of the Institute, but rather the personal views of the author.

Chancellery Unit, Group for Project Pax Japonica, Maria Tanaka