HIDA JOURNAL 2014 SPRING No.4

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No.4 SPRING 2014 9What was your impression of the audience, including ex-participants of EPCM?The audience knew about Japan well. There were incisive questions, such as “Japan’s economy is said to have improved because of Abenomics, but on what ground do they base their assessment?” Many ex-participants told me that by participating in EPCM, they learned the importance for business persons to keep studying. Also they told me that although the knowledge they learned in the program would become obsolete someday, they acquired firm understanding of universal “perspectives in the world.”By the way, taking this occasion of the 30th anniversary of EPCM, we have received a suggestion for establishing HIDA-EPCM Club. What do you expect from the Club?More than 800 people have participated in EPCM from 54 countries and regions over the past 30 years. There are two reasons why I would like to create a network of these ex-participants.The first reason is this. I think if ex-participants build a person-to-person network covering all over the world, instead of the previous connections radiating from Japanese instructors at the hub, they can truly take advantage of their full strengths.The second reason is this. After EPCM participants return home, they take up respectable positions in individual companies and also have significant influence in the business world. So I would like them to join forces to foster young people of their countries as well as neighboring ones.Although only about 20 people can take part in EPCM every year, ex-participants can get together in each region to use their network of personal contacts effectively, for example, by conducting their own training or offering their personal connections to younger people.In order to facilitate communication among these network members, I expect HIDA to be the secretariat and EPCM Club to create an opportunity to further promote bonding within HIDA-AOTS Alumni Societies.Finally, would you tell me about the significance of HIDA’s training programs for human resource development?In addition to its value of practical education, this training which targets working people has a key role of providing its participants with an opportunity to expand their perspective of the world. These people have specific issue awareness, and even though countries and religions differ, their business issues have a lot in common. In the process of finding a solution to one issue with people who have totally different cultural and educational backgrounds, the participants have contact with different perspectives which they have never encountered before. Such experiences broaden their own perspectives as well as make their perspectives more flexible. By becoming aware that those who they thought have incompatible views share the same issue, they find more “similarities” than “differences” with others, and that brings a sense of affinity. That is, in my opinion, the foundation of world peace. In other words, as the participants experience to feel what is good is good and what is bad is bad in classroom, the world which accepts them expand, and their prejudice is gradually chipped off without realizing it.In this process in which they find more similarities than differences, the participants can experience the importance of bonding with others. HIDA’s training programs and the like can instill a sense of unity into everyone, including staff members and lecturers, and ultimately bring the world together. All training participants who experienced sincerity of the staff members of HIDA Kenshu Centers returned home with deeply ingrained memory of “kindhearted Japanese.” I think none of the participants who stayed in Japan have ill feeling toward Japan. HIDA’s training program is not an imposition. It fosters people who are knowledgeable about and have affinity to Japan through the interaction with kind and caring staff members. This forms the foundation for true peace. World peace is not something politicians create. True peace can be achieved only when people with various backgrounds, such as different nationality, race, religion, culture, and education, see homogeneity as human beings rather than heterogeneity. A core value of the training programs for human resource development is to continuously provide such opportunities. I would like many people to understand about this value and further expand the program in the future.――Thank you very much for taking time to talk with us today.* The New Delhi Office in India is currently in preparation for opening. (As of January 31, 2014)Lecture hall

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