Oku The only interest I had when I entered was to experience all kinds of work, including doing business with companies overseas. I had no ambition of becoming president.
Life is a cycle of meeting new people and making decisions. We have no control over who we meet, but the decisions we make are our own choices. Therefore, when making decisions, we must do everything we can to make the right ones. I believe always trying hard to make the right decisions throughout my career led me to the position of president.
Yamanishi My aim was to develop unique products and technologies, so immediately after entering, I requested to be assigned to one of the company's research laboratories. I remember beginning to develop a slight interest in managing around the time when I was appointed the factory manager of manufacturing.
Yamagiwa Konosuke Matsushita once described the characteristics he thought would give a person a better chance of succeeding as being charming, seeming luckier than others, and being able to inspire others to follow by example. All of them are impressions formed of one by others. Such characteristics, on which depends whether people can relax and think, "I trust this person, so I want to help him," must have come naturally to Konosuke Matsushita sometime during his career.
What qualities do you think built people's trust in you as the right person for the position of president?
Yamanishi The president and HR manager at the time told me that the primary reason they selected me was my ability to serve as both an engineer and a salesperson. I believe my company decided on someone who could serve as both an engineer and a salesperson like myself, rather than a person who fits its conventional image of a president, because it wanted diversity.
Yamagiwa I assume your experience of majoring in both chemical and mechanical engineering must have given you a bird's-eye view.
Yamanishi Yes, it did. I have always enjoyed learning about multiple fields rather than concentrating on just one.
Yamagiwa I see. So, your preference for pursuing multiple goals at once could have helped you become able to keep an eye out for yourself and others.
Oku I am also like that. I chose to major in the humanities and work at a bank because I thought majoring in one of the sciences would require narrowing my interests to a single field earlier than otherwise, and I wanted to study as many fields as possible. Looking at where I am today, I am sure the choice I made was right for me. Bankers need to be able to form and maintain good relationships with customers of various industries, which requires being familiar with an extremely wide range of fields. So, it was the right industry for me.
Yamagiwa Covering all qualities required of company presidents is obviously impossible, but I assume it must be extremely important to be able to read the future or have the courage to believe in one's intuition.
Oku In my case, saying that I had some foresight would be wrong. The trend toward internationalization was so strong that the future of banks was just plain obvious. Already in college, I was interested in doing business with companies overseas and had read foreign books on U.S. commercial law. So, knowing that the future would require experts in international law, I submitted a proposal, which led to my company sending me overseas to study at a law school in the U.S.
Immediately after I returned, the Ataka Trading Company went bankrupt, which gave me a chance to put what I learned overseas to practice. Lucky for me, work relating to international law first came under my supervision, subsequently also putting me in charge of matters relating to business acquisition and partnerships.
Yamagiwa Mr. Yamanishi, I understand you primarily worked in industrial technology. So, you must have observed Japan's semiconductor industry decline. What are your thoughts on this matter?
Yamanishi I was not surprised when our country lost the competition. Our problem was we valued design but neglected manufacturing equipment.
The fate of such industries as not only semiconductors but also liquid crystal, solar panels, and organic EL depends on manufacturing equipment. Unlike home appliances and cars, manufacturing processes in such industries do not include any manual procedures. Their entire manufacturing processes are conducted by automated manufacturing equipment that follow programmed instructions. Manufacturing in such industries requires no designing and developing skills; having the ingredients and manufacturing equipment is enough. Despite this reality, valuing only design, semiconductor manufacturers outsourced the production of their manufacturing equipment, practically helping their subcontractors improve their technology, only to later sell it to companies in China and Korea. Such companies in China and Korea, where labor costs and real estate prices are lower than ours, then dominated the semiconductor market with low-cost products. That is how we lost the competition.
We lacked adequate crisis preparedness. What Japanese manufacturers must do from here on is carefully examine each market and decide whether to cooperate or compete with its rival companies.

Yamanishi This may sound extreme, but I personally believe that costs for fundamental research should be covered by the national budget and all those for applied research by companies.
Yamagiwa We would be extremely grateful if that became the customary practice of funding college research. But for that to happen, I believe universities and companies first need to learn more about each other. So, it is a good thing that industry-academia collaboration has become more common over the past decade.
Yamanishi Open innovation will likely become more common in the near future, and the WISE Programs (Doctoral Programs for World-leading Innovative & Smart Education) can be expected to create opportunities for personnel exchange between companies and universities. My theory in this regard is that, in addition to exchanging researchers, universities and companies should also exchange their sales and financial department workers because by doing so, universities could learn about managing finances and also adopt a company perspective to examine educational issues.
In addition, companies should actively help university-founded startups.
Yamagiwa In FY 2018, Kyoto University enjoyed the highest national rate of increase in the number of newly launched university-founded startups. One feature of Kyoto University-founded startups is their diverse variety, and Kyoto University Innovation Capital currently invests in 29 seed and early-stage startups. Recently, more Kyoto University students are starting businesses while still in college, and I look forward to seeing them gaining even greater momentum from the financial support that graduates and companies provide them.

Oku Another important aspect of IT literacy education is who provides it. Kyoto University should follow the example of countries overseas that invite startup entrepreneurs in advanced fields as instructors to help students acquire IT literacy.
Yamanishi In addition, I assume there would be different opinions on the level from which college IT literacy education should start. Mine is that some Kyoto University students will have already acquired fairly high skills and would be better educated if the University could offer levels that meet their needs.
Oku The primary aim of college education is to help students build a foundation on which new capabilities can be added throughout life as necessary. Therefore, not everything that students learn at college will necessarily be directly applicable to business. However, in today's world, universities must also meet the actual business-related needs of working members of society. In countries overseas, many working members of society return to college to pursue their studies again. In Japan, only a small number of their counterparts so far do the same. The University of Michigan Law School taught me everything, from how to write contracts to various court cases based on mock trials. Specialized institutions of this sort are what cultivates experts, which I believe are what Japanese universities need to incorporate into their system in such ways as specialized institutions or postgraduate programs.
Yamagiwa I agree. Once Kyoto University finishes its current efforts, including laying the foundations for offering graduate school programs for working members of society, it will take initiative in doing just that.

Yamanishi I believe its tradition of originality also has to do with Kyoto's geographical features. Kyoto has four beautiful seasons and its good old culture is still alive, which I believe help its residents develop into emotionally rich and proud community members aware of their city's uniqueness.
Yamagiwa I completely agree with you. Many citizens of Kyoto take pride in the fact that they live in a global city and cherish its originality.
Oku Maintaining an optimistic attitude is also important. I personally do not prefer the word rakkanteki (hopeful) as a translation of "optimistic." I think translating it as maemuki (positive) more accurately reflects our Kansai attitude.
Yamanishi After all, having a positive attitude is a prerequisite for cultivating the spirit of creativity that Kyoto University values.
Yamagiwa Even while competing with each other, if advancing ourselves requires cooperating instead, our Kansai culture enables us to make that switch. This aspect of our culture must be the driving force behind our creativity.
Oku In addition, I think the two "Ds" are interconnected; by that I mean diversity is the catalyst of dynamism. Diversity is not only about international influence on domestic students. During college, while I was of course inspired by talented international students, I was also stimulated by many interesting thoughts expressed by my friends from Osaka. Even within the same country, different regions have different temperaments, which I also consider a form of diversity. I hear that universities in Tokyo recently have a higher student ratio of locals to non-locals. What is the case at Kyoto University?
Yamagiwa Our student ratio is balanced out nicely.
Oku That's good to hear. I heard that Kyoto University's 125th memorial projects include building venues for international students and researchers to interact. I look forward to seeing similar projects being undertaken as effective ways for the University to use its donations collected on the occasion of its 125th anniversary.
Yamagiwa Lastly, may I ask if each of you have any message you would like to leave Kyoto University students with?
Oku The most important thing we need to do in our youth is questioning our surroundings. Neither science and technology nor the rules we make are perfect. I look forward to seeing Kyoto University students aggressively take up challenges by attentively reading the changes of the time and environment.
Yamanishi A truth with not only research but also all things is that the hardest thing to do is become a pioneer. I look forward to seeing Kyoto University students put the unrelenting courage they developed at the University to practice by taking up what each of them believes would be the toughest challenge.
Yamagiwa Thank you very much for your time today. To question our surroundings and take on challenges, there first needs to be something that sparks our curiosity. Kyoto University offers opportunities that will spark students' curiosity to help them develop themselves into strong unrelenting people able to take on challenges.