On September 20, the Mizuho India Japan Study Centre (MIJSC) celebrated its seventh Foundation Day at IIMB, bringing together esteemed guests and representatives from the corporate sector. Chairperson Prof. Jaideep Sarkar welcomed the audience, highlighting the need for greater sensitivity and understanding in business interactions with Japan while addressing the lacunae in Japan scholarship in India.
A milestone video showcased the Centre's major initiatives and activities over the past year, emphasizing its commitment to fostering India-Japanese relations.
Prof. Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director of IIMB, acknowledged the impact of many of the Centre’s initiatives such as Lean Manufacturing Practices (LMP) and Japanese Language Courses as a valuable addition to management education, reinforcing the Centre's focus on practical, industry-relevant training.
The Guest of Honour, Mr. Koji Sato, Director General of the Japan Foundation, India, delivered an engaging address that underscored the deep cultural ties between India and Japan. Mr. Kato highlighted the historical friendship shaped by Buddhism, Shintoism, and Hinduism, as well as the evolving bilateral ties post-World War II. He emphasized the complementarity of India and Japan in the economic and social development sphere where Japan’s Manufacturing strength and India’s growing market can benefit each other. He further emphasized the potential for collaboration, noting, "Japan has an aging population, while India faces youth unemployment—a perfect complementarity."
Dr. S. Vidyashankar, Vice Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum addressed the gathering via video conferencing, providing valuable insights on reimagining engineering education in India. He emphasized the need for integrating multidisciplinary approaches in engineering curricula, advocating for the inclusion of design, business, and social sciences to produce well-rounded engineers. Additionally, he stressed the importance of forging stronger partnerships between academic institutions and industries to ensure that educational programs align with current market needs and technological advancements, sparking insightful discussions among attendees.
The celebration concluded with a vibrant cultural program featuring performances by two Japanese musical groups. The Legacies Band captivated the audience with popular anime songs from Demon Slayer, encouraging young attendees to sing along. Following them, the Royal Echoes band delighted everyone with a rendition of the evergreen Kannada song "Huttidare Kannada Nadalli Huttabeku" and the viral Telugu hit "Naatu Naatu," leaving the audience in awe.
COO Saideep Rathnam wrapped up the event by acknowledging the contribution of various stakeholders, special guests, and the dedicated MIJSC team for their contributions to a successful celebration.
The event not only reinforced the cultural connections between India and Japan but also highlighted the importance of collaboration in addressing contemporary challenges in education and industry.
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Date: 14th September 2023
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IIMB’s Mizuho India Japan Study Centre celebrates its 5th Foundation Day on the theme ‘Connect Explore Develop’ on 16th September
The event, held on the hybrid mode, included addresses by eminent speakers from academia, industry, policy making areas; and release of publications by MIJSC
16 September, 2022, Bengaluru: “The Mizuho India Japan Study Centre has been making commendable efforts in deepening the bond of Indian and Japanese industry among the government, academia and business communities, in both our countries”, said Sanjay Kumar Verma, Indian Ambassador to Japan, in his keynote speech on: ‘Perspectives on India-Japan relationships’.
He was speaking during the 5th Foundation Day celebrations of the Mizuho India Japan Study Centre (MIJSC), an IIMB Centre of Excellence, on 16th September 2022 (Friday). The event was held on a hybrid mode, on the theme: ‘Connect Explore Develop’. The event included three sessions, the first focusing on reaching out to the centre’s stakeholders to understand their perspectives on the nuances of India-Japan relationship. The second session saw a video being played detailing activities of the centre, especially the achievements and initiatives in the last year. The session also saw leading academics talking about strengthening research and related academic bonds between the two nations. Another highlight of the session was the release of two major publications. In the third session, the highlight was on how Mizuho Bank visualizes its partnership with MIJSC at IIMB.
In a recorded message that was played out at the venue, Sanjay Kumar Verma highlighted that India and Japan have had a history of 70 years of established diplomatic relations. “There are strategic and global partnerships in areas like trade and investment, industrial development, infrastructure, digital, energy, human resources, critical and emerging technologies, climate change, health security, space security, defence, and overall regional and global security and prosperity. Other than the economic cooperation, our strategic convergence has gained new meaning in recent years since there is deep commitment between the two sides on bilateral relations and security, as reflected in various bilateral engagements. For example, under the Act East Forum, several developmental projects have been implemented in India.”
“Economic cooperation is also pronounced between the two countries. Japan supports flagship Indian projects and is one of the largest investors in the country. Bilateral trade is booming. It is important for both the countries to cooperate in sectors that can help ensure economic security for both countries. There is also the India Japan Industrial Competitiveness Partnership, to promote ties on manufacturing, MSMEs and supply chain. The countries are dedicated to work towards setting up of reliable, resilient and efficient supply chains.”
He listed some key areas that can contribute further to the economic security of the two countries. “Skill development and mobility of skilled workers from India to Japan is one such area. Digital partnerships will bring the countries together closer for innovation and product development. Energy partnerships and healthcare cooperation (which has gained more relevance with the onset of the pandemic) should be enhanced as well”.
Pointing out that people-to-people ties are the bedrock of any relationship, he said that the two countries have an ancient history of scholarly and spiritual linkages. “Japanese language education has immense potential to facilitate cultural ties, higher education, as well as academic, parliamentary, industrial, media, youth and sport exchanges. There is an increased interest in Japanese language education in India. Language is the key to building long lasting understanding and people-to-people linkages”.
Earlier in the evening, while delivering the welcome address, Prof. Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM Bangalore, said that MIJSC was the first country-focussed centre in IIMB which has fostered various interesting projects. “The Mizuho Bank has provided generous support not only financially, but takes active interest in the centre, which is very valuable to help us in building and developing the centre. Today’s forum with your participation and interaction will enable us to understand your expectations which we can translate into reality in the years to come.”
Prof. D Krishna Sundar, Chairperson, Mizuho India-Japan Study Centre, while welcoming the audience, gave an overview of MIJSC. “With industry support, especially from the Mizuho Bank, we have been able to initiate activities with focus on research, outreach and industry connect, of interest for both the nations. MIJSC has sponsored 10 funded research projects. Few elective courses are being offered as part of our degree granting MBA programme. Books have been published and a monograph has also come out. IIMB faculty is also involved in supporting industry needs. Student exchange programmes are another area of collaboration. New programmes are also on the anvil. There is work in progress to provide a Japanese language section in the IIMB library. These are small steps towards achieving a much larger agenda in the future.”
Nakane Tsutomu, Consulate General of Japan in Bengaluru, taking the audience through ‘Fostering Industrial-Academic linkages between India and Japan’, said that MIJSC has continued doing tremendous work despite the disruptions brought about by the pandemic. “MIJSC aims to become a networking hub between the two countries and fosters research, policy, innovation, sustainability, IPR development between the two countries, as well as cooperation between industry, government and well-known universities. There is vital human and academic exchange. MIJSC places great importance on partnership with start-ups. Japan is aware of India’s high economic potential and MIJSC’s position to promote further cooperation in promising areas of IT, start-up, digital, finance, science, technology, and more.”
Talking about ‘Building India Japan Business Relationships’, Toshihiro Mizutani, Director General of JETRO (Bengaluru), which is a Japanese government organization that supports business collaboration between Indian and Japanese companies, said that JETRO aimed to promote cooperation between the two countries on several areas of mutual interest, especially on Indian IT and start-up sector in recent times. “IJSC is also engaged in a lot of work which opens new business opportunities. Japan supports talented Indian students who play an important role in changing the mindset of Japanese youth. I hope we continue to contribute to each other.”
The next session saw a video being played out showcasing the milestones of MIJSC in the past year, including the webinars/talks it holds such as the ‘Tatsujin-Speak’ or ‘Expert-Speak’ and ‘Meijin-Samvad’ or ‘Expert-Conversation’ series; funding of research projects by faculty including Prof. A Damodaran, Prof. Rupa Chanda and Prof. Tirthatanmoy Das of the Economics area and Prof. Ishwar Murthy of the Decision Sciences area; publications released like coffee table books and a monograph; academic initiatives such as Elective Programmes like BPIM-J, J-EMPS, Executive Development Programmes like IJLP and BOM-J, retraining faculty, focus on Japanese language inputs, developing MOOCs for students and faculty, and more.
Prof. Tarun Panda, Dean of International Relations, IIT Hyderabad, gave his insight on ‘Building strong bonds between India and Japan through Academia’. Explaining that to make any bond we need two elements – ionic which is fragile and covalent, which is stronger and more stable, he said, “Sustainable relations between the two countries should be through the covalent bond, that the stakeholders can nurture. IIT Hyderabad is also doing valuable work for India-Japan relations. With similar goals, IIT Hyderabad and MIJSC, by working in sync, can make academic and industry relations between the two nations stronger and take that to the next level.”
Prof. H. S. Prabhakar, Japanese Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, spoke on ‘Strengthening research linkages between India and Japan’ and said that from an academic viewpoint, there were quite a few areas of great potential of conducting research on contemporary Japan. “I am happy that MIJSC is also covering the social science dimension”, he added.
Masahiko Kato, Mizuho President, shared his views on ‘Building India-Japan bonds through MIJSC’, through a video message. “We have always supported business activities in India. There is high possibility of business expansion in India as the country has a lot of potential. We have seen how the country fought Covid and sustained its developmental agenda. India has a strong process to nurture and attract talented people.” Talking about Mizuho Bank’s engagement with the centre, he said, “We have been offering both financial and non-financial support to MIJSC. We have offered lectures for student delegations at our head office in Tokyo, have supervised business case studies on India-Japan collaboration, and more. We look forward to further strengthening our ties by continuing to offer expertise gained from years of experience engaging with clients in India.”
MIJSC has also integrated learnings from research projects and the seminar-webinar series into a coffee table book and monograph book, which were released by Nakane Tsutomu and Prof. RT Krishnan, during the event. Toshihiro Mizutani and Prof. D Krishna Sundar declared Volume 2 Issue 2 of the MIJSC newsletter, capturing the activities of the centre and highlighting upcoming programmes, officially open. There was another video presentation on the newsletter and preview of an upcoming publication.
The wrap up and vote of thanks, was delivered by Saideep Rathnam, Chief Operating Officer, Mizuho India Japan Study Centre.
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Mizuho India Japan Study Centre at IIMB celebrates Foundation Day on Sep 14; announces projects for SMEs & students
Mizuho India Japan Study Centre (MIJSC), a Centre of Excellence at IIM Bangalore, successfully celebrated it Foundation Day event on 14th September 2021, thereby marking the Centre’s entry to the fifth year of its operations. The event was conducted online in the presence of distinguished chief guests such as Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission Toshihide Ando, Japanese Embassy in India; and Ambassador Sanjay Kumar Verma, Indian Embassy in Japan; Koji Fujiwara, President and CEO of Mizuho Bank; Akiko Sugita, Consul General of Japan, Bengaluru; Padma Bhushan Awardee Jamshed N. Godrej, CII-VLFM, Chairman and Managing Director of Godrej & Boyce; C.S. Patel, Ex-CEO of Anand Automotive Ltd and VLCI Chief Mentor, and other distinguished guests from IIM Bangalore. The programme was attended by a large number of dignitaries from the economic, technological, political, industrial, and banking sectors from within the country and overseas.
The theme of the MIJSC Foundation Day was ‘Connect. Explore. Transform’ and the event was divided three sessions, with each session addressing the theme in detail. The first session, ‘CONNECT’ involved reaching out to the Centre’s current and future stakeholders and showcasing through milestones video presentation its growth and successes through various collaborative activities, over the years, followed by speeches from dignitaries. In the second session, ‘EXPLORE’ – the main highlight was the showcasing of all the learnings captured through the research-funded projects and lecture series delivered by industry experts in the form of publications; followed by a message from Consulate General of Japan, Bengaluru. In the concluding session, ‘TRANSFORM’ – the Centre introduced through video presentations, two major game changing projects that could potentially change the SME landscape and engineering education paradigm in India and Japan.
Professor Krishna Sundar, Chairman of MIJSC, delivered the welcome address and Professor Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Director of IIMB, introduced all the dignitaries on the platform and set the tone for the session.
Connecting with stakeholders
MIJSC (earlier known as India Japan Study Centre) was founded with the aim to become a leading research and networking hub to pursue international, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive research on mutual areas of interest between India and Japan, and to provide students, researchers, business managers and policy makers with a deeper understanding of Japanese and Indian businesses. With the compelling business and national interests propelling the fast-evolving India-Japan business environment, MIJSC has successfully developed meaningful connections with different facets of society, be it the Government connect, media connect, industry and corporate connect and most importantly the academic connect. The Centre has excellent partner relations with Mizuho Bank, which is among the top 20 banks in the world, and among top three banks in Japan, with total assets of approximately $1.9 trillion. MIJSC is also becoming a forerunner in creating unique immersion focused programs for the students, researchers, executives, and entrepreneurs, to explore transnational industries and culture through academic, executive, and other outreach programmes. MIJSC also has connect with higher education partners in Japan who share our ambitions, values and aspirations. The Centre’s vision of collaboration helps in providing mutual support to enhance opportunities for students, researchers and/or business executives.
“The idea was to focus on one particular country, especially Japan, as it is the source of many innovative and useful management practices for the rest of the world. I am happy and thankful that Mizuho Bank, one of the largest banks in Japan and the world, has become an important supporter for the centre and hope that they will continue to provide ongoing advice and support for the various activities of the centre,” said Professor Rishikesha Krishnan.
Pointing out that the main focus of any centre of excellence is research, and that IIMB is looking forward to MIJSC undertaking new and important research projects with focus on India and Japan, Professor Krishnan said: “I hope that MIJSC’s partnerships with Japanese universities will go beyond student exchange programs, to generally undertake collaborative research resulting in very interesting findings on India and Japan. The last 18 months have been challenging for all of us, but I am quite happy to see MIJSC is adapting to these changes and creating a very innovative set of webinars with a diverse range of speakers and topics that offer glimpses into the uniqueness of Japan. I hope that MIJSC, going forward, will continue to build on the foundation it has set and will produce some path breaking research and innovations.”
“When Mizuho heard about the establishment of IJSC in 2017, we offered our support. With the vision of bringing academia and business of both India and Japan closer, IIMB and Mizuho bank came together. We aim to contribute to sustainable development and growth prospects of both large corporates as well as start-up ventures. I am very glad and excited to hear about the number of new initiatives taken up by MIJSC to promote and strengthen the Indo-Japan relations. I believe a collaboration between both nations can drive change and lead the world in a number of fields,” said Koji Fujiwara, President and CEO of Mizuho Bank.
“A major foundation of India-Japan relationship is people to people. Apparently, an increasing number of Indian people are interested in studying and looking for seeking employment in Japanese companies here. However, the number of Indians studying in Japan is still about 2000 and the number of Japanese students studying here is only about 70. There still is much room for improvement in light of our friendly relations. I am truly grateful that the activities of MIJSC over the past four years have greatly contributed to the exchange of people and knowledge between Japan and India. Even though traveling is currently difficult under the pandemic, we are still able to interact online as we are doing in today’s event. However, we should also prepare ourselves to reaccelerate direct interactions of people when the situation improves,” said Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission Toshihide Ando, Japanese Embassy in India.
“In terms of technology, finance, and management, India and Japan are not competitors, but they complement each other. Like India, Japan is also largely a country of small and medium enterprises, therefore, if you wanted deeper integration of the two business ecosystems, small and medium enterprises will have to be brought on board. Today's students are tomorrow's entrepreneurs and managers, and if they are given the right picture of both advantages and hurdles, they would be able to make the business on both sides proud of their existence and would take these businesses to the next, higher logical level of wealth and intellectual property creation,” said Ambassador Sanjay Kumar Verma, Indian Embassy in Japan.
Research projects
MIJSC aims to improve the quality of institutional investigation in India and Japan, and to build a critical mass of scholars whose work will have a positive and profound impact on the Indian and the Japanese corporate sectors. The Centre supports research projects by faculty members of IIMB on a broad range of research endeavours that are relevant to India and Japan. MIJSC has also been hosting national and international experts from various fields of study such as business, technology, and culture and society through webinars. The video presentation showcased in this session captured the learnings from both research projects and expert talks.
At the event, two products developed by MIJSC, a coffee table book and a monograph titled ‘Exploring India Japan Relationship Through Research and Webinars’ were launched. With these publications, MIJSC has attempted to integrate the learnings and insights derived from the research projects and the seminar/webinar under four key chapters of Business, Technology, Culture and Sustainability.
“The Centre started its journey by focusing on funded research programs on projects that are linked with India-Japan relationships. I am glad to see that six projects have been completed and many more projects are in the pipeline. The enthusiastic participation and increasing interest of the faculty in this program is very encouraging. I am very happy to see that the Centre is bringing out two versions of a book titled ‘India & Japan – A Relationship Explored Through Research & Webinars’ which compiles the learnings of the Research projects and Webinar series. There are many exciting projects lined up in the coming years. The support given to the Centre by Mizuho Bank is central to its success and I am sure that the partnership that we are building with Mizuho will ensure a long-term win-win relationship between our two organizations. We are also looking for partnerships with many other corporates, both Japanese and Indian, to move our programs at an even faster pace in the future,” said Professor Chetan Subramanian, Dean Faculty, IIM Bangalore.
“I would like to commend the great efforts of the faculty members at MIJSC in building a solid foundation for cultivating entrepreneurship of the students and developing various collaborative projects with Mizuho Bank, Toshiba and other supporting organizations of India and Japan. It is a great honour to be able to explore Japanese aspects for those students who aspire to bridge the two countries through business and beyond,” said Akiko Sugita, Consul General of Japan in Bangalore.
Supporting new ventures
In the concluding session, the Centre introduced two projects – Business Excellence and Transformation Index (B.E.T. Index) and Visionary Learning Community of India (VLCI).
The ability of small and medium enterprises to become part of the global networks is also a function of their technological competencies. SMEs need to focus on three key skills viz. their ability to satisfy their customers, their ability to control the cost and their ability to adapt to the technology. They need to have a right strategic perspective as well as focus on people management. They also need to adhere to sustainable goals linked with the environment and the society. In this context, estimating where each individual small and medium enterprise stands on these various dimensions is a challenge and this information is key for the SMEs to get into a partnership relationship, thereby becoming a part of global supply networks. There is a need to evaluate the business maturity of SMEs on these various dimensions. With that in mind, the business evaluation and transformation index research project has been conceptualized. This is a necessity when Japanese SMEs are also looking at collaborating, partnering and coming out with joint ventures with their counterparts in India. There is a need for us to create a platform of matchmaking between and among the SMEs of both countries to join hands based on the complementarities as well as alignment. The right kind of resources would bring in this kind of transformation.
“The focus is on engineering college students of rural and semi-urban backgrounds. We will be training them about Japanese manufacturing, management and quality philosophical insights and helping them do their internships in small and medium enterprises in India and, hopefully, in Japan,” said Professor Krishna Sundar, Chairperson, Mizuho India Japan Study Centre.
“VLCI 3.0, under MIJSC, would include a mixed-mode delivery of the programs, with online programs on the MOOCs platform followed by internship in small communities of SMEs and Colleges,” explained C.S. Patel, Ex-CEO of Anand Automotive Ltd and Chief Mentor VLCI.
“I sincerely hope that, with support from MIJSC and IIMB, VLCI will go to the next level of excellence. I warmly wish the Mizuho India Japan Study Centre success in building a stronger India-Japan relations. I hope that the links of academia and industry would strengthen through the association of the MIJSC with CII,” remarked Padma Bhushan Awardee Jamshed N. Godrej, CII-VLFM, Chairman and Managing Director of Godrej & Boyce.
The Foundation Day of MIJSC concluded with a note of thanks from Saideep Rathnam, COO, MIJSC.
Link to full video: https://youtu.be/tNHI-LynwKk