Theme: Dear...

The theme of this year’s event is “Dear…”. As we all are aware, the word “Dear” is often written in the beginning of a letter, and it often comes with a dearly loved person’s name. We, TEDxICU 2016, would like to create an event that will recognize and realize what each participant value in their lives, and individually fill in the ‘Dear…’ with the values or things that they think are important to them.

Diffendorfer Memorial Hall East Wing, International Christian University
3-10-2 Osawa
Mitaka City, Tôkyô, 181-8585
Japan

Akihide Toda

Student

Born to a Korean father and Japanese mother, he holds two nationalities. Since he was six months old, he lived in China with his parents where he spent most of his life. Since coming to Japan for college, he has confronted issues relating to his nationalities. Despite these issues, he has been able to find valuable answers, which he will be sharing with us all through his talk.

Daichi Usui

Senior Partner of Global Change Makers Program

He is the senior partner of the limited liability company Global Change Makers Program, and was born in 1988. He is from Utusnomiya, Tochigi Prefecture. After enrolling in college, he became a member of the announcement research society.

Elizabeth Handover

Lumina Learning

She is a Japan Partner & Asia Head of Faculty for Lumina Learning, a U –based organisation that creates innovative psychometrics for enhanced communication, teamwork and leadership. She designs and facilitates programmes for major multinational organisations and received the British Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year for her contributions in the field of women’s leadership and global leadership. She is passionate about bringing women’s authentic leadership talents to life through powerful experiential learning.

Gavin H. Whitelaw

Senior Associate Professor

He is Senior Associate Professor of Anthropology. He began teaching at ICU in 2008 and served Japan Studies Program Coordinator from 2010 to 2014. His research interests include consumerism and exchange, material culture, work, and food. He is currently completing a book on the social life of Japanese convenience stores.

Koichi Nishimura

Heart Artist

He is originally from Hokkaido and attended an art school in Aichi prefecture studying oil paintings but later left, and in 2013, he started an art project called “heart series” in which he makes a heart-shaped piece with Washi tapes and now has over 1800 pieces.

Masako Wakamiya

The board of the NPO Broad Band School

She was born in 1935 and is the board of directors for the NPO Broad Band School. After graduating high school, she worked at a bank, and since retiring, she has been taking care of her mother while socializing online. Since the foundation of a social networking site for elders, she has been managing the site, and is now the Vice President.She enjoys coming up with new ideas for digital media. Even though she has a lot of curiosity and interests, she is still working towards gaining more time and skill.

Ryosuke Takashima

Student

Ryosuke Takashima was born in 1997 in Osaka, Japan. After graduating from Nada high school in 2015, he attended the University of Tokyo. In September of the same year, he transfered to Harvard College. At Harvard, he studies environmental policies, plays rugby, works as a photographer for a student newspaper, and manages international conferences. Outside campus, Ryosuke is the President of Ryugaku Fellowship, a non-profit corporation. He travels around Japan to introduce studying abroad as an alternative academic career to pursue.

Yoshie Kaneko

Board of Nerima Kodomo Shokudo

She graduated a Christian woman's college and studied Japanese literature. Theater performance brought her to the path of becoming an announcer. Since 1978 she has mainly been working for NHK, reporting for many different shows.