Theme: Strive for joy

”Strive for joy”

Everyone of us has our own way to enjoy life. There are millions of ways.

When I launched TEDxHamamatsu, I was passionate to realize the philosophy of "Ideas worth spreading," and have worked toward the joy and happiness that lies ahead.
The process was a series of “Moments of joy from gaining new values and awareness.”

Through working toward joy and happiness not just by myself but with a lot of people, it's gone beyond my imagination and led to the joy and happiness of many people around as well.

The size of the target mountain may be different for each of you.
The reasons to aim for the summit differ as well.
The journey may not always be fun.
However, on the way, you may encounter spectacular scenery that you have never seen or come across before, or discover valuable animals or plants.
I hope you aim for your own summit while gathering the moments of joy from gaining such new encounters and awareness.

The theme for 2018 is "Strive For Joy." Through TEDxHamamatsu 2018, I hope you find the way to gather your moments of joy from gaining new values and awareness.
Go ahead and "Strive for joy!"

TEDx Hamamatsu Organizer Tetsuya Kawaguchi

SHIZUOKA UNIVERSITY OF ART AND CULTURE
2-1-1 Chuo Naka Ward
Hamamatsu, Sizuoka, 430-0929
Japan

Akari Imai

Manager of baseball team

Born in Hamamatsu City in 2001, lives in Hamamatsu City. Ms. Imai lives in Tenryu Ward which is a mountainous area located at the northern end of Hamamatsu City. It takes 20 minutes’ drive to go to the nearest store from her house. Her hometown is surrounded by mountains and nature. She grew up playing in the river in summer. Many young people leave this town to go to high schools. However, she chose to go to her local high school, Sakuma Branch. There are only 69 students in the whole Sakuma Branch, and they share one schoolhouse with a junior high school in the area. She became a manager of the baseball team. When she joined the team, there were 17 members including her and there will be only 6 members left when the seniors retire in next March. While she thought she should do something to cheer up the team, their head coach said “Our baseball team exists to excite this area.” These words led her to come up with an amazing idea and her efforts eventually changed the local community…

Atsuto Suyama

SB Drive Corp. CTO / Web Engineer

Born in Hamamatsu City in 1984. He has liked making things since he was a child, learned mechanical engineering and developed various applications as a major IT company engineer. He has a wealth of ideas and has numerous awards at Hackathons and business contests. In 2013, he built an original service model that utilizes automatic driving technology and commercialized an automatic driving vehicle project. In 2016, he co-founded SB Drive Corp. and became CTO. He continues to try to offer new services to society by multiplying technologies such as communication and web services to the automobile and transportation industry, which has less innovation from the internet. Mr. Suyama is working on the automation of public buses. In 2017, the first trial on public roads in Japan succeeded and is now bound for practical use. What kind of services and mechanisms are necessary for automated public transportation? This field is where the web engineer Mr. Suyama shows his talents.

Ayuko Ito

Short track speed skater

Born in Hamamatsu City in 1986, lives in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. She is a speed skater who participated in the Olympic Games three times, Vancouver in 2010, Sochi in 2014 and PyeongChang in 2018. When she was in second grade of junior high school, she participated in the Japan Championship. Since she was a child, she wanted to be praised by people around, and had a dream to participate in the Olympic Games at any kinds of skating events. She had chosen short track speed skating and set a goal to take part in the Olympic Games. Although she had once retired after participated in the Sochi Olympics in 2014, she realized her renewed love for skating after experienced the supporting staff. She won the first place of the All-Japan Championship in 2016 and made a comeback. She also won the second place of 500-meter race at the Winter Asian Games in 2017 and participated in the PyeongChang Olympics in 2018.

Junior Maeda

Photographer

Born in Porto Alegre in the Federal Republic of Brazil in 1975, and lives in Hamamatsu City. Mr. Maeda is a third generation Japanese-Brazilian photographer who lives in Japan for 28 years. He has taken many photographs of Japanese Brazilians to express what “Dekassegui”(migrant workers) in the 1990s were like. You can feel the breathing of that time realistically from his monochrome photos. It has been 110 years since the first Japanese immigrant ship went to Brazil. A lot of events to re-ensure the bond between Brazil and Japan are took place in various parts of Japan. At these exhibitions, Mr. Maeda’s photos play an indispensable role and tell us something important without a word. Mr. Maeda said “I want to tell the younger Brazilian generations who do not know the old days how Japanese Brazilians lived in Japan at that time.” At the same time, he does not only tell the past, but also introduce Japanese Brazilians who are active at the front lines of current Japanese society

Sayaka Watanabe

Representative Director of NPO WELgee

Born in 1991 in old Mikkabi-town (current: Hamamatsu City), lives in Tokyo. Ms. Watanabe moved to Tokyo when she enrolled in graduate school, where she met asylum-seekers from Africa. Upon encountering them, she did not feel ‘pity’ - rather, she thought “I want to build a society that gives them hope and allows future options”. In March 2016, she established WELgee with a slogan “make a colorful world together”. Rathering than “supporting” asylum-seekers, WELgee aims to overcome the differences to achieve a common vision. Now she works on a project to render an empty house into a warm co-living space for Japanese people and asylum-seekers, and also a career support program that aims to empower asylum-seekers by creating employment opportunities whereby they leverage their talents and passion to pursue professional careers. Their monthly ‘WELgee Salon’ has initiated interaction, friendship and live learning amongst over 1,000 participants from 26 countries.

Toru Yada

Co-founder of 403architecture [dajiba] / Architect

Born in 1985, in Oita Prefecture, lives in Hamamatsu City. As an individual, he joins a town-planning project for Hamamatsu City to produce innovative spaces as well as runs an architect office based in Hamamatsu City. Mr. Yada says he has learnt that architecture relates to “how to use it” besides “how to build it” through repair project of the Saitama station front and study of settlement in Hida during his student days. It is connected to the current activities that the team practice established to aim to create space with his companies around the same time. The relationship to Hamamatsu City has continued since the workshop to utilize the empty shops on shopping streets. Mr. Yada’s attempt, which can be called as area innovation, does not only “create” stylish space as an architect. His activity also expands “how to make a good use of” the town, which is the point. New values are created by ideas of people from several fields.

Yoshikazu Suzuki

Basketball tutor (SSS rank coach)

Born in 1979 in Ibaraki Prefecture, lives in Saitama Prefecture. Mr. Suzuki started “Basketball Tutor” as a business, specializing in coaching basketball to children all over Japan and training Junior-level basketball coaches. His coaching method is “To train coaches who move people’s hearts not by force but by gentleness, not by threat but by pride.” He started playing basketball when he transferred to a new primary school where he met a coach he respected who had changed his life. Mr. Suzuki started aiming to become a basketball coach in his junior high school days. He continued pursuing his basketball career passionately in junior high and high school and started “Basketball Tutor” in 2002 when he enrolled into Chiba University Graduate School. In 2007, he founded a company and has established a reputation for his curriculum of training coaches, while he enriches his coaching program through delivery coaching and camping program.