Internship
■Washington, D.C., 2013.Sep.29 ～ 2013.Oct.5
■Participants
Dr. Maki Fukami and more than 10 others from International Institute of Global Resilience (IIGR) and eleven members from HIGO PROGRAM (9 students, 1program staff, 1 associate professor)
■Purpose
Attain pragmatic flexibility in decision-making, action-taking, management capacity, in order to solve problems in practical situations on Health Life issues - Administration, Business, and Education Research.
■Contents
The 1st Day FEMA training
Prof. Kathleen Henning from the University of Maryland, the officially approved trainer for Federal Emergency Management Agency of the United States (FEMA), gave us emergency-simulated training and lectures regarding the facts of FEMA and ICS（Incident Command System）- functions and correlations of its each section.
The 2nd Day FEMA training
Complicated-situation-simulated FEMA trainings were given by Prof. Kathleen Henning, before our group discussion, presentations and all-class discussion. Dr. Joseph Barbera, Mr. Leo Bosner, and Dr. Takeshi Nagata showed some examples of actual ICS operations. This 2-day program enabled us to learn managing skills and knowledge of ICS-applied problem solution, decision-making, management and leadership.
The 3rd Day Business management
Health-Life-Related business program started with the lecture by Dr. Sachiko Kuno about entrepreneurship and career building skill, followed by Dr. Ryuji Ueno, who showed the outline of prostone, the prostaglandin metabolite, and how its discovery led to business start-up.
At the World Bank, its role and activities were introduced by Dr. Naoko Ohno, and back at the training center, Shinichi Naoki lectured on health policy in the U.S. and Japan.
The 4th Day Medical/Health Business
At William E Hana Jr., Innovation Center, Director John A. Korpela talked how the county supports business start-ups and innovations, while Dr. Wataru Akahara described his vaccine development research, and related-activities operated there.
The afternoon lecture started at the training center, by Dr. Devang Thakor, focusing on U.S. patent system and entrepreneurship. This 2-day program helped us attain knowledge and spirits needed for leadership, entrepreneurship, and how to confront problems in the field of Health Life Science.
The Final Day Field work
Although we had planned study tour observing public, cultural, historical, aesthetic, political institutions around Washington D. C., - almost all of governmental sites turned out to have been closed - because of the chaos of U.S. Congress, the worst in 17 years. The alternative plan was to visit Mount Vernon near Alexandria in the commonwealth of Virginia, which once embraced the plantation of the first U.S. president George Washington, where we were able to study the history and spirit of U.S. establishment.
Post Script
The below are the multifaceted trainings and lectures dedicated to this program.
All those were stimulating for the leadership-pursuer of The HIGO Program. Interacting directly with the globally successful role models as well as the active Japanese experts in the one-week program with lectures, trainings and others, especially in the atmosphere of political, economic and research capital of the world, the Washington. D. C., showed the clear image of entrepreneurship, future career models and activities. We've also faced the reality of the U.S.; the budget talk stalemate. It affected governmental institutions, subways and shops around the civic center, unfortunately, but it also was the part of our great experience of sensing the political, economic, cultural, historical and communal milieu as a whole. My sincere hope is that the students will pursue their higher goal, reflecting what they attained in this DC Program in their every-day activities.
My concern had been whether the students would get through the English trainings and lectures of unfamiliar contents, and if they could be developed to the level of doing presentation and discussion themselves. However, to my surprise, they were remarkably active in questioning and conducting high-level presentations, which I believe was fruits of all the efforts and up-skilling endeavor in HIGO lectures, seminars, internships and every-day activities as well as their high motivation towards this DC Program. This can be regarded as a notable achievement of our purpose.
Let me conclude my report by expressing my sincere gratitude to Dr. Maki Fukami, Ms. Kanako Saeki both from IIGR, Dr. Sachiko Kuno from S&R Foundation, Dr. Ryuji Ueno from Scumpo Group, and all the others concerned, for their generous support to make this program successful.
■Students' Voice
・The well-selected location of this internship enabled me to get in touch with the essential aspects of the U.S - the global leader and the great producer of world leaders. Moreover, the talks and the lectures by native English speakers were such a meaningful experience that revealed the actual ability of my English skill in discussion and communication, the need to improve both of my English and sociability. Although we Japanese tend to speak Japanese even in English-speaking locations, the program's all-in-English environment - lectures and other communications (conversations with foreign students and lecturers, Q&A and presentations) - gave us a great opportunity to try and speak English, which has contributed to upgrade our English a little.
・ "The best effort will create a better future in my work" was the advice given there, seemingly simple but helpful indeed for clarifying my vision.
・I really appreciate that I have been given the luck to be there and could visualize my future.