Tokyo Tech Visionary Project 2017:
Global Leadership
by Mr. Matthew S. Sussman

Tokyo Tech Visionary Project is a compulsory course for the first-year students at Tokyo Tech. It encourages self-discovery and aims to motivate students to set individual goals so that they can envision their own path throughout the four years of engineering studies at the undergraduate level. The course alternates between lectures and group work. Throughout the course, students will listen to some talks about the non-engineering field that have not been encountered yet. It takes importance on the development of personality, sociability, and creativity. It also allows students to identify, scrutinize, and convey problems, enhancing the interactive set of skills needed for efficient communication and presentation.

The 1st lecture was delivered by Prof. Fudano who taught the meaning of Liberal Arts and some insight on Engineering Ethics. In this entry, we would like to post the second lecture which was given on April 13 by Mr. Matthew S. Sussman, the Executive Director of Fulbright Japan. Besides the GSEP students, some other international students in TokyoTech also participated in the class.

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1. Lecture

Mr. Sussman began his lecture about Global Leadership by introducing his background and telling the students his life story. He is from the USA and received his BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1994. He said he always wanted to start his own business since a young age and become a leader. His first exposure to a global working environment was when he decided to come to Japan and worked as an English teacher. Due to his passion for business, then, he successfully established a company in Japan which facilitated young people to have an internship program to the USA. From the experience of managing a global business, he had a chance to become the Director of International Cross-cultural Committee (ICC) Japan, before finally became the executive director of Fulbright Japan.

Having shared his story, next he encouraged the students to think about the meaning of Global Leadership. Mr. Sussman said a global leader is a person who is able to collaborate and work with various people at a global scale in achieving a certain goal. Moreover, a global leader could be someone who can try to solve the problems the world is facing or inspire others to work to together to seek a solution. However, it is also true that there is no common conception of what is “Global” itself.

image1He also raised up some questions to the students, “who are world leaders you admire? and why they your role-model?”. He also discussed the difference between Intellectuals and Thought Leaders based on a recent article in the New York Times by David Brooks. As recently as the beginning of the 20th century, an “Intellectual” was a type of philosopher or ideologist who sought to explain the world and humanity into one encompassing belief (Voltaire, Camus, John Stuart Mills, etc.). On the other hand, a “Thought Leader” works toward one specific issue they believe critical to improvement in the world (Al Gore and climate change, Mark Zuckerberg and sharing, Sergey Brin and Larry Page for algorithms and big data, etc.)

Toward the end of his lecture, he gave a real example of a thought leader who can be considered a global leader as well. J. William Fulbright was a U.S. senator and the founding father of Fulbright Scholarship. After the destruction of WWII, Senator Fulbright believed that educational exchange was the best tool to prevent the use of nuclear weapons and another horrible world war.

Mr. Sussman told the students that becoming a global leader does not necessarily mean you have to achieve a big goal. Learning from Fulbright, just aiming to make the world a bit better, even by just managing some scholarships for few people, is enough to be considered as a global leader.

After the lecture, the students were asked to make their reflection note sheet, in which they have to summarize the lecture contents as well as express their opinion with regard to the issues raised in the lecture.

2. Group Work

Group work discussion was held on April 17 as follow-up to the talk. Students were divided into 3 groups of 4-5 members each. The groups were asked to share their individual reflection notes among their co-members. The first 30 minutes was used for discussing the summary of the lecture, followed by another 30 minutes for discussing the response sheet. Each group spent 2-3 minutes summary and opinions regarding the subject.

entakun

From the presentations, interesting issues were raised by the students, such as how do we define leadership, can a leader be a follower at the same time, what is leadership and teamwork, and what global issues should a global leader focus on. The students were able to learn and share their thoughts and opinions among each other.

The entakun paper shown in the picture was used for making some notes during the discussion. In the last 30 minutes, each group was asked to discuss their own thoughts, ideas, or common goals related to the topic. Then, a simple simulation of a leaderhip game was performed, which was called the Survival Game. From this game, the students were able to share their roles as a team member and a leader in accomplishing the given task.

Highlights of the talk and group work can be seen below.

Written by: Farid Triawan

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