My Vision No.32
2017.11

Taking Up the Challenge of the Fourth
Industrial Revolution
Rapid technological innovation centering on IoT, Big Data and AI, which is being labeled the “Fourth
Industrial Revolution,” has the potential to significantly change our lifestyles and our societies. As
giant US IT platform companies extend their global dominance, what growth strategies will Japanneed to implement in order to boost its presence on the world stage in the coming era?
In this issue of My Vision, our interviewees consider the issues that the Fourth Industrial Revolution
presents Japan, and strategies to overcome these issues and achieve growth, from the five
perspectives of platform creation, the social implementation of technologies, intellectual propertysystems, the promotion of innovation, and the cultivation of human resources.

About this Issue
The fourth industrial revolution: Drawing out the power of the individual– An era of opportunity in which everyone has the chance to flourish
Yasufumi Kanemaru
Representative Executive Officer & Chief Executive Officer, NIRA / Chairman and President, Group
CEO, Future Corporation
Keywords…Cyber-economy, innovation creation sandboxes, role of universities, government budget allocation,utilization of data, opportunities originating with the individual

Expert Opinions
Taking Up the Challenge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
What growth strategies should Japan adopt in response to the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”?
And how will the nation overcome the associated problems?

Platform businesses that make use of Japan’s
strengths

Towards the realization of a society ofintellectual co-creation through technologicaland institutional innovation

Tatsuyuki Negoro

Hideyuki Tokuda

Professor, Waseda Business School
Keywords…Platforms, generality and specialization,“human touch,” regulatory sandboxes

President, National Institute of Information andCommunications Technology
Keywords…Society of intellectual co-creation,technology shaping, institutional innovation, McLuhan’sfour laws of media

Creation of systems for prioritizing the use ofdata as new information goods

Revising the assessment of fundamental
research – Fostering general-purpose
technologies

Izumi Hayashi

Hiroshi Shimizu

Attorney at Law, Sakurazaka Law Offices
Keywords…New information goods, conditions forprotection in intellectual property systems, protection ofbusiness confidentiality, creation of environments for the
distribution of data

Professor, Institute of Innovation Research,
Hitotsubashi University
Keywords……General-purpose technologies, assessmentof fundamental research, gray zones, promotion of new
industry entries

Cultivating the necessary human resources
for an industrial revolution based on data use
Akimichi Takemura

Director of Data Science Education and Research,
Shiga University
Keywords…Big Data, industrial revolution based ondata use, data science

Interview period：July -June, 2017
Interviewer：Daisuke Ozaki (NIRA Research Coordinator
Researcher）
Editor：Isao Arai

This is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11
About this Issue

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Drawing Out thePower of the Individual – An Era of Opportunity inwhich Everyone has the Chance to Flourish
The technological revolution represented by the Internet ofThings (IoT), Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is
being referred to as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” isproducing significant changes in the global map of economic power.
A range of arguments and proposals have been presented inrelation to what Japan should do in order to ensure a stable
position in the future world and the ability to make a contribution

Yasufumi Kanemaru
Representative Executive Officer& Chief Executive Officer, NIRA /Chairman and President, Group
CEO, Future Corporation

to that world.
Before discussing these, it will be necessary to briefly consider
the general background to the issues.
The explosive development of the commercial use of theInternet which commenced in the latter half of the 1990s

generated only speculative interest in Japanese society. As a result, Japan overlooked the essential
nature of the innovation that was occurring, and became one of the “losers” in the race. Today, US IT
platform companies dominate the world. For example, the total market value of the companies
known collectively as FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) has now reachedapproximately 300 trillion yen. The importance of the “cyber-economy,” an economy of data, ideas,
and other intangible and invisible things, is increasing as an adjunct to the “real economy,” theeconomy of tangible, visible things. However, we have to face the fact that Japan’s presence in the
cyber-economy is minimal.

Creating Environments that stay out of the Way of Entrepreneurs
What is the essential nature of the innovation taking place?
Google’s search engine had its origin in research conducted by graduate students. The searchengine was developed as its creators grappled with the technological means to realize an idea thatanyone could come up with: The creation of an enormous index of information. Similarly,
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg created an SNS to connect fellow students through a processof trial and error. As this indicates, innovation is generated by people who come up with a modest
idea, and work to implement that idea whether they succeed or fail. The origin of innovation isentrepreneurial individuals. Today, the phenomenon is not restricted to IT; in the worlds ofbiotechnology and materials development also, if one or two entrepreneurial individuals come up
with an idea, they are able to procure venture capital from around the world.
Professor Tatsuyuki Negoro of Waseda University, one our interviewees in this issue of My
Vision, sees Japan’s problems as originating in excessive regulation and a culture thatemphasizes the resolution of problems in advance. Hideyuki Tokuda of the National Institute ofInformation and Communications Technology, urges the provision of a demonstration experimentenvironment on the scale of the society as a whole.
Both of these scholars emphasize that what is necessary in Japan is the provision of anThis is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11environment that stays out of the way of entrepreneurial individuals and allows them to freely
take up challenges. One example of this is provided by the “innovation creation sandboxes” that the
Growth Strategy Council of the Cabinet Office has proposed systematizing. This is a mechanism
allowing the flexible easing of regulations around near-future technologies in a variety of areas,
facilitating the smooth implementation of proving trials. After appraising the risks involved, users
would become part of the project team, participating as central players.
Izumi Hayashi of Sakurazaka Law Offices discusses the utilization of data as a new form of
information goods. Suspicion regarding data use is deep-rooted in Japanese society, at least in partas a result of the clumsiness of the efforts of the government and related agencies in this area.
However, it is very likely that excessive protection would impede activities in the cyber-economy. It
will be necessary to provide an environment that allows the development of advanced services
using data, while also realizing a balance with consumer protection.

Transforming the universities to promote innovation
Both fundamental research and applied research are essential to generating innovation. We
often hear the opinion that we should be prioritizing fundamental research at universities.
However, the governance of Japan’s universities is so conclusively inadequate that we could not
expect any benefit to be generated by simply increasing the budget for fundamental research. The
majority of Japan’s universities do not emphasize their individuality with unique features, and thecomposition of their faculties and curricula and the disposition of teaching staff and students
remain unchanged from the past. This situation is not even conducive to short-term returns, to say
nothing of the long-term outlook. Because university presidents and deans are chosen to represent
the interests of the teaching staff affiliated with the institutions, fundamental reform is difficult toachieve. To enable Japan’s universities to turn their attention to the rapidly changing external
environment, it would be desirable for them to adopt a system similar to the use of external
directors in the corporate world, encouraging decision-making that is not simply directed byinstitutional interests. By this means, they would become able to respond to changes in society andtechnology. In addition, universities can have an important role to play in bringing entrepreneurs
looking to found start-ups together with research personnel.
There are also significant problems with regard to the allocation of government budget
resources. Compared to nations like the US, the budget directed towards the stimulation of
innovation in Japan is extremely small, and in addition, because ministries and agencies scramble
for their own share of these meager budget resources, they are not ultimately directed towards
strategically meaningful investments. As Professor Hiroshi Shimizu of Hitotsubashi University
points out in his interview, we need mechanisms that will enable us to foster general-purpose
technologies. The cultivation of human resources suited to the needs of the era will also beessential to the promotion of innovation. As discussed by Akimichi Takemura, Shiga University has
established a Faculty of Data Science and is working to foster human resources for data utilization.
The establishment of concrete unique features of this type among universities will be vital to theirability to attract the most promising students.

An Era of Opportunity, in which the Individual will be the Point of Origin of Innovation
Today’s Japan displays weaknesses characteristic of an aging society, including ossified laws andThis is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11regulations and a resistance to new technologies. But if we turn our attention towards Japan’s
younger generations, we find an abundance of excellent human resources in every field. As
demonstrated by achievements including Japanese junior high school students finishing close to the
top in world programming contests and Japanese sportspeople performing with the bestinternationally, superior human resources are not to be found only in Silicon Valley or in India. And
as I have previously indicated, today it is the individual who is the point of origin.
The intense vigor of technological innovation means that the playing field is subject to rapidchange. Perhaps another Google will not arise, but there are any number of opportunities for successin different competitive domains. A long time coming, this is an era of tremendous opportunity for
individuals throughout the world who have an inspiring idea.
To what extent will older people share their experience and funds with younger people, and act
as their supporters? Japan’s ability to catch the wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution depends
on the answer to this question.

Mr. Kanemaru is NIRA’s Representative Executive Officer & Chief Executive Officer, and the Chairman andPresident, and Group CEO, of Future Corporation. He also serves in a number of official capacities, including as theActing Chair of the Cabinet Office’s Regulatory Reform Promotion Council and as a member of the Cabinet
Secretariat’s Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform.

This is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11
Expert Opinions

Platform Businesses that make Use ofJapan’s Strengths
Japan is lagging behind in the field of platform businesses. Google,
the representative company in the field, has realized overwhelming
competitive power by providing a consumer-oriented information hub
able to be accessed via the Internet for a wide range of purposes.
Looking ahead over the next five to ten years, it is unlikely thatJapan will be able to achieve global competitive advantage in thisfield, given both linguistic difficulties and the superiority of the US
development system. The achievement of competitive advantage in
China, a nation with an overwhelming domestic market scale, would
also be difficult.
Tatsuyuki Negoro
However, there are diverse platform types. The game units in
Professor,
whichJapan is a world leader are platforms, as are general-purpose
Waseda Business School
components employed in a wide range of products.
What are the specific strengths possessed by Japanese companies? Potential very likely exists
in the area of platforms tailored to specific fields. For example, in the field of construction
equipment, Komatsu is offering outstanding services under the banner of “Smart Construction.”
The field of autonomous driving necessitates onboard systems that support communications andsystems that incorporate control systems for the engine and other parts. Japan is strong in thislatter field, but could not expect to be the outright winner. However, the nation would have scope to
exercise its specific abilities. IT companies alone are unable to develop and manufacture
autonomous vehicles, in which safety is of paramount importance. In addition, Japanesemanufacturers have traditionally not merely supplied bare functions, but have also excelled inoffering the refinement of a human touch, a detailed consideration of the user. Exploiting this point
offers Japan the potential to take the lead in the field of applied robots specialized in specific tasks,
for example care or rescue.
If we slightly expand the interpretation of “platform” in this way to encompass the definition“shared foundation for products and services,” we will find that there are still fields in which
Japanese companies can display their strengths. However, in order to win out in the global market,
it will be essential for Japanese companies to develop and make products available before the restof the world, and to allow themselves to be honed and become stronger in the market itself.
Regarding these last points, in today’s Japan excessively stringent regulations and a culture thatplaces an excessive emphasis on resolving problems before the fact represent impediments to thedevelopment of platform businesses. The key here will be the establishment of a system of“regulatory sandboxes” (temporary suspension of existing regulations) to allow active testing of
new businesses.
Professor Negoro is a leading figure in the Japanese study of business administration, driving the field forwardwith research in areas including IT and business strategy, business models, and Internet businesses. He graduatedfrom the Division of Philosophy of Kyoto University’s Faculty of Letters, and completed the MBA Program of Keio
University’s Graduate School of Business Administration. He took his present position in 2001, following experience
including employment with an iron and steel manufacturer, and periods as a Visiting Researcher at the Universityof Hull and as a professor in Bunkyo University’s Faculty of Information and Communications. Professor Negoro
was formerly the Dean of the Waseda Business School, and is Director of Waseda University’s Research Institute ofInformation Technology and Management. He has held positions including President of the Japan Society forManagement Information, Vice-President of the International Academy of CIO Japan, Director of the Academic
Association for Organizational Science, and Advisor to the CRM Association, Japan. Professor Negoro is a threetime recipient of the Outstanding Paper Award presented by the Japan Society for Management Information.
This is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11
Expert Opinions

Towards the Realization of a Society of Intellectual Cocreation through Technological and Institutional Innovation
Following the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the fusion of
cyberspace and real space will accelerate, making our society asociety of intellectual co-creation between human and machine. The
evolution of technology and the generation of innovation will be thecornerstones for the realization of this future society. The concern
in some quarters over the existence of unbridgeable gulfs or conflict
between humans and machines can be attributed not just to thelack of social acceptance of the technologies, but also to factors
including the lack of maturity of the technologies themselves andHideyuki Tokuda
their mismatch with social systems. Taking autonomous driving
President, National Institutetechnologies as an example, revision of traffic laws, insuranceof Information andsystems, and other systems will be essential to increasing the social
Communications Technology
acceptance of these technologies, and it will also be necessary toensure the safety and security of the software itself.
In order to facilitate the acceptance of new technologies by human societies, we must actively
promote “technology shaping,” adapting the form of the technology to transform it into one that fits
the society.
Nevertheless, while the speed of technological change is rapid, it takes time for peoples’
lifestyles and worldviews to change. Because of this, the pursuit of technological and institutionalinnovation as parallel streams is essential to enabling us to delineate the features of a flourishing
future society. The establishment of a demonstration environment allowing proving trials to be
conducted at the level of the entire society is a pressing issue in terms of advancing innovation insystems and laws that will enable the acceptance of new technologies.
At the same time, it will be essential for every individual to understand the fundamental
changes that will ensue, i.e. the effect that new technologies will have on peoples’ awareness, senseof values, and lifestyles. Marshall McLuhan, well known for his writings on media, posited four
perspectives for understanding technological artifacts (media). These can be paraphrased asfollows: “What does the artifact enhance?”, “What does the artifact render obsolete?”, “What does
the artifact retrieve?”, and “What does the artifact reverse into (i.e. how does its character change
when pushed to its limits)?” In approaching such phenomena as the various services made possibleby the IoT, Big Data and AI technologies, this fundamental understanding will be important as a
new form of social literacy.
A new digital divide will open up between countries that embrace this understanding of
information literacy and pursue technological and institutional innovation, and which additionallyestablish demonstration experiment environments, and countries that do not, and this divide willgrow into a disparity in international competitiveness.
Professor Tokuda is a leader in research in areas including ubiquitous computing systems, OS, cyber-physicalsystems, and the IoT, and is the recipient of numerous awards. He received his M.S. from Keio University’s
Graduate School of Science and Technology, and his Ph.D. from the School of Computer Science, University ofWaterloo (Canada). Prior to taking his present position, Professor Tokuda held the positions of Associate Professor
in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, and Professor in the Faculty of Environment andInformation Studies, Keio University. During his career at Keio University, he has served as the university’s
executive Vice-President, the Dean of the Graduate School of Media and Governance, and the Dean of the Facultyof Environment and Information Studies. Professor Tokuda’s official positions also include member of the Science
Council of Japan, Chairman of the Smart IoT Acceleration Forum, and Chairman of the Connected Consumer
Device Security Council.
This is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11
Expert Opinions

Creation of Systems for prioritizing the Useof Data as New Information Goods
For connected industries, which are creating new added value fromthe connection enabled by digitalization, it will be essential to flexibly
adapt the balance between promotion of the use of data as new
information goods and protection of data in accord with the state ofdevelopment of technology and society.
Current law provides for the protection of patent rights andcopyright in the case of deep-learning programs and learned models(the combination of programs and parameters). At the same time, thepossibility of easing restrictions under copyright law in relation tocopyrighted material contained in data for machine learning is underIzumi Hayashi
review. Products generated using AI as a tool are subject to copyrightAttorney at Law,and patent right protections, etc. if there is any human creative
Sakurazaka Law Offices
contribution employed in the process of generation of the product. In
addition, information managed as confidential is protected as a trade secret under the Unfair
Competition Prevention Act.
At the same time, the treatment of “new information goods” that do not meet the requirementsfor protection under this existing internationally shared intellectual property system is currently
under discussion by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Even internationally, there areas yet no examples of the creation of exclusive (monopolistic) intellectual property rights or laws
regulating conduct in relation to data in general. There is concern that the creation of specificallyJapanese exclusive data rights or data regulations would run counter to predictability and thesafety of transactions, and might impede the distribution of data. Given this, in the case ofregulations focusing on information goods, it will be reasonable to commence by expanding theexisting provisions for the protection of trade secrets; in the case of revisions to laws, from theperspective of measures to respond to data security threats such as targeted attacks, it will beappropriate to treat highly malicious activities (for example, decryption of data) as acts of unfair
competition.
What is required at present is the creation of a system to establish top priority for datautilization. In doing so, in order to clarify authority for data utilization by means of flexible
negotiations (for example with regard to dividing up data related to trade secrets or personal
information), and to establish data distribution environments (for example Personal Data Stores(PDS) and information banks (provision of personal data to a third party with the consent of therelevant individual, as specified in the Act on the Protection of Personal Information)), it will benecessary, among other things, to obtain the agreement of consumers, promote the diffusion ofguidelines that attempt to ensure trust, and implement data utilization by the government/private
enterprise with the involvement of the individuals concerned.
Ms. Hayashi has an extensive involvement in consultations, contract negotiations and dispute resolution
procedures in the areas of domestic and international corporate legal affairs and intellectual property management.
She registered as a lawyer in 1987, following experience as a prosecutor for the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Ms.
Hayashi is actively involved in a wide range of areas, serving as a member of government committees including theCouncil for Regulatory Reform, the Regulatory Reform Promotion Council, and the Intellectual Property Strategy
Headquarters, while also working as an educator, for example in the Chuo Law School. In addition to these roles,
Ms. Hayashi serves as the Secretary General of the Intellectual Property Lawyers Network Japan, and as amember of the Steering Committee of the IoT Acceleration Consortium and the Advisory Board on Artificial
Intelligence and Human Society, acts as moderator and offers presentations at symposiums concerning intellectual
property and international business, and frequently publishes papers on legal issues.
This is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11
Expert Opinions

Revising the Assessment of Fundamental Research– Fostering General-purpose Technologies
The reason for the tremendous impact of the industrial revolution in
18th-century England was the fact that steam engine technology, which
was developed for the specific purpose of pumping water from coal mines,
came to be applied in a variety of fields (for example, in the developmentof the locomotive), undergoing a process of cumulative refinement andsuccessively giving rise to new forms of value.
In the case of the contemporary “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” it is
not absolutely clear what the general-purpose technology that will
become the mainstay of the economy will be. Whether it is AI or new
Hiroshi Shimizu
information and communications technology, in order to generate value
Professor, Institute ofworthy of the name “revolution,” it will be necessary to accumulate aInnovation Research,foundation of research efforts to bring the technology to a sufficiently
Hitotsubashi University
high level.
However, current research efforts are concentrated on applied research from an early stage,
meaning that there is a tendency to use up the potential seeds of future growth before the generalpurpose technology has solidified. In order to foster general-purpose technologies that have thenature of public goods, it will be necessary for the government to revise its approach to theassessment of the outcomes of highly uncertain fundamental research, and to create mechanisms to
support fundamental research by national research institutes and universities.
In the US, government agencies including the Department of Defense and the Department ofEnergy have provided funding for fundamental research, but in Japan no such organizations haveplayed this role. In their place, large corporations have supported fundamental research. However,changes in the business environment have been severe in recent years, and it will not be possible toexpect companies to maintain this role in the future. Now is the time for national research institutes,
universities, and similar institutions to take up this role, but they are proceeding in a different
direction.
In the 1970s, Japan’s universities conducted a higher proportion of fundamental research than
US universities. More recently, however, the positions have been reversed. Under the banner ofindustry-academia cooperation, in Japan, fundamental research has decreased as the result of ademand for visible outcomes such as patents received and products marketed; in the US, by contrast,
fundamental research has been increased while promoting cooperation between industry andacademia.
The Japanese government must also adopt measures to promote the entry of new companies in arange of areas. In new areas such as autonomous driving and Airbnb-style leasing, rules remain
unfixed, and there are significant gray zones. The entry of new companies that are unfettered by old
concepts and vested interests will be the key to promoting radical innovation in these new fields.
In studying innovation, Professor Shimizu conducts historical analyses in relation to corporate strategy,organizational structure and industrial organization, with a particular focus on long-term changes in patterns. He
received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to taking his present position in2017, Professor Shimizu’s experience includes a term as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Eindhoven University ofTechnology. His book Innovations in General Purpose Technology (Yuhikaku, 2016; in Japanese) was awarded the59th Nikkei Keizai Tosho Bunka Award and the 33rd Academic Association for Organizational Science Takamiya
Award. Professor Shimizu also regularly submits papers to international peer-reviewed journals.
This is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement

My Vision No.32
2017.11
Expert Opinions

Cultivating the necessary Human Resources
for an Industrial Revolution based on Data Use
The spread of smartphones and the diverse products andservices related to them has resulted in a radical change in theenvironment in which we live our lives and utilize data. The
amount of data that we are able to collect and utilize has rapidly
grown in scale, and the phrase “Big Data” has become firmly
entrenched. Data is now an important management resource, andhas even been called “the oil of the 21st century.” Appropriate use ofthis resource will boost the international competitiveness of
Akimichi Takemura companies and, further, of nations. In Japan, which has
traditionally been strong in the manufacturing industry, companies
Director, Data Science
Education and Research,
have emphasized the incorporation of advanced functions andShiga University
multiple functions into their products. However, with thedevelopment of information technology, a new perspective has become more important: Identifying
customer needs from massive amounts of data, and attracting consumers by increasing the appealof content and offering optimum products and services on this basis. Japan is lagging behind in thetransition to this type of approach. By contrast, the US, which possesses a cultural environment inwhich data is regarded seriously and also has a well-developed system for education in statistics,
has offered fertile ground for the utilization of data analysis in business. As a result, the US hastaken the competitive advantage in the field of information.
Japanese manufacturing remains strong. What Japan must do, as the IoT continues to develop
against the background of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is to use that strength in order topromote an industrial revolution using information in every field of endeavor. In order to do so, itwill be essential to foster personnel able to utilize data at the business frontline, and to establish
environments that enable them to flourish.
In Japan, in both education and society more generally, the wall between the humanities andthe sciences has traditionally been difficult to breach, and it is possible that this will represent animpediment to the utilization of data in business. Nevertheless, a knowledge of data science,
involving the use of computers, is now an essential skill, irrespective of one’s orientation towards
the humanities or towards sciences. Up to the present in Japan, we have lacked dedicated faculties
and departments of statistics, and there have been few teachers of the subject. However, in spring
2017, Shiga University established the Faculty of Data Science. This institution has received an
excellent evaluation from the government, and has been selected as a base for mathematics anddata science education. We are hearing from companies themselves that while they have data
available, they have no personnel able to analyze and assess that data, and they are eager torecruit human resources who possess skills of this type. Based on our awareness of the tremendous
importance of fostering human resources able to apply these skills on the business frontline, theFaculty of Data Science is implementing a range of initiatives, including inviting lecturers fromcompanies, conducting cooperative education with companies, and expanding internship programs.
Professor Takemura was instrumental in the creation of Shiga University’s Faculty of Data Science, Japan’s first
faculty devoted to the study of data science. In addition to his role as a researcher specializing in the field ofmathematical statistics (and one-time President of the Japan Statistical Society), Professor Takemura has also
been active in the area of education. After taking his Ph.D. from Stanford University’s Statistics Department, heserved as an Assistant Visiting Professor in the same department, a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Departmentof Statistics, Purdue University, a Professor in the Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo, and a Professor
in the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, before taking up his
present position in 2017. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Japan Statistical Society Prize.
This is a translation of a paper originally published in Japanese. NIRA bears full responsibility for the translation presented here.
Translated by Michael Faul
Copyright Ⓒ 2017 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement