On November 9 2022, Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs from the US Department of State, Mr. Dilawar Syed, visited the Tokyo Institute of Technology Ookayama campus for an interactive discussion session with the university students. The topic of the session was “The importance of connecting to global networks for entrepreneurs who want to scale up and how to commercialize technology to be on the global map” and “Careers in technology and entrepreneurship”. The event started with a short talk by Mr. Syed introducing himself and his work at the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. Mr. Syed not only talked about his journey from the arena of entrepreneurship to public service and his experience with global businesses and healthcare AI but also about the extraordinary global circumstances we are currently experiencing. He mentioned the disruption and global turmoil created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war and called upon the participants to show strong character and leadership in future so that such tragedies may not take place anywhere in the world again.
After the talk, the interactive QA session began with questions from the audience and the first round of questions were about the obstacles faced by businesses when scaling up globally and the challenges faced by small scale businesses when competing with larger, technologically advanced ones. In response, Mr. Syed reflected on his personal experience and discussed the importance of introducing new technologies, implementing scalable processes within the company, and launching viable, practical products and services that correctly address the problems to be solved. The next few rounds of questions were about the international relationship between the US and Japanese universities, research collaborations, funding for multinational research projects, and opportunities for studying abroad. Mr. Syed gave detailed answers to each of the questions and mentioned the stance of the US government on welcoming international collaboration, research, and study programs with Japan and countries all over the world. The program drew to a close with a take home message from Mr. Syed to the audience where he encouraged everyone to remain humble and have strong convictions about their goals and objectives in life. It was the perfect ending to a very intriguing and inspiring discussion session that covered a wide range of topics.
On a personal note, I genuinely enjoyed Mr. Syed’s talk at the beginning and admired his ability to deliver clear messages in a very concise and easy-to-understand manner. His answers to the audience questions were backed up by his personal experiences and the stories about his own career and life choices made it easy for me to relate to all of his messages. I hope there will be more such opportunities for Tokyo Tech students to engage in extensive and creative discussions with government officials and policy makers in future.
Kabir Shahriar
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
School of Engineering
