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Congratulations to everyone here today who has earned their doctoral or master's degree. Every day you persevered in your studies and research, compiling your findings into theses and dissertations befitting your new academic degrees, and you have, at last, arrived at this auspicious day. I also want to acknowledge and celebrate the family and friends who have supported you along your journeys.

I hope that Keio University becomes the catalyst in your lives that starts a "virtuous cycle." You have studied with the best faculty members Keio has to offer, each of whom has encouraged you as you work on your research. I believe that you will fully realize the standard of excellence here at Keio once you have left the university, get involved with research and other projects, and surround yourselves with the best and brightest minds in the world. At that time, you may be surprised and gain confidence when you see that your abilities are on par with those of your new peers. You will be given responsibilities and roles on the global stage like it is the most natural thing in the world. Just as in the "Mission of Keio University," every single one of you will make progress as leaders of all society. Leaders refine each other through synergy. The reason that Keio University's alumni network is so strong is for precisely this reason: synergy. As you move forward, make sure to reach out to the Mita-kai to make full use of our alumni association. Use the connections you build among them, those with degrees from other universities, and other individuals around the globe to make our world a better, brighter, and more peaceful place. I would also encourage you to stay in contact with us here at your alma mater and to support the university by keeping up to date with the latest news, social media offerings, and research updates.

Now then, I have two requests for all of you graduating at this ceremony today: first, to "become people who will shape the common sense of the future" and second, to do that, to "tell stories that can inspire and touch the hearts of others."

Yukichi Fukuzawa used the term "common sense" often. In one recommendation letter, he gave his official stamp of approval by including "this is a person well-endowed with common sense." Another example would be in his An Outline of Civilization, when Fukuzawa wrote, "since ancient times, progressive steps in civilization were always unorthodox at the time they were first proposed." He introduced that whether it was Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations or Galileo's theories of heliocentrism, the world was quick to judge them as heresy back when they were new. He went on to emphasize the importance of having high aspirations when getting involved in research or other projects, because the theories and ideas that have become "common sense" in our day were once belittled for deviating from the status quo of the time.

Now, I want to give you a few examples which "created" a future version of common sense.

First: over thirty years ago, around the year 1990, Professor Shigeru Tanaka's research group from Keio University's Faculty of Science and Technology started to analyze the rainfall around the greater Tokyo area every time it rained. They used this data to research air pollution, a connection that, once pointed out, seems like "common sense," but was actually quite a novel experiment. Their persistence and consistency in this project over the last thirty years has allowed researchers to clearly visualize the differences that have arisen over time in rainfall patterns throughout Tokyo and its surrounding communities. An especially fascinating episode occurred in the year 2000 when the team observed a sudden increase in the rain acidity levels due to an eruption at Miyake Island. Because the researchers had been gathering data before the eruption, it was a simple task to demonstrate that the sudden acidification of rainfall in Tokyo in 2000 could be attributed to volcanic activity. If no one had been working to record this type of data, the acid rain would have likely been blamed on general air pollution. Through Professor Tanaka and his colleagues' work and consistent monitoring, Tokyo's air quality has gradually improved over the years. Even at present, Tomoaki Okuda and his research team are continuing this research by monitoring air quality and the effects of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) which gets blown over to Japan from the Asian continent. Okuda's research group has also played a vital role at Keio throughout the pandemic by evaluating the various classroom setups and ventilation available on our campuses. Their contributions were indispensable for having classes meet again in person. Our daily lives, whether through the air we breathe or the safety of our classrooms, are made possible by the unparalleled support of these experts.

Now for my second example, a few decades ago, there was a historian here at Keio University named Professor Akira Hayami. He helped established the field of historical demography, an academic specialty that attempts to understand historical events through changes in human populations. He spent time on a thorough analysis of the death tolls from the Spanish Flu, creating "common sense" practices to be used when facing pandemics. However, this "common sense" faded from public memory once the Spanish Flu pandemic ended. Professor Hayami passed away in 2019, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During his life, though, he would sound the alarm every time a new strain of influenza appeared, warning others that a future pandemic was inevitable and saying "the fact that we have learned nothing from the Spanish Flu outbreak is itself a lesson. We must start by understanding our history." One person who inherited this type of common sense was Dr. Michifumi Isoda, a historian who often appears on NHK television programs. Dr. Isoda was one of the students who participated in Professor Hayami's research on the Spanish Flu. Using this experience, at the very cusp of the COVID-19 outbreak, he rejected the optimistic outlook many people held at the time, saying that "This situation is likely to continue far longer than most of the world thinks. The historical pattern shows that the virus will mutate and attack in waves." At the time, Japan still had not experienced the first wave of the pandemic, so a phrase like "mutate and attack in waves" was difficult to fully comprehend, but something we can all relate to now. Because pandemics are a once-in-a-century type of event, there are pieces of "common sense" that can't be gained without the broad perspective and attention devoted by historians or public health experts. Their role is to show and preserve for future generations those lessons which the public has lost to the past.

My third example comes from overseas. Twenty-five years ago, in 1998, an American company called "Google" was born. This company was centered on creating websites and letting people use their search engine for free, a model that had most people scratching their heads wondering how in the world that type of business could be profitable. The answer: collecting data when people used the search engine or when people uploaded videos to YouTube for free. These platforms could then earn huge amounts of ad revenue, expanding into "big data" companies, and creating an altogether new business model. Today, this has become yet another piece of "common sense." What, then, was Japan up to twenty-five years ago when Google was first conceived? Obviously, the internet and online projects existed here as well, but at the time everyone’s focus was on a construction plan for radio towers proposed by a collection of broadcast companies. This was because Tokyo Tower, a TV tower, had been surrounded by skyscrapers, increasing the number of places where it was difficult to pick up radio signals. As a result, the Tokyo Skytree was constructed, the tallest building of its kind in the world as listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. While having a reliable communications system and signal antenna is an important achievement for ensuring broadcasts during natural disasters, I think that there is a stark contrast between Japan celebrating "the highest TV tower in the world" at a time when Google was saying "the internet is the future."

Up until now, I have discussed examples of research studies and businesses that reshaped "common sense" for the future. However, there is one thing that is essential when pushing forward research, business, social innovations, and yes, even "common sense": that is the ability to tell a compelling story. To illustrate this point, let's consider the automobile industry where people are shifting over to electric vehicles to bring about net-zero carbon emissions. Toyota, for example, is promoting plug-in hybrid vehicles—those that use small batteries which run on electricity, but which will switch to gasoline after the battery runs out—as an effective alternative to gasoline vehicles, especially for drivers who do not travel long distances throughout a day. Their reasoning is that there is no way of recovering the time, resources, or environmental costs needed to create a larger battery that can last for over 200 kilometers if it is only used for 10 kilometer-distances at a time. However, in Europe, there is an ongoing debate surrounding comprehensive emission reduction proposals, including policies that would ban selling new gasoline/diesel vehicles after 2035. In 2035, will all the vehicles run exclusively on electricity or hydrogen, or will plug-in hybrids be included as an intermediary step? While Toyota's solution to the narrative of "electric vehicles for the global environment" wins on logical principle, the actual competition is fought in the court of public opinion. We no longer live in an age when making a quality car, or, more broadly speaking, a "quality product" is enough to ensure good sales. First, you must have a good story, something worth talking about, and then provide the products that are necessary to fulfill that narrative. We have entered an era in which businesses tell stories, elevate their ideas into public consciousness so that they become "common sense," and provide the infrastructure or products that coincide with these ideas. Research is the same. In other words, we must value what Fukuzawa discussed: "public speaking."

This means that, moving forward, those who have expertise in literature, theater, or the other humanities, or those who can create better social systems through their backgrounds in the social sciences, will become increasingly important. It also means that it is vital to promote cooperation and to communicate our stories with other people, not only in Japanese, but in lingua francas such as English.

Therefore, on this special day, my expectations and hopes for you are as follows: "become people who will shape the common sense of the future" and "tell stories that can inspire and touch the hearts of others." It is my sincere wish to see you all persevere on the world stage, contributing to the progress of your communities and society at large.

You have earned these degrees. Congratulations.