Making Dreams a Reality | Hideyuki Tokuda (Dean, Graduate School of Media and Governance)
December 5, 2011
On October 30, I took an early morning Shinkansen to the Gifu Memorial Center. Today was the day of the finals for the men's team of the Athletic Association Tennis Club in the 2011 All-Japan University Tennis Championship. And once again, our opponent in the final was Waseda University. When I arrived at the venue, it was unfortunately raining. The final was held on a court with a roof for rainy weather, and I settled into the stands with fellow alumni to cheer on the team. While Keio had more alumni in attendance, Waseda clearly had more active team members. The cheers from the sidelines often made it feel like the Keio team was playing an away game. Unfortunately, the result was that Waseda defeated Keio 8-1 to claim the national championship title. There were several good matches, but we couldn't hold on at crucial points, losing important sets by the slimmest of margins, which left a feeling of defeat. I look forward to their further growth for next year.
2011 All-Japan University Tennis Championship Finals
On November 17, I went to the demonstration venue at Embedded Technology 2011, which also served as a presentation of results for JST's CREST program. This is a technology exhibition mainly for companies involved in embedded systems, but several universities and R&D projects also exhibit as groups. The JST-CREST Dependable Operating System project, which our team is a part of, has also been exhibiting for the past few years. Many members of the general public visit the venue, so it is an excellent opportunity for students to explain the technologies they are developing and gain a lot from the experience. This year again, we received many sharp questions from those who came to listen to our explanations. Preparing for the exhibition is a lot of work, but it is a valuable experience that cannot be gained within the laboratory.
On November 22–23, I participated in the SFC Open Research Forum. This year, it was held at Tokyo Midtown instead of Roppongi Hills. Preparations the day before went smoothly, and from the morning, students in their suits were eagerly explaining their research results to the visitors. Over 5,000 people attended over the two days, and it was unexpected that the brochures for the Tokuda Lab booth ran out two hours before closing. This year, in parallel with our lab's exhibition, we also had the honor of holding the 2nd Keitai Future Contest. We received many applications from students ranging from elementary school to graduate school. The Grand Prize in the Future Creation Category was awarded to "Sweater Denwa" (Sweater Phone) by Mr. Kobayashi (a 2nd grader at Keio Yochisha Elementary School), and the Grand Prize in the Advanced Works Category was awarded to "engraph" by Mr. Takahashi (a 3rd year student at Keio Senior High School). Here are their award-winning works.
ORF2011 The 2nd Keitai Future Contest
Now, regarding the theme "a recent dream," perhaps because I haven't been getting enough sleep, I haven't had any particularly striking dreams lately. However, there are a few dreams that I always remember. One dream I remember especially well is from when I was a first-year master's student in the Graduate School of Engineering. At that time, Keio did not have a Department of Computer Science, and there weren't many such departments at other universities in Japan either. As someone researching and developing distributed systems, I was preparing to go to graduate school abroad. After going through various processes, I received notification of my admission to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in Canada and an offer to work as a Research Assistant (RA) in the Computer Communications Networks Group (CCNG). It was a dream I had while preparing to travel.
It began with a scene where I was in the Kinokuniya bookstore in Manhattan, New York. Looking around, everyone was American, and I was desperately speaking English to the cashier to buy a book. I was frantically saying things like, "Where is..." and "Can I..." After a while, I started thinking to myself, "Wait, why am I already in New York?" I calmly tried to recall in my dream, "When did I leave Japan?" and "What route did I take to get to New York?" I managed to buy the book, and it was around the time I went out onto the street and started walking that I realized it was a dream. For me, this was the first time I had spoken English in a dream. Later, I did in fact enter Canada via Manhattan, New York, and it remains one of my unforgettable dreams.
It's important to hold on to your dreams and work hard to make them a reality.
Well then, perhaps I'll dream of the Miraisozojuku (Institute for Designing the Future)...
(Posted: December 5, 2011)