[No. 190] Yosuke Hatanaka

It has been about 15 years since I graduated from Keio University.

During my undergraduate years, I became passionate about cricket, the British national sport, which I first encountered during club recruitment activities after the entrance ceremony. My passion led me to become a member of the student national team and subsequently the Secretary-General of the Japan Cricket Association. In that role, I was deeply involved in a wide range of activities: promoting the sport, fundraising through membership fees and sponsorships from international organizations and corporations, negotiating with local governments and regional stakeholders to establish dedicated grounds, collaborating with the embassies of the UK, Australia, South Africa, and others in Japan, strengthening the men's and women's national teams, and bidding to host international tournaments.

Furthermore, at the Hiyoshi Campus, I founded a science and technology study group called "Chiyukai (TUK)," where I broadened my horizons by studying and visiting research institutions with peers from other departments. This experience led me to work as a part-time research student at the Human Genome Center at The University of Tokyo, where I read many papers in the field of physiology, a subject I had never studied before.

At the Yagami Campus, I was engaged in experimental research on cluster chemistry in Professor Atsushi Nakajima's laboratory. Looking back, my dedication to research was somewhat embarrassing, as I was so absorbed in cricket. However, being surrounded by senior researchers who were seriously tackling things at a world-class level became a guiding light for me in many later situations. They were pioneers in the field of "clusters," tenaciously creating scientific technologies to identify and measure their materials and properties, and actively competing and collaborating with rival research institutions overseas. It is a fond memory that I received the Fujiwara Award upon graduation for balancing my commitments to both cricket and my studies.

On the other hand, I found it difficult to balance acquiring the skills unique to experimental science with my commitment to cricket. Consequently, for graduate school, I pursued genetic medicine at The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, under the guidance of professors Satoru Miyano, Kenta Nakai, Seiya Imoto, and Masaaki Nagasaki. My work involved tackling "complex phenomena" without oversimplification, allowing models to evolve in areas of uncertainty, and reproducing the complex networks themselves. I worked on developing simulators for this purpose and modeling specific biological reactions.

It was during my first year of graduate school that Apple Inc. announced the iPhone.

I envisioned a future where "humanity would be connected to the internet through the iPhone." At that moment, I also saw a future for medical research where we could connect with subjects via the iPhone, obtain their consent, continuously gather information, understand their subjective conditions from a patient-oriented perspective, and acquire evolving genetic data and clinical prognosis information. This meant a game-changing paradigm shift in the "scale of numbers" in medical research.

Meanwhile, I felt a growing conviction that to make significant breakthroughs in research, one needs the ability to raise funds and to create and nurture businesses. I believed that cultivating "the ability to execute as an entrepreneur" at a young age would enable me to take on bigger projects later in life.

As a result, I decided to get close to the iPhone, which I believed would become a "source of value" in the future. I applied for a sales position as a new graduate at Apple's Japanese subsidiary to learn the "fundamentals of business" and was hired. Soon after joining, I was unexpectedly invited to the global iPhone team at the headquarters and was entrusted with launching the corporate market in Japan. There, I experienced the global corporate way of delegating authority with a sense of speed and evaluating based on results.

After that, foreseeing an era where mass mobile device usage would become commonplace, I moved to i³ Systems, a Fukuoka-based IT venture. There, in a role akin to a co-founder, I significantly grew their mobile management service for enterprises (the company was later listed on the Mothers market).

Around the same time, an alumnus I knew from a summer study abroad program at the University of Cambridge during my undergraduate years became the president of his long-established family business. This led me to join KOTOBUKI, a manufacturer of public furnishings like benches, park playground equipment, and signs, as a director. I worked on transforming the company from a public works manufacturer into a public space company and developing new businesses.

Managing a rapidly growing IT venture and a long-established manufacturing company presented completely different challenges. However, in both roles, crisis management was always my responsibility, and I developed a habit of always representing the company in handling matters.

However, while managing these companies, the importance of transforming healthcare with IT became increasingly apparent. This prompted me to enroll in the Doctoral Programs at Jikei University School of Medicine to engage in digital health research. I worked on the research and development of numerous applications needed in clinical settings. To build a foundation that connects "medicine and finance"—essential for a super-aging society—I established a foundation called "Anata no Iryou" (Your Medical Care) and have been working diligently on it.

Meanwhile, for the past year and a half, my role as an advisor to Kanagawa Prefecture led me to become the prefecture's Chief Officer for Medical Crisis Response, where I have been deeply involved in the COVID-19 response. Together with Governor Yuji Kuroiwa and Dr. Hideaki Anan (Chief Officer for Medical Crisis Response), I built the "Kanagawa Model" emergency medical system from scratch, which was then rolled out nationwide in collaboration with the national government. https://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/docs/ga4/covid19/ms/policy.htm

In particular, because we created the prototype in Kanagawa for the Government's Medical Institutions Information Support System (G-MIS)—a system launched by the national government at the end of March 2020 to track hospital operational status, bed availability, and medical supply levels nationwide (see "The Secret Story of Kanagawa's COVID-19 Response")—I was invited to become a Counselor to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) starting in June 2020. While concurrently serving in my Kanagawa Prefecture role, I am responsible for overseeing and managing multiple government systems created for the COVID-19 response from a strategic, cross-functional perspective, assisting then-State Minister Gaku Hashimoto and Chief Medical and Global Health Officer Dr. Masami Fukushima with the MHLW's COVID-19 response and its information strategy. Additionally, as Deputy Chief of the MHLW's Center for Health and Quarantine for Entrants, I am also advancing the development of digital infrastructure for border quarantine measures.

Looking back, it may seem that I have been involved in disparate fields in disparate places—genomics, the iPhone, mobile management, public spaces, medical ICT, private insurance, crisis management, and digital government. However, I believe there has been a consistent theme: "the skill to perceive changes in disparate things" and "being an active participant on the front lines where value is created" as times change.

As someone who is not a medical doctor, my strengths lie in crisis management and data strategy. I have developed the ability to formulate concepts, translate them into practical implementation, and build the digital infrastructure necessary for that implementation.

When I look back on my university days now, I have forgotten most things, but I clearly remember my mentor, Professor Atsushi Nakajima, asking me, "Do you have another self, one that looks at you with a critical eye?" At the time, I felt as if he had peered into the depths of my soul; I was startled and lacked confidence. I don't think I had such a presence within me then.

Time has passed, and since then, as an entrepreneur and as a leader of the COVID-19 response, I have fought with all my heart and soul, often facing challenges that I could not overcome with my own intellect and abilities alone.

In those times, I studied and engaged in a dialogue with the great figures who shaped their respective eras and are no longer with us, such as Yukichi Fukuzawa, Shinpei Goto, and Soichiro Honda. By deeply learning about these predecessors who, as "active participants," created their eras with internal conflict and gave birth to new words and businesses, and by superimposing myself onto the times they lived in, I was able to form concepts that transcended my own limitations. In that process, the "contours of my own self" became clearer in a relative sense. Through various hardships, I can now grasp my "own abilities" and "own weaknesses" with a tangible feeling. And with this tangible sense of "self," I have a premonition that "what I must accomplish" and "the time to do it" are gradually approaching.

Whether this means I now "have another self," I would like to ask Professor Nakajima someday. For now, I will continue to do my best, shouldering the responsibility of the front lines as an "active participant."