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by lisa06k

ideas on international development and interdisciplinary education

Since I started this blog last year, I've never written anything in English, so please have fun with my first attempt.


*注
ふだん英語書かないから、論文が書けない!
ついでに、これじゃあ来年から仕事出来ない!
ってことで、たまには英語で。


About a month ago, I met one of the program faculty of the Global Health Leadership Program at the University of Tokyo at a conference on education. She used to work for the consulting firm that I'll be working starting next April, so we both felt connected instantly. When I told her that I was interested in working for the public/social sector project after joining the firm, she invited me to an open seminar on Product Development Partnership (PDP) in Global Health.


This seminar was AWESOME.
I try to go to seminars on various topics, but there aren't many that truly inspire me.


here's the URL.
http://www.ghlp.m.u-tokyo.ac.jp/events/past/pdp-symposium/

Here are my three comments reflecting on today's seminar.


1. The structural problem of international development is the same in any field.

After choosing to major in international agricultural development in the sophomore year of college, I've learned and seen the realities of international agricultural and fisheries projects. I even did internship for projects under JICA Morocco.

The problems are always:

1) People/companies/organizations feel like they have to do everything by themselves.

2) Maybe because of the first point, different organizations don't want to work with each other.

3) International projects, especially those with ODA funding, are so incredibly hard to make sustainable because there's always a certain time period during which funding or human resource is provided.

I know JICA is aware of this problem and that's why they put a lot of focus on grass-roots capacity development. But it relies too much on the power of each individual who are sent to the project sites.



2. Changing the world by ideas is great, but there's power of actual products.

For the past few years, I've been trying to find ways to solve the problems in the world by ideas. Ideas themselves don't cost any money, and they can be spread around the world.

But I realized that the actual physical products have power. There were speakers from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and they stated the foundation put a lot of resource into delivering vaccines. Vaccines are small, but have powerful impacts.

Kopernik also distributes physical, small products to the developing countries. This is why I always thought the model of Kopernik was great. The co-founder is coming to Japan and there'll be an open seminar. Anyone want to go with me?


3. GHLP is an awesome program

I knew about this program, but since it focuses on Global Health, I hesitated to participate. However, I heard they are re-naming the program and will be putting more emphasis on the creation of innovation. Hey, I finally heard the word "innovation" at our school. (No more envy towards Hitotsubashi.)

My department, Global Agricultural Sciences, has a lot to learn from this program. I've repeatedly talked to my professors about how to improve our program, and I'd like to introduce GHLP to them.

Though interdisciplinary educational programs are being established all around the world, their effectiveness is yet to be evaluated. The result of education cannot be observed until the guinea pigs, the students, grow up. As a student currently enrolled in one of these programs, I will not let future researchers in the field of education conclude that interdisciplinary programs were failure.



It took so much more time writing an article in English...

I'll try to do this from time to time from now on.
by lisa06k | 2013-05-18 23:11 | 感化されたこと