Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I am assuming it is still politically correct to say ladies and gentlemen, I have to be careful these days. This is the seventh competition that I judged. Every year I have been impressed very much by the quality of the participants. And this year again, we heard presentations on a variety of subjects, having to do with education in this day and age and the question of unmanned stations in some remote corners of Japan, as well as how we can combat climate change at individual levels.
The judges were debating this. We are saying that it is not easy to compare apples and oranges, that’s why we had a fierce debate within the judges to come up with the prizes. But all this has been a very good learning experience for us all. Because it is not often that we hear arguments in depth about these subjects.
And secondly, the quality of the presentation has been improving very markedly every year, and we are all very impressed to hear the presentations. I find that the participants have researched their individual subjects very thoroughly and have thought them through. And the fact that they have thought them through was quite evident and this is my third point.
We are particularly impressed by the fact that the participants responded to the questions and answers period, responded to the questions very appropriately. We, judges, are not nasty people. We are very nice people. We sometimes ask nasty questions, because we have to do that. But when we did ask some nasty questions, there were very positive answers not simply on the basis of the facts that you knew but on the basis of your ideas. And if you didn’t know the answer to a particular question you did try to answer the question on the basis of what you know and what you have thought. And that we thought was very encouraging. And that is my overall comment. Thank you very much.
Presenters, thank you again for the great presentation today. It was great and, looking back on my school days and thinking about what I was doing at that time, It is quite amazing all of you spending time and effort for preparing the presentations and being reviewed by audience in public like this. So, I sincerely believe that all of you deserve praise, really great job. I am from JR-EAST so I would like to mention a little bit again about the issue of unmanned stations.
We have more than 700 unmanned stations only in East Japan area alone, and probably the number will increase in the future. So, whether we can make use of those stations or not, or whether we can make those stations something meaningful in the community or not will give a huge impact to the future of the community. So, this is very important issue and I hope that many students like you keep interested in these kinds of issues and continue to make proposals. We, the company people or players in the society, also will do our best to solve problems with you.
Anyway, today, I was highly encouraged to see that many people like you demonstrating your strengths in this way and I hope that you make the rest of your student days quite enriched and enjoy your days. And just one more thing, please feel free to contact me if you get interested in JR-EAST as a candidate for employment. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, congratulations. That was really wonderful and I was so pleased to be part of this event. I wish I were in Japan instead of in Boston. Before the pandemic, I was going to Japan every other month for years and years since I work in Japan as well as at MIT.
I want to congratulate each and every one of you. I was very impressed with the fact that you took on a challenging problem and you creatively and thoughtfully came up with a solution. And you know our world today is very much broken, not just climate change, but also social, political -- many aspects of the world that are not working well and it is up to your generation to begin to fix the world.
And it is going to take a great deal of courage, it is going to take a great deal of communication, it is going to take lots of creativity, and I can see that in each and every one of you. You have all of that and so we can count on you. You are the next generation that’s going to make this world into a better one than what we are handing to you.
So, I am very pleased to have been part of it. Congratulations again and have a wonderful life, thank you so much.
First of all, I would like to congratulate every each one of you, even though you don’t know who won at this moment. But, I think it is not about the prizes. I did this last year as well, but every year we have to discuss quite in lengths to decide the prizes. And, it is not about the prizes at this point.
We enjoyed each one of you. I think it was equally very impressive. I echo everything that Mr. Numata has said; it was actually very impressive especially with the Q &A session which is not something you can prepare for. It is not in the script; you just have to do the dialog and that the fact that you answered so well was very impressive to us.
And one last thing for those who are not Japanese, who came to Japan to study, thank you for choosing Japan, and I really appreciate that you chose to study abroad because the world is about globalism and it is not just about your nation, we have to think about the world. For those who are Japanese, please find time to go abroad when you are young. Because that makes a world of difference in your life.
Japan needs good leadership and that depends on you guys whether you are Japanese or not. So, enjoy your life because life is good, hopefully. Thank you and congratulations.
Just to repeat what my colleagues said, all of the presentations were very good and I found the information very interesting. Since the content of the presentations has been touched upon already, let me discuss some of the skills that are so important in giving a good presentation.
Presentation skills are a vital part of your work when you enter a corporation. You will need to be able to present information and persuade others and the work you have put into today’s event will set you up very well for that task. In doing so, make sure you get to your point very quickly. Attention spans are short, and your boss will have a shorter attention span than most people. Tell your audience what you want them to understand and most importantly, what is the takeaway for the audience, What do you want them to do with the information you are giving them? Do you want them to buy something, to approve a project, do you want them to give you funding? Be thinking of that when you prepare your presentation.
I was also very impressed with the excellent question handling by all of you. That is often times a problem, people often just freeze up when faced with a difficult question. But all of you dove into the answer, thought about what you wanted to say and made your key points. So, brilliant, thank you all very much.
I am almost the last one to speak, so everyone has said what I wanted to say. Still, I will say a few words. First, congratulations. I had a great time; I fully enjoyed the wonderful speeches. I was very impressed with the content as well as the way they were presented. As everyone said, the Q&As were especially good. I was particularly impressed with the way you handled questions you didn’t have the answers to. Even when you didn’t know the correct answers, you still managed to tackle them and respond honestly and thoughtfully, without making yourself look foolish. So, I thought that was very good.
I have been around the world working in places including Africa, China, and Europe. And I met many Japanese people who had great ideas but were not very good at presenting them. But the people who are here today, not only have great ideas but are also capable of present them well. So, that is great for the future of Japan. And for participants who are not Japanese, it is great to have you here as well. You know about Japan and you can connect Japan to your country and beyond. So, thank you so much. It was my pleasure to be here today.
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東京本社広告企画・制作 読売新聞社広告局
