Vice Executive Director for Planning and General Affairs and University Research Administrator (URA) Norito Satoh gave a lecture on Okayama University’s efforts to help achieve SDGs at the first Japan SDGs Summit, which was held on the Hakusanroku Campus of the Kanazawa Institute of Technology on October 6 and 7.

This summit was held to bring together in Hakusan City the 1st Japan SDGs Award winners, SDGs Business Award 2017 winners and various other organizations with insights into how SDGs should be achieved to share their latest efforts and developments with one another and to strengthen friendly relations among themselves. This two-day event was attended by a total of 110 people from 41 organizations.

The program for Day 1 included parallel sessions that were held under the theme of regional revitalization through efforts to achieve SDGs. These sessions were designed to help the 1st Japan SDGs Award winning organizations make further efforts and to promote partnerships between participating organizations. Vice Executive Director Satoh, who is also a member of Okayama University’s SDGs Promotion Planning Council, delivered a lecture titled “Harmonious Partnerships: Okayama University’s Contribution to SDGs.” In his lecture, citing specific examples, he talked about SDGs activities that have been undertaken by the University in collaboration with diverse stakeholders since President Hirofumi Makino took office, the University’s ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) efforts in Okayama Prefecture, an initiative to replicate SDGs activities outside Japan, contribution to sustainable city development by promoting sports, and STI for SDGs*1,2 initiatives to help achieve SDGs using its excellent research capacity as a research university.

The program for Day 2 included a youth summit mainly for students from elementary school to university, who are expected to play a leading role in the era of SDGs. At this event, participants enjoyed playing the card game “SDGs Action cardgame X (cross),” which was invented by the Kanazawa Institute of Technology’s student project team “SDGs Global Youth Innovators,” and various other activities for younger generations.

*1 STI: Science, Technology and Innovation
*2 STI for SDGs: Science, Technology and Innovation that help achieve SDGs