Before we began the keynote session, I introduced a table showing the rankings of innovative capacity by country and proposed two questions to the keynote speakers. Their responses, as I understand, are as follows. For the first question on changes since 2004, both keynote speakers emphasized that the magnitude and speed of change have been so phenomenal these past years that we cannot describe this change as "incremental."

Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa introduced the waves of paradigm shifts in the socio-economic structure triggered by new technologies, going back all the way to the Industrial Revolution. He explained that some 50 years is usually needed for the new technology to be introduced, penetrate the market, change the behavior of people, and bring about a major paradigm shift. He pointed out that we are in the middle of the Information Age. Ms. Deborah Wince-Smith explained that the economy and society can now be described in the form of a digital, genetic, and atomic code. She proposed that we are now entering the conceptual economy, which is beyond the knowledge economy.

As for the second question about the gap between national innovation systems and the global nature of issues, and about the initiatives made in each country to address these global issues, we heard that a definition of the problem using a hierarchical order, starting from the national, to the regional, to the global, is not useful. Firm activities and economic structures have already become globally integrated today. In addition, innovation, which, by definition, causes power shifts, has changed the geographical power structure, so that China and India have emerged as innovative powerhouses recently. The speakers concluded that there is a great potential for the U.S. and Japan to collaborate and compete in resolving global issues. The world will prosper by this constructive competition and collaboration, and that is at the heart of the Global Innovation Ecosystem. Both speakers emphasized the importance of the education of the next generation, the keen need to identify and develop people who can think "out-of-the-box" with perspectives cutting across traditional disciplines and fields. They emphasized that changes involving innovation have to start from the core of society in a fundamental way, and not just involve tinkering with insignificant activities at the periphery.

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