Noriyuki OKAMOTO
President,The Incorporated Nonprofit Organization JAPAN THINK TANK ACADEMY

Expertise/fields of interest

Mr. Okamoto's expertise is in social systems and applications of system engineering. Recently he has been interested in the social systems of aged societies.

Profile

Mr. Okamoto joined Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc., in 1971. On the way to his current position, he headed the Social Technology System Department, the Science and Technology Research Division (as a Board Member), and served as Senior Research Director. During this period, he also served as an Expert Advisor to the Government Resources Council, a Visiting Examiner of the House of Councilors research Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, and a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Hitotsubashi University. Today he concurrently serves as Vice President of the Japanese Council for Assisting Senior Citizens Activities, a Director of the Japan NGO Council on Aging, and a Regent of the Japan Aging Research Center. He is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and a Pollution Control Manager.

Message

As a society ages, various problems (illnesses) occur. At first, it is still possible to address (treat) each problem on an individual basis (palliative treatment). As the aging of a society advances, however, the problems occur more frequently and it becomes impossible to treat them individually. It thus becomes necessary to add radical measures (curative treatment) to the individual treatment. In other words, as a society ages it becomes necessary to rebuild bodies that have lower resistance. Improving the health of a society leads to drastic reduction in the occurrence of problems, so that aging instead becomes a primer for innovation in terms of new industry and technological change producing new social development. My hope is that this R&D focus area will help in a small way to point out the path to accomplishing this.