Courses & Events

Leaders in Entrepreneurship Panel Discussion

Tuesday, Jun 5, 2012

04:15 pm - 05:30 pm

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Sustainable Business Models for Social Entrepreneurship: New Approaches for Asia

Mr. Hideyuki Inoue, Founder of Social Venture Partners Tokyo
Mr. Yoshi Koumei Ishikawa, Research Division Manager, ETIC
Mr. Atsushi “Alex” Kurosawa, CEO, Start-up 101, Inc.

Panelists Hideyuki Inoue of Social Venture Partners Tokyo, Yoshi Koumei Ishikawa of ETIC (Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities), and Atsushi “Alex” Kurosawa of TBL Partners LLC discuss the growth of social entrepreneurism in Japan and Asia, with focus on new approaches that aim at sustainability of the social ventures and social changes they create.

Mr. Hideyuki Inoue created new courses and conducts research into Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation as a specially appointed Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University.  On joining ETIC, Mr. Inoue founded the Social Venture Center within ETIC and started the annual “Style” prize in 2004, Japan’s first social venture business plan competition for the young generation.  He established “Social Venture Partners Tokyo,” a fund in which individual partners contribute time, knowledge, and funding in order to nurture social entrepreneurship.  SVP Tokyo became the first affiliate outside North America of the worldwide Social Venture Partners in October 2006.  Mr. Inoue was nominated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009, and he is a 2012 International Fellow of the Nippon Foundation.

Mr. Yoshi Koumei Ishikawa joined the nonprofit organization ETIC in 2010, at which time he established its research division, where he currently presides as Research Division Manager.  ETIC partners young innovators with local leaders and funds their co-created projects, thereby generating thriving, dynamic communities; ETIC has been particularly active in fostering social ventures for post-disaster recovery and rebuilding in Tohoku, Japan.  The organization also offers long-term internship opportunities and conducts social enterprise incubation programs, the latter in collaboration with NEC, Kao, the city of Yokohama, and others.  The ETIC research division conducts R&D into social venture impact and sustainability, and it issues assessment reports and policy proposals.  Previously, Mr. Ishikawa worked for a global consultancy.

As a venture capitalist, Mr. Atsushi “Alex” Kurosawa was Co-Founder and General Partner of Start-up101 Ventures from 2000, with focus on multimedia, communication and semiconductor industries.  In 2010, he began his new phase of activities with focus on impact investing, creating TBL Ventures LLC, a group of venture capitalists who come together for “triple bottom line” impact investing:  for profit, people and planet.  TBL Partners’ current projects include an agricultural (tuna-farming) venture in Indonesia.  As an entrepreneur, Mr. Kurosawa has built multiple businesses in Asia, Japan and the US.  He was also CEO of Asian Operations for IKOS Systems (1993 – 96), and he managed a newly formed joint venture between VLSI and Hitachi (1989 – 92).  Mr. Kurosawa has long been active as a philanthropist and social entrepreneur.  He created the Kurosawa Piano Music Foundation to inspire youth and diverse communities through music, and he co-founded IAI Japan in 2000 to educate and mentor entrepreneurs and angels in Tokyo.

This is the final session in the US-ATMC series on “Entrepreneurship in Asian High-Tech Industries.”  Our Autumn  seminars will resume on Thursday, September 27th, 2012 with our series “Green Technologies in Transportation: New Developments from Asia.”

Stanford University * Skilling Auditorium
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
4:15PM ~ 5:30PM

With support from Sunbridge Corporation and Olympus Corporation