This fiscal year, IISE again cosponsored a symposium with the New York-based Japan Society. This year’s symposium was entitled ‘Toward a Knowledge Society: US-Japan Perspectives’. It featured a panel discussion by US and Japanese experts on the values and economic effects being promoted by the evolution to a knowledge-based society in Japan and the US. Corporate America has been actively working on protecting its intellectual property rights since the 1980s, investing in the scientific and technological infrastructure. The focus is on breaking away from the reliance on industrial reproduction, to move toward a knowledge-based society. Concurrent with this trend is the rise of popular culture in Japan. Popular culture in the post-bubble economy is starting to overshadow the manufacturing dominance Japan was known for a decade ago. The country’s ‘content industry’—production, distribution and sales of comics, animation, computer games and software—has grown into a 13 trillion yen market. It is now half the size of Japan’s car industry, and twice the size of its steel industry. The IT revolution in Japan and the US has helped support this trend.

Speakers
Ian Condry, Assistant Professor of Japanese Cultural Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Douglas McGray, Freelance Writer
Kostas Terzidis, Associate Professor, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Motohiro Tsuchiya, Associate Professor, Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance

Moderator
Ken Belson, New York Times Business Reporter