JICA’s international cooperation activities are carried out by experts in various fields, both inside and outside of JICA, who are passionate about their work. In “People Tackling International Challenges,” we focus on the stories of these people and delve into their past progress and aspirations for the future. In this seventh installment, we present Midori Ozawa, who is active in the field of higher education, on January 24, the International Day of Education designated by the United Nations.
Midori Ozawa of PADECO, Inc. taking on the challenge of international cooperation in the IT and higher education fields.
Developing Higher Education Human Resources in Developing Countries
The fun part of human resource development is that I can show them the ‘career path’ that they can take in the future. I am also motivated by the fact that I can see them actually spreading their wings to the wider world, having gained so many possibilities through education.
Ms. Midori Ozawa of PADECO, Inc. is involved in university management in developing countries.
Ms. Ozawa has been committed to international cooperation in the field of higher education for more than 20 years, starting with a mission to a women’s junior college in Nepal as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer, and continuing as a long-term expert and consultant at a technical college in Indonesia and a university in Egypt.
Mr. Ozawa, who is now a professional in the field of higher education, was inspired to pursue international cooperation largely because of an experience he had while studying abroad in the United States during his junior year of college.
Mr. Ozawa attended a university in Oklahoma where international students from various countries and regions of the world gathered. There were people there who were hesitant to return to their home countries due to political unrest in their countries, people who had defected from their home countries, and people who were unable to contact their families due to inadequate telephone communication networks, among many others.
Being in such an environment made me realize how blessed I was to have been born and raised in Japan. At that time, I vaguely realized that I wanted to be involved in international cooperation, a job that would contribute to world peace in the future.
A scene from a study session in Indonesia. Mr. Ozawa is at the far right.
International Cooperation: Human Resource Development Using IT
That is what Mr. Ozawa says, but after graduating from university, he jumped into a general electronics manufacturer in Japan. He chose this path because he wanted to acquire skills in the computer field in order to one day be active in the field of international cooperation.
In the days when there was no Internet, the only international cooperation I knew of was JICA’s Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. However, I thought that in order to be dispatched, I would need some kind of ‘communicative technology,’ so I decided to go into the IT industry, since I was a mathematics major. I figured that one day in the future, it would definitely come in handy for my activities in developing countries.”
After acquiring IT knowledge and skills, Ms. Ozawa decided to take a leave of absence from the company she was working for at the time and join the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), a long-held dream of hers. She was dispatched to a newly established women’s junior college in Nepal. There, she is in charge of a course that teaches how to use computers.
However, at the time of the dispatch, the university did not yet have a single computer. Mr. Ozawa organized an event with the students and used the ticket money to purchase two computer sets. He created a curriculum for lectures, recruited potential instructors, and taught the students himself while also training the instructors.
IT training for teachers from Africa and the least developed ASEAN countries in Indonesia (third-country training)
In 2002, he was assigned as a long-term expert in information technology at a technical college (polytechnic) that trains mid-career engineers in Indonesia. Together with a Japanese university faculty member who was a short-term expert, he worked on the establishment and operation of the IT department, the first of its kind at an Indonesian polytechnic. Ozawa explains that his experience at the polytechnic gave birth to the idea of using IT to develop human resources.
In general, it is difficult for children to envision a job or career that their parents’ generation has not experienced. But in Nepal and Indonesia, I saw my students become computer literate and actually obtain careers that their parents’ generation had never experienced. I was touched by the joy of discovering their future with their own hands, and I realized that this is another form of international cooperation.”
Based on these experiences, Mr. Ozawa was determined to continue on the path of international cooperation in the fields of higher education and industrial human resource development for the segment of society that enters immediately after graduation. However, in order to pursue this path, he was keenly aware of the need for systematic study of international cooperation. In addition, while posted in Indonesia, he came across the job of “development consultant,” and hearing that a master’s degree would be better for this purpose, he decided to study in the United States.
After returning to Japan, he joined PADECO Corporation, an international development consulting firm. As a development consultant, I have been focusing on industrial human resource development with a focus on ICT and education at universities in Southeast Asian countries. While “experts” work in the field for a long period of time, development consultants work on a variety of projects while traveling back and forth between Japan and the field.
As a development consultant, I am involved in similar projects in various countries, so I am able to have a comparative perspective. In addition, since I am involved in various forms and phases of international cooperation, I am able to look at projects from a broader perspective. On the other hand, specialists live in the field, and through close communication on a daily basis, they gain a deep understanding of the country, the organization, and the people, and take the time to build relationships and trust. I am fortunate to have experienced both approaches.”
From Support to Collaboration, Changing Forms of International Cooperation
In 2019, Mr. Ozawa will go to Egypt as a specialist for the first time in a while. His assignment will be at the Egyptian-Japanese University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), a newly established institution of higher education by the Egyptian government to provide Japanese-style engineering education. As a sub-chief advisor, he was responsible for managing the project and facilitating coordination and collaboration with Egyptian and Japanese counterparts to ensure its smooth implementation.
At that time, Mr. Ozawa said he realized a change in the nature of support in international cooperation.
E-JUST is a university established from scratch through cooperation between Japan and Egypt. The Board of Trustees is made up of the same number of people on both the Japanese and Egyptian sides, and they make decisions through dialogue on an equal footing. International cooperation has changed from vertical ‘support’ to ‘collaboration,’ where we work side by side to move forward.
Mr. Ozawa conducting a training session in front of E-JUST staff members
Together with the Japanese university faculty and staff involved in the project, Ozawa-san worked to strengthen the academic and governance aspects of the university, particularly building the capacity of the administrative department. In addition to his activities for E-JUST, he also served as project manager to organize the nine Japanese specialists who were assigned to various roles.
What I was particularly conscious of was to search for the “E-JUST Way,” that is, to find a way that is unique to E-JUST. In other words, to find a way that is unique to E-JUST. It was necessary to create a new path by bringing together the good points of both countries, not by pushing the Japanese way, or by trying to match the Egyptian way.
The number of students, which was initially around 500, drastically increased to 3,000 in three and a half years before Mr. Ozawa returned to Japan. In order to cope with the scale-up in a short period of time, it was essential to strengthen the entire administrative department, and as one of the means to achieve this, we took on the challenge of introducing a personnel evaluation system for staff, a first for a national university in Egypt.
It was challenging and most of all, interesting to work out the ‘E-JUST Way’ system through heated discussions with the Executive Director and the Personnel Department staff,” Ozawa recalls with a smile.
Translator of Concepts” for a peaceful world
Currently, Mr. Ozawa is participating in the university administration of the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad as a consultant, and is working hard to strengthen ties between Japan and India. Here, he is taking “collaboration” one step further and is also exploring exchanges between Japanese and Indian students.
India is now one of the world’s top IT advanced countries. Gradually, more and more Japanese students are going to Indian universities to study advanced IT technologies. The situation is very different from that of international cooperation in the past.
In the future, it will become more and more important to “create together” with others. In the past, most of Japan’s partners have been developed countries, but from now on, there will definitely be more opportunities to work with people in developing and emerging countries to create together. That is why I hope that Japanese people will take an interest in this field, and I also hope that we can work to develop human resources who will go down this path.
Having been engaged in international cooperation through human resource development, Mr. Ozawa has always had a strong desire to “create a peaceful world” in his heart.
I have always enjoyed bringing together people’s knowledge to create new value and solve problems since I was involved in international cooperation as a member of the Japan Cooperation Volunteers. One of my colleagues called me a ‘concept translator. It seems that I am someone who stands between people with different backgrounds and ideas, and brings them together by capturing their thoughts and feelings. I would like to continue working to fulfill such a role.
Mr. Ozawa said with a twinkle in his eye. I am sure that he will work hand in hand with people around the world to create a future for Japan that moves forward together.
I prefer the unusual,” says Ozawa. This pose is a message that says, “Let’s have dreams and face the future!
Midori Ozawa
Development Consultant, Padeco Co. After graduating from university, worked for 10 years in software development at a general electronics manufacturer. In 1993-96, he was dispatched to Nepal as a JICA Overseas Cooperation Volunteer; from 2000, he was in charge of IT human resource development courses for companies at a foreign computer company; from 2002-05, he participated in a JICA technical cooperation project in Indonesia as an information engineering specialist; in 2007, he joined Padeco, Inc. as a development consultant and engaged in international cooperation. In 2007, he joined PADECO upon completion of his master’s degree in International Education and Development at Columbia University in the U.S. He entered the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University in 2014, and from 2019 to 2010, he will participate as an expert in JICA’s Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) project. Participation. Currently, he is involved in a project at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad.
Padeco Co.
An international development consulting firm established in 1983. The firm has a large number of professionals with extensive consulting experience and is engaged in a wide variety of development projects in more than 110 countries around the world. In addition to infrastructure areas such as transportation, transit, and urban planning, the firm also works in a wide range of other areas such as education, human resource development, private sector development, and governance.
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