As we usher in the fiscal year 2023, I would like to take this occasion to extend my greetings to you. The Covid-19 outbreak, a pandemic of historic proportions that has lasted for a little more than three years since early spring in 2020, appears to be finally coming to an end. With a number of restrictions on our everyday life being lifted  gradually, we now frequently see the return of foreign visitors to Japan, whether for business or pleasure, walking down the streets. All these changes make the arrival of spring, which in the past was simply taken for granted, feel all the more meaningful this year. 

We, at the Toyota Foundation, continue to maintain its basic grant-making structure -- two Special Subjects, Co-Creating New Society with Advanced Technologies as well as Migrants and Japanese Society, along with three key programs, the Grant Program for Community Activities in Japan, the Research Grant Program, and the International Grant Program –- and to provide grants accordingly. Each of these grant programs keep the same themes from the previous fiscal year because the Foundation has completed an overhaul of its grant program concepts over the past few years. Thus, it looks to focus more efforts on building networks of grant recipients and further disseminating research outcomes through holding symposiums, among other initiatives.

As a prelude to a series of such efforts, the Foundation held a symposium titled “Let’s think about our mental health – a case of athletes and their lives” at Tokyo International Forum in late February. This meeting was intended to facilitate an exchange of information and opinions, with main focus on presenting outcomes of the projects supported by the Initiative Program. It was the first in-person gathering in a few years for the Toyota Foundation to hold at a physical location since the start of the pandemic. Researchers of various fields, athletes and officials people involved gathered at the venue and engaged in lively discussions, which highlighted the need to address a number of wide-ranging issues, going forward. The Foundation seeks to play an active role in organizing events such as this and communicating socially significant outcomes to encourage dialogue with the pubic.

In this fiscal year, we will focus on planning and preparations for the 50th anniversary of the Toyota Foundation’s inception to be marked in 2024. Internally, discussions have already begun over leading proposals for deploying several projects centering on a commemorative grant program. Over the past few years, the Foundation has gained insights and expertise from its grant making activities based on various themes: Co-Creating New Society with Advanced Technologies, Migrants and Japanese Society, Fostering the Autonomous Society, Interlinkages and Innovation for Future Societies, Fostering Mutual Learning Across Cultures among Asian Countries. By leveraging a wealth of such knowledge, the Foundation looks to define a theme for the planned commemorative grant program and design an overall program framework.

Now, let’s look back on 1974, the year when the Toyota Foundation was established. At the time, the main means of communication was either telephone or post mail. Communicating messages, even domestically within Japan, was both time-consuming and costly. What’s more, the infrastructure for disseminating information internationally was terribly underdeveloped. Now, 50 years since then, technological advances enable us to contact anyone instantly online. Who knows you may communicate with not a real person but an artificial intelligence chatbot called ChatGPT? Societal transformation, triggered by advances in communication technologies over the past few decades, is nothing less than remarkable. 

Over the past 50 years, however, our planet has seen a significant degradation in its environment. How many of us could have been able to predict accurately 50 years ago what Japan and the rest of the world look like today? I presume no one could have done that. Likewise, it is almost but impossible to foresee what Japan and the rest of the world will be like 50 years from now. Yet, we should not be resigned to the idea that there is not much we can do. Trying to quickly determine where things are headed from now, using our foresight to deal with social issues, and disseminating future-oriented outcomes for problem-solving. Doing all of these is the very reason why the Toyota Foundation has been around to this day, i.e., its own raison d'être. To make yet another step in that direction, the Foundation continues to discuss and explore what needs to be done to execute its planned commemorative grant program. 

Behind the scenes, we would like to cautiously overview changing of the time of the world and Japan as well, with a panoramic perspective and take a look at social issues triggered by the change.  Also, we are determined to seriously and incessantly deliberate over the design of our grant-making activities to make a difference.

Lastly, as the Toyota Foundation works strenuously on its activities this fiscal year and in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary next year, I would like to solicit strict but warm-hearted guidance from all of you.