Welcoming remarks | Nobel Prize Dialogue Tokyo 2025 | The Future of Life

Good morning, everyone. It's a great pleasure to welcome you all to the Nobel Prize Dialogue Tokyo 2025. I'd like to warmly greet everyone here at this event. It's my great pleasure, sorry, it's my great privilege to extend a warm welcome to Her Excellency Victoria Lee, Ambassador of Sweden, and Her Excellency Dr. Abe Toshiko, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, along with all distinguished guests. In organizing today's event, we have received warm cooperation from the Nobel Foundation as well as from the Nobel Prize Executive Director. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to various companies and organizations involved, especially our event partners, Shimazu Corporation and Mitsui Fudosan Residential Company Limited. The Nobel Prize Dialogue is a wonderful opportunity for the general public to understand various values in science and technology through the dialogue with top researchers. I'm very honored to host this dialogue again and to invite outstanding 23 speakers featuring eight Nobel laureates. Today, we use many technologies that were just dreams before. However, it's also true that we are facing various challenges as a result of advancement of science and technology. I hope today's dialogue will inspire each of you on science, technology, and our future. By the way, we call this event the Nobel Prize Dialogue Tokyo, but is this really Tokyo? No, this is Yokohama, precisely. As you may know, Yokohama has the oldest international port in Japan, so I believe Yokohama is the most suitable city for this event, which brings together the brightest wisdom from all over the world. And the port is really attractive, isn't it? I'm very happy to see so many young faces in the audience today. You may be the ones who realize future technologies that seem like dreams today. And those who are not so young are including me. Let's try our best. I hope you will have a fantastic time in the Nobel Prize Dialogue Tokyo 2025. Thank you. Next, Mrs. Hanna Huene. Executive Director, Nobel Foundation will offer her remarks on behalf of the Foundation. Mrs. Huene, please. Your Excellencies, Nobel Prize laureates, speakers, ladies and gentlemen, friends and colleagues, welcome to the Nobel Prize Dialogue in Tokyo 2025. Japan has a proud history in science and we're very happy to be here for the sixth time. Over a thousand people and our organization have received the Nobel Prize since the first award in 1901. And three months ago, we celebrated last year's Nobel Prize at the award ceremony in Stockholm. And for the first time, artificial intelligence was recognized. It was a historic milestone in both physics and chemistry. And in economic sciences, the prize was awarded to economists providing new insights into why there are still vast differences in prosperity between nations. The medicine prize recognized micro RNAs that are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function. In literature, as you know, Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize. She's the first person from South Korea to receive this honor. And the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Neon Hidankyo, the survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We live in turbulent times. Major issues are being discussed on a global level and the outcome is likely to affect us all. And the vision of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of the Nobel Prize, was to recognize remarkable achievements and those who have contributed to the greatest benefit to humankind. For almost 125 years, the Nobel Prize has highlighted the importance of knowledge, the importance of science, of culture, of peaceful solutions. And today, we need that more than ever. For many Nobel Prize laureates, the search for more knowledge about life itself is a question that keeps them up at night and that drives their research forward. The question of what life actually is has eluded humans over the centuries and many milestones helping us to more have been awarded the Nobel Prize. Today, we will learn more about how science and technology combined with a better understanding of the world around us might change our lives in the future. And many of you who are here in the room are students. A special warm welcome to you. Nobel Prize laureates again and again emphasize the importance of students. The future is in your hands. And we hope that you will be inspired to choose a career path in science that might lead to very concrete and groundbreaking findings that can improve our lives in the future. I would like to thank JSPS for the excellent cooperation, President Sugino Tsuyoshi, as well as the team working behind the scenes. And I also would like to thank the next Minister Abe Toshihiko. Nobel Prize Dialogue Tokyo is organized by Nobel Prize Outreach with the support of Nobel International Partners, ABB, EQT, Scania and Stegra. And a special thanks also to the Embassy of Sweden in Tokyo. And finally, I would like to quote the Medicine Laureate from 2001 for NERS. He said, we need to care about and for life on our planet. To do that, we need to understand it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next, Ms. Abe Toshihiko, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will offer her remarks. Minister Abe, please. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Abe Toshihiko, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. I'm very pleased that this event is being held with the participation of so many eminent guests. I believe that remarkable achievement of Nobel Prize literature delights here today are a result of their overcoming numerous challenges from a young age, ultimately pioneering a new field of research. This groundbreaking accomplishment has not only opened up new frontier, but also built the foundation for the future. A cutting edge technology transforming our society like rapid development of AI and science and technology are becoming more and more inspiring the link to society. Our ministry next will continue to strengthen the effort to support young researchers who are shaping the future through the science and technology and to foster inspiring research environment that encourage groundbreaking discoveries. Let me conclude by expressing my sincere appreciation to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Nobel Foundation for their effort to help hold this valuable event. Thank you very much.